So many wonderful tributes have been posted about my sister, Elizabeth Sciabarra (aka “Ski”), not only throughout her life and illness, but in the aftermath of her death on November 26, 2022. A lifelong educator, she had an immeasurable impact on countless numbers of people, be they students, colleagues, friends, or family. She has been praised as a gifted teacher and leader, a strong, yet caring coach, a humane and empathetic advisor. Every testimony provides yet another vantage point on the truly organic whole that comprised every aspect of my sister’s remarkable life.
We are a little bit more than two weeks away from a Ski Celebration that will take place at Brooklyn Technical High School on May 6 (3-5 pm). Those who are interested in attending the event either in-person or virtually, should register here.
Don’t hold anyone at Tech accountable for this post; I take full responsibility for it. Today, I’d like to share some stories of which few people are aware. These stories come with a PG-13 rating: Though I’ve been careful to substitute a “&” for every questionable “u”, there’s no doubt that the language here may not be suitable for all audiences. But I don’t want to sanitize the fierce quality that was my sister’s wrath. If you pissed her off, threatened the people she cared about, or stepped over any of her definable boundaries, look out! She was a Warrior—in defense of her bodily autonomy, family, home, and social justice.
The Bar Incident
One night, she was out with friends at a bar and was having a nice time. As she leaned over the bar stool, some guy behind her apparently touched her, uh, behind. She turned around and asked, “What’s up buddy?” The guy apologized and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” She gave him The Look.
A minute later, that same guy brushed up against her yet one more time. “Hey,” she shouted, “watch your hands!”
The guy just ignored her. But my sister was steaming.
A few moments passed … and the guy grabbed my sister’s butt. She turned around, full fisted, and clocked him so hard in the face, he went down with a broken, bloody nose. Bedlam ensued and she was escorted from the bar.
The guy declined to press charges.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Bodily Autonomy, 1; Sexual Harasser: 0
The New Year’s Eve Incident
Some years ago, I was DJ’ing a New Year’s Eve party at a local catering hall. Some drunk guy came stumbling in with his girlfriend two hours after the Times Square Ball Drop and had missed the promised “champagne toast” at midnight. He demanded his champagne, but I told him it was too late. He grabbed me by the throat, threatening to “hurt” me. I kind of backed off, and let it go. Moments later, when I told my sister of the incident, she bolted after the guy and cornered him on a stairwell, screaming: “You threatened my brother! I’ll kill you!” When his girlfriend started to laugh, she turned to her and yelled: “And you—you f&cking bimbo! Shut the f&ck up!” She called security and had the two of them removed from the premises.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Family: 1; Drunk Jerk and Girlfriend: 0
The Apartment Incident
A few years later, something rather odd happened at our apartment. No matter where we’ve lived in this neighborhood, it was always a rental on the second floor of a two-family house. This story takes place in our current apartment, where I have been living since 1986. It was the late 1990s, and our trusted dog, Blondie, a Chihuahua-mix with a Napoleon complex, often barked menacingly at strangers near and far. But she was very loving to all those she trusted.
One afternoon, my brother Carl called us—he only lived a few doors down—and told us that he’d be coming over for a cup of coffee. My sister was in her bedroom, straightening up, and I went downstairs and unlocked the door so I could return to working on my computer. The entrance door to our apartment was to my back, and I expected my brother to enter at any moment. Not a minute later, I heard the door open downstairs and I heard someone walking up the steps to our place.
Blondie suddenly became maniacal. She was barking as if the apartment were under siege. “Blondie! Blondie! Stop! It’s Brother!!!”, I hollered. “Come on in, Bro!” And I returned to my computer screen.
The door opened behind my back, and the dog simply lost it! She started lunging. I turned around and it was not my brother. It was some strange man, whom I’d never seen on our block or in our neighborhood, mumbling to himself. Blondie started nipping at his heels. Being ever the diplomat, I looked up at him and exclaimed: “Sir, can I help you? Who are you? I think you’re in the wrong apartment, sir.”
The dog’s barks were now deafening, as the guy walked into our bathroom and started cleaning his hairbrush in our sink. And I’m still trying to be gentle: “Sir! Sir! I think you must be lost. Who are you looking for? I don’t think you’re in the right place.”
Well.
My sister came out of the bedroom and started screaming: “What the hell is going on out there?” The dog had gotten positively violent by this point, as my sister moved toward the bathroom. She was shocked to see this strange man over our bathroom sink. Diplomatic negotiations had broken down. “Who the hell are you?” She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, opened the apartment door, and forcefully pushed him down the stairs: “You need to get the f&ck out of here!!!” As he departed, my sister locked the door behind him and marched back up the stairs. When she entered the apartment, she gave me The Look.
“What are you, crazy?! Why were you trying to reason with the guy? You don’t know this guy! You don’t know what he was capable of! What the hell is wrong with you?”
I meekly returned to my seat. A few moments later, my brother rang the bell, and I went down and let him in. Blondie was calm. A re-telling of the story, however, elicited such uproarious laughter that we could hardly catch our breaths.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Home, 1; Intruder: 0
The Car Incident
Many of my sister’s students have celebrated the fact that she gave a voice to the young women at Brooklyn Tech, an all-male school up until 1970. Having started teaching at that school in 1972, she would go on to coach its cheering squads and took its dance teams all the way to national championships.
She was also known to accompany kids from the school to the subway stations when the high-crime Fort Greene area of Brooklyn had more in common with the “Fort” than the greenspaces of its famous park.
Early in her tenure as principal of New Dorp High School on Staten Island, while she was on stage speaking during an assembly presentation, some kid opened the back door to the auditorium and announced: “She’s a bitch!” She raised her fist in the air and owned it: “Yes I am!”—to applause.
She also went out of her way to ride the buses on various occasions with African American kids all the way to their Stapleton and St. George neighborhoods, to send a message to anyone who might want to target students for taunting or bullying.
Racial problems were certainly not endemic to Staten Island, however. In the early-to-mid-1980s, our Gravesend section of Brooklyn was far less integrated than it is now, populated predominantly by whites of Italian and Southern European descent. As Wikipedia reports, back in 1982, African-American “transit worker Willie Turks was beaten to death in Gravesend by a group of white teenagers.” On Christmas Day 1987, “white youths beat two black men in the neighborhood in an apparent ‘unprovoked attack’,” which led to protests in January 1988 by the Reverend Al Sharpton, who “led 450 marchers between Marlboro Houses and a police station, and were met with chants of ‘go back to Africa’ and various racial epithets from a predominantly white crowd.” In 1989, in the wake of the murder of Yusef Hawkins, black protestors were welcomed to the neighborhood by whites who held up watermelons, while hurling obscenities and bricks at the demonstrators.
It was in this lovely atmosphere of cosmopolitan tolerance and racial harmony that my sister decided to invite a group of mostly African American cheering squad members to our apartment on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The mood was festive, and everyone had a great time. But we saw some young white punks across the street from us who were not very pleased. Under her breath, Elizabeth said to me, “These sc&mbags better not make any trouble with my girls here.” At the end of the day, she made sure that all of them got home safely.
The next morning, I walked out to get the Sunday papers. As I passed our car, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every window had been bashed in, the glass splattered both inside and outside the car. I walked upstairs and calmly informed my sister what had happened. She was uncontrollably enraged. We both knew who had perpetrated the deed. Looking out the front window, she saw one of the obvious culprits who was visibly irate the day before at the sight of black kids entering our apartment. Nothing could hold her back. She flew down the stairs and stomped across the street, fuming, as a crowd began to form. She went straight for their ‘leader’.
“You! You!” – going full throttle right up to the guy’s face. “You bashed my windows in! You motherf&cker!”
“Ay, ay,” the guy said, clearly shaken. “Watch it, lady. I know people!”
“I know people too!” she shouted. “And they’re gonna break your f&cking legs if you touch my car again!”
The crowd went completely silent. I was right behind her. And we both turned around and went back upstairs.
The black kids would return to our home many times thereafter. And nobody ever touched our car again.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Social Justice: 1; Bigots: 0
Four incidents. Four victories. One TKO. My sister was a champ in the boxing ring of life!
Postscript (21 April 2023): See Facebook for comments. On Facebook, I added this point:
I just wanted to thank everyone who has reacted, posted, or dropped me a note. I added a postscript to this thread, which I repeat here to highlight it:
It is not without some irony that 28 years ago on this date [April 21, 2023], my mother—Ann Sciabarra—passed away after a five-year battle with lung cancer. She was an incredibly strong woman. The apple(s) didn’t fall far from the tree. We all inherited some of her toughness and loads of her empathy. My sister was definitely my mother’s daughter. For a hilarious vignette in memory of my mom, which illustrates the point, check out this post from Mother’s Day 2021 [also on Facebook].
