Choosing Up Sides - Youth to Adulthood By the time I turned nine, I had absorbed a mountain of information about religious and familial differences among my childhood friends.  My family happened to be Jewish; my buddies were not.  One boy was Methodist, a son of German immigrants.  Twins I bonded with were coincidentally, sons of German immigrants too, but Catholic.  This was a Long Island, NY town in the 50’s and 60’s; home to growth patterns and demographics engendered by the uniqueness of those who moved there from the teeming parts of metro New York City and elsewhere.   They came from Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx and from considerably further away too.  It must have seemed a perfect place to settle down…