For me, the 20th century began on Oct. 13, 1934, the day that I was born. It was in the middle of the national Depression.

My first important historic date was Dec. 7, 1941. It was about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and we (my parents and myself) had just descended the steps of the elevated train at Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We had just seen Menasha Skulnik in a Jewish play on 2nd Avenue. The radios all blared out the news of an attack on Pearl Harbor. I was 7 years old and I really couldn't comprehend what World War meant.

I was playing with Shimmy Aaronson at the Bronx River under the 174th St. Bridge on April 12, 1945 when I learned that President Roosevelt died. He was commander-in-chief and the only president in my 11-year-old memory. Everybody was crying. It was a sad day in the Bronx.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the news of the A-Bomb exploding in a place called Hiroshima, Japan, was frightening. The second A-Bomb, three days later at Nagasaki, occurred when I was in Monticello, NY, with my paternal grandparents. I remember the V-J Day Parade when the war was over, five days later.

Oct. 13, 1947 at the Elsmere Caterers in the West Bronx was a day to remember. I became a Bar-Mitzvah and by proclamation I became a "man" in the Hebrew faith. Graduations from Herman Ridder Junior High School in 1949, James Monroe High School in 1951, CCNY in 1955 and NYU College of Dentistry in 1959 were highlights in my academic career.

I entered the US Army in August 1959 and I was discharged on Aug. 13, 1961, the same day that the Berlin Wall was completed. East Germans could no longer escape communism through Berlin. The Cold War was getting hotter.

I married the beautiful and kind Lorraine Meyerovitch on July 1, 1962 in a synagogue on 16th St. and Crittendon St. in Washington, DC. My married life began.

I opened a dental practice on Parsons Blvd. in Jamaica in 1962. I was in my office on the Friday of Nov. 22, 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. At 46 years of age, he was cut down in the prime of his life.

Cara Ellen Greenberg was born on July 7, 1964 and the United States was slowly entering the Vietnam War. Adam Glenn Greenberg was born on Nov. 15, 1966. The country was mired deep in conflict in Southeast Asia. By Jan. 3, 1970, when Gregg Marshall Greenberg arrived, the nation was divided and seeking to return our boys home from the war.

When Neil Armstrong strolled on the moon on July 20, 1969, my children were starting to attend Hicksville Public Schools at Burns Avenue.

In 1972 I started coaching soccer for the Hicksville Americans. It was the year the Vietnam war ended.

In 1989, when the Berlin Wall was razed and communism was defeated, I was busy working and paying tuition for three children at various New England colleges.

When I retired on Nov. 4, 1994, the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ began the steep climb to historic heights. It culminated with the beginnings of the Internet, personal computers and mobile phones.

On Jan. 1, 2000, I no longer wrote "Nineteen Hundred" on any of my checks.

The 20th century and I have come a long way together.