"Between the dark and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the Children’s Hour." (Longfellow)
"I’m nobody, who are you, are you nobody too?" (Dickinson)
"Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table
…boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom"
Well known words from poems embedded in my fathers memory. As children, we heard them often. As an elderly man he still recited poems for us, for nurses, for doctors, for others. They were part of his being.
Just last year, as the dermatologist was raising his scalpel, Bob spontaneously burst out with:
Surgeons must be very carefulWhen they take the knife!Underneath their fine incisionsSturs the culprit — Life!
When I asked where that came from he told me, quite correctly (of course) Emily Dickinson!
I once asked him where and when he had learned these poems. He said he used to read poetry while waiting for basketball practice to start. I envision a young man in basketball shorts and a tee shirt, black and white high-tops, sitting on a bench with a book and getting lost in poetry, only to be called to the court, the basketball court, to lead his team, the NYU team emblazoned with violet, on to victory.
What a transition, from the solemnity of a poem to the sweatiness of a basketball game.
He was a complex being.
But, one thing was constant: he always had a strict sense of right and wrong.
Guess he was like his mother Fanny, whom he and his brother Norman often lovingly referred to as “Faigalah.” So I used to hear,,,she would yell at the news on radio, and root for Truman whom she loved. She would also shout out about baseball plays as well,,, as she paraded around her apartment or stood over her stove, cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
Well, Bob, too, had strong notions of right and wrong, and they were not only ideas in his head, they were ideas, images of right and wrong which he would act on. Early in his life he worked for Bulova Watch Company. I know not what happened but he was fired and when he was fired he was threatened that they would work to make sure he never got a job again. I don’t recall the details, but for many months he was unable to get a job, and, he sued…of course. I don’t remember how it all worked out…..I was 7 or 8 and more interested in riding my bike ….but I remember that he stood up for what he thought was right and fought for it. We did survive,,,I know he got another job and another and another and we always had enough to live on though my youth was not one permeated with wealth.
Many years later, when my mother with advanced Alzheimers disease was in a nursing home at huge cost, my father,,,,,always the financier…. kept manipulating his stock account, selling puts and calls, buying them back, reselling them, so he would always have enough income to pay my mothers nursing home bills. At some point his stock broker was disturbed by the risk he was taking and single handedly, in paternal fashion, sold him out of all his positions. The bottom line was substantial financial loss. The broker justified the action by saying it was to protect Bob’s financial position for my mother, but, this was far from reality. My father knew it and he sued,,,,unfortunately he never really got his just due…but kept trying. More recently when he lived with us in Washington DC, we would find the start of letters about this injustice he knew he had suffered. He knew he was right and he wanted to pursue it. Yet at his then quite advanced age he really didn’t have the fight left to carry his battle out unaided. One of my regrets is that I didn’t help him more towards at least obtaining the day in court that he thought he was due.
Like all of us, my dad had flaws. He was always, as he acknowledged, the great procrastinator, wanting to do so much more than he could, often getting lost in books, or watching a tennis match rather than pursuing the mundane chores such as filing tax returns which he notoriously filed late each year.
Many were the nights when he couldn’t sleep that we found him reading a new book, or rereading an old favorite. Many were the dinners he was late for because, like a kid, he couldn’t put down the latest book.
In Cleveland Park, where we live and where he lived with us after coming up from Florida, many of our neighbors have erected “little libraries” outside their homes. These libraries serve as a repository of books that people want to give away and for others a source of free books. On his daily walk my dad would always stop and scour the contents of the libraries, filling his room with books he wanted to read. And while he never got to all of them he read a considerable number. And he would regale us with the contents. I remember the month that all we heard about was Cleopatra, and, then there was his love affair with Winston. On his shelves just before he died I found a book of short stories by Somerset Maugham, an old second hand version which had an invoice from Amazon…. I believe it is a duplicate of a book we have in our house which originally came from him. Tho his eyesight was too poor to read from an ordinary book (he used kindles/iPads with enlarged print), he must have seen this old friend for sale and ordered it, possibly deluding himself that he might be able to read a bit of it.
And, tho some like my daughter Abby may rue this, Amazon was his friend: he could order books. his favorite Milka chocolate bars, new shirts which he never wore for at least 6 months, and so on….
Even if he couldn’t do all he aspired to, he always tried to be better, and smarter. He truly embodied one of his favorite lines from a poem by Robert Browning: “his reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” His room in Brighton Gardens where he lived the past couple of years was filled with new acquisitions (many of them the same as what he had previously owned in other abodes): kids books by David Macauley describing “How things work,” “Underground,” “Castle.” And other manuals explaining how things worked. His book shelves included “internet for dummies” and many other such self help books. Dad had a hunger for knowledge and for understanding things; he always said he was totally flustered by computers/iPhones/kindles, but he used all of these daily. He kept buying new versions of the kindle, hoping each new version would be better than the old one. He even bought a new “typewriter” so he could type his letters of protest as he didn’t have a printer set up. But, of course, he did have a printer which we found hidden under his bed… I think he was embarrassed to tell us he had gotten one. He aspired to understand all the new electronic gear we live with today, and failed mostly because in the past couple of years his ability to aim a finger or stylus at exactly the right letter waned. So so many passwords had to be reset, not because he forgot the password, but because he accidentally pressed the wrong letter or number.
His fascination with the mechanical world, coupled with his self-proclaimed inability to understand it remained present throughout his life. I cannot recall how many times he tried to build a “crystal radio” when I was growing up. At least once, I remember, he managed to get one to work and communicated with somebody using morse code. Really? And now we have computers and cell phones that puzzled him even more, hence, the manuals for the “dummies” which were omnipresent on his bookshelves.
When I think about the Browning quote,,,one’s reach exceeding ones grasp…I think this was one of the best life lessons my dad imparted to me…. That I should try to do things even if they were hard. I grew up somewhat independently from my family. There were two younger siblings who seemed to require more attention, and I was happy off on my own with bike and friends from at least the age of 8; in high school I had a group of friends and don’t remember relying on my family much. I rarely got ( or needed or wanted) help with homework but somehow I was taught (maybe by osmosis) that I could aim high and do anything I wanted to do. I was imbued with a confidence in my own abilities: if I reached for it and tried and tried again it was mine. And this lesson, more than any other has influenced my life choices.
Socially, my dad tended to be a bit of a hermit. He was content reading his books alone most of the day and into the night. My mother, Bernice, was the social force in their marriage. She would be the one to arrange social engagements, and my dad often complained he didn’t really want to go; yet, once he went out he usually had a most enjoyable time. He was able to suffer fools but not those who were cruel or unkind to others. Yet, he often lacked the insight to understand his own small acts of unkindness. This was always a contrast that shocked me. Tho, as with all that I am saying here today, this is of course an oversimplification of a complex being.
My dad’s love for his wife Bernice was long lasting. She lived in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s for many years before she died. And he loyally would visit her daily, making sure that she had the best care. One year, when he was diagnosed in Fla with metastatic melanoma, Steve and I arranged for him to come up to Hopkins for extensive and definitive surgery. He must have spent a week here (in DC) at the hospital and with us but as soon as he could return to Fla he did so as he didn’t want to leave my mother alone, tho, by this time she lacked most knowledge of who he was. Over the years, their partnership was a good one; they complemented each other well. She tolerated his idiosyncrasies: his radio kits, his gadgets, his tardy tax returns, and his frequent tennis games. And he tolerated her idiosyncrasies as well and supported her through her frequent serious depressions. They loved to travel and for two kids from the Bronx they traversed the world in their later years with joy and curiosity. They were not lookalikes, but a good pair.
After my mother developed Alzheimers, and still later after she died, my family had the great good fortune to have Bob travel with us on numerous vacations. Early on, when Bernice was alive but in a nursing home, we persuaded him to join us for a few days in the Bahamas…it was also the first trip where Valerie (now our daughter in law) accompanied us. We stayed on a somewhat remote island with our own boat to get around from beach to beach. This trip was followed over the years by so many others. We flew him to Maine where we were joined by the Singapore crew, and the newly born granddaughter Margalit. I remember him getting down in the sand and even trying to play ball with the kids on the beach…he was only 95 then. He also accompanied us a year or so later to a house on lake michigan….we even found a house with an elevator so he could get up from the steep driveway into the house. And we all went sailing on the lake one day, with Bob in his glory, enjoying the water, the wind and the kids. And there were good old beach trips to Bethany Beach where we were lucky enough to be joined by our three kids and grand kids. What joyful memories these vacations provided. . .
I have not touched yet upon my dad’s athleticism. He truly was a world class athlete. And he loved basketball and tennis. He loved to throw a good ball or hit a good tennis shot. In college he led the NYU Violets to numerous victories and we have many albums of newspaper clippings of his prominent basketball career. He played professionally for a short while before being sidelined by a ruptured achilles tendon. But his love of basketball remained. I recall going to games that NYU had each year where alumni were invited to play; he would love doing this. And once when our children were younger we often recall how he walked up to a basketball court in our neighborhood and asked a group of kids if he could join. They of course thought this was silly but good naturedly said sure, and then were shocked by how he , guess what, made the baskets!!! ….. and he must have been in his 60’s or 70’s at that time. His love of tennis also was a constant throughout his life. Until he was 98 or 99, he used to have a coach, John, who he would play with a number of times a week. And he would watch tennis matches with awe proclaiming his amazement at how good some of the players were.
But, no less was his awe and pride when shown a video of his granddaughter Margalit jumping off the high board at a pool. We had to put this in an easy to find place on his iPad so he could look at it often…..
My father took pleasure from many things, but as much as anything, he enjoyed his own and others physical accomplishments. He loved a good stroke, a good serve, a well made basket. And during the last few years of his life he tried so so hard to improve his strength. When he lived with us in Cleveland Park a physical therapist came in every week and he loved the challenges she offered. After he broke his hip in Jan 2021, he tried so hard to regain strength but unfortunately never quite gained enough to walk again. Yet 6 weeks before he died he was on an exercise bike for at least a short time. The accomplishment of moving was something that very simply gave him pleasure. Yes, multidimensional, a man who enjoyed moving for the sake of moving but could sit still for hours lost in books.
I started out with some lines of poetry that permeated my childhood, and I think it fitting to end this eulogy with one of my dad’s favorite poems, Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt (1834). It well reflects my father’s distaste for ritual but respect for those who are kind to their fellow man.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” — The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord,”
“And is mine one? Said Abou? “Nay, not so”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still, and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.
