Harry recalls the 'life of the party' (plus '50s photos of a community's labor of love)

Harry outlived many of his friends, and now I appreciate the stories he wrote in their memory. We've seen several on this blog -- each eulogy features the very heart of the person Harry remembered, and together they tell stories of a bygone generation of friends. Below you'll see another tribute for a man he befriended in Greenbelt, MD, the planned city built by President Roosevelt's New Deal. It's where Harry and Jerry Pines were among the founders of the Jewish Community Center -- built not by the government, but the residents themselves -- in the early 1950s. Below the tribute, I posted a few of the photos Harry saved from their do-it-yourself construction project.

Harry and Jerry Pines posed with friends on a trip in the 1970s. All were part of a large community of activists who remained friends for life, even though most moved out of Greenbelt in the '60s.

Those of us who have known Jerry Pines through a good part of our adult lives don’t have to be told what kind of man he was. But every person is viewed differently by the people he knows – his wife, his children, his grandchildren, his colleagues at work, his friends and his neighbors – each of them views a person from his own perspectives. I want to say a few words about him today from the perspective of a couple of his friends, Jack Sanders and myself, to show you how we looked at Jerry and to add a little understanding of that view to the storehouse of memories that his family will cherish in the years to come.

Whenever I think of Jerry Pines, one thing immediately comes to mind. He was always the life of the party. We’ve had a lot of parties over the past thirty-five or forty years in our circle of friends, and at every one of them, without fail, Jerry would sooner or later take center stage. When we needed a master of ceremonies, we’d call on Jerry. When we needed someone to say a few words about this or that, about almost anything, we’d call on Jerry. Not only did he have a sort of stage presence, as real as that of a professional entertainer, he also had the most delightful sense of humor.

He knew how to take the most ordinary incidents, the most routine of daily circumstances, and tell about them in such a way as to transform them into the most hilarious misadventures. The mishaps that befell him were unbelievable and, the way he told about them, unimaginable, as well. If you ever heard him tell about the things that happened to him when, for example, he would take a new car back to the dealer to get some simple little things fixed, you’ll know what I mean. Whenever he told a story like that, he would have us gasping for breath because we laughed so hard.

In these more recent years, he had more than his share of physical discomfort and pain, but even when talking was a great effort for him, he never lost that sense of humor and that knack for bringing out the bizarre aspects of any situation. I recall vividly when a few of us were all together last year, not long after he got that new gadget that made it possible for him to talk. Boy, did he talk! The effort required for him to talk didn’t faze him or inhibit him at all. He had us all in stitches.

There are a lot of other things we remember about Jerry Pines – his kindness, his generosity, his willingness to share, his genuine interest in others – these qualities are legendary among his friends. He had a great many virtues. He had an unwavering morality. He knew what was morally right and practiced it throughout his life. You could say that all of us know the difference between right and wrong, but we frequently look the other way when someone does something wrong. Not Jerry. He could not abide duplicity or dishonesty in others, and never hesitated to point it out when he encountered it. He played it straight all his life and he expected others to do the same, but he was not so naïve as to believe that they always would. One of the last things he told Jack Sanders, who saw him just before he went in for surgery last month, was that his wish for his grandchildren was that they would grow up to be honest, forthright citizens of high moral character. Jerry talked that way, and he meant it.

He was a keen observer of the world around him and deplored injustice wherever he saw it. He could never understand, for example, how in this great country of ours there was so much poverty and disadvantage, despite all of our national wealth and resources, and he championed the cause of the ill-fed, the ill-housed and the underprivileged. He wanted everyone to have a better life, not just here, but everywhere. Maybe that’s why he liked so much to travel, to visit other countries and to see other lifestyles, not just to say that he had been there, but to see things for himself and to gain a better understanding of other peoples and other cultures. Every trip he took was a learning experience for him and he always came back with some very cogent observations about the things he had seen.

Jerry Pines led his life with grace and style, with humor and wit, always looking at the bright side, never giving in to despair. He was a friend, and his friendship brightened our lives.

A complicated labor of love

The Washington Star news clipping (above) from March 20, 1955, and construction photos (below)
 

The project to build a Jewish Community Center in Greenbelt was an icon of community spirit among neighbors and friends. But it wasn't easy. In an article in The Washington Star Pictorial Magazine on March 20, 1955, Harry described several barriers:

"Often we had the heartbreaking job of tearing down work that took us weeks because a construction expert would tell us it wouldn't do." 

"Most of our people didn't know the front end of a trowel from the back of a wheel-barrow when we started." 

"One of our problems was the old saying, 'A little learning is a dangerous thing'. Too often we had 15 self-elected foremen all telling one another what they had learned from books and how to do the job."

I'd recognize my dad's jacket anywhere. Is he inspecting the wall?

Harry, Jerry and the others attended the building dedication on March 20, 1955 (above and below).

I was thrilled to find these '50s photos. (I have to wonder how long they could sit in those chairs.)

Harry sheds light on a man for all seasons

I came across the photos on this page in Harry's files. They were taken when Greenbelt, MD, was brand new, in the late 1930s or early '40s.

Before the age of social media, communities like Greenbelt, MD -- a small city outside of Washington, DC -- created neighborhoods that inspired lifelong friendships and constant communication. Below is another of Harry’s eulogies for one of these lifelong friends. To me it demonstrates how to write one, with thoughtful, prosaic examples. Not only will the Greenbelt families of a bygone generation appreciate this, but I believe writers will, too.


It is difficult to try to capture the essence of a man at a time when the grief and pain of his passing is so immediate and so intense. And yet, strangely, this is not true with Nat Schein. Nat is a bright and shining presence in my mind. I can picture him as clearly as if he were standing beside me, talking as articulately and persuasively as only he could talk, about any subject you could name.

He never failed to astound me with the range and depth of his knowledge. From the time I first met him, more than thirty years ago, I was impressed with one characteristic of his that is all too rare in our society. He had an insatiable curiosity; he was genuinely interested in everything. His thirst for information, for knowledge, knew no bounds. Everything he came in contact with, he wanted to know more about. He wanted to learn. He was most enthusiastic, most animated, in this learning process. Whenever he encountered new knowledge, you could see the computer in his head spinning around as it integrated the new facts he was accumulating into the vast data banks he had already absorbed.

And I never ceased to marvel at that huge storehouse of knowledge he had in his head. He was a perfect example of that proverbial man who, when you asked him what time it was, could tell you how to build a clock. And he really did know how.

He had another quality that is all too rare in our society, the ability to listen. And to ask pertinent questions. And to really pay attention to the answers. And to remember. He would confound me, sometimes, by asking follow-up questions about something I had told him six months before. And wanting to know more details, asking for more elaborate explanations.

In the last few days I have spoken to many others about Nat, and I confirmed what I already knew – he was a “family” man, of course, and it is obvious to everyone who knew him how deeply he loved his wife and children and grandchildren, and how much they loved him. But, in a very real way, he had a larger family, too. He had a wide circle of friends. Most of us are blessed with just a few good friends with whom we feel close and comfortable. But Nat had an unusually large number of friends who felt close to him. He had this truly extraordinary capacity to extend himself, to share himself with others, to take them into his embrace, as it were, and to make them feel as though they were very special to him. This is the gift of compassion. He had an innate understanding of people: He could empathize with others. A genuinely compassionate man.

When John Donne said that “No man is an island unto himself,” he was talking about Nat Schein – a man concerned with and a part of all humanity. He was a man of many facets, a multidimensional man, a truly civilized man, a man for all seasons. The grief of this moment will recede, in time; the pain of this moment will subside. But the great joy that Nat’s presence has brought to my life and to those who were privileged to know him will abide with us, always.


Next week I'll post a speech about another old friend -- but it's not a eulogy; it's a story of a riverboat adventure. And later, did you know Harry was a poet? I found files full of poems I'd never seen!

Harry's memories of a woman of valor

These early photos of Greenbelt, MD, show the center of town from across the street. Built in the 1930s under FDR's New Deal, the city was one of the first planned communities in the country -- and it left indelible memories on its pioneer families. The grassy hill leading down to the underpass was the best sledding slope I'd known as a child. And I can still hear our songs echoing loud and clear from the underpass.

You may wonder why I’d want to share eulogies that Harry wrote. Three reasons: First, for readers of this blog who came of age in Greenbelt's tight-knit community of pioneer families, the eulogies bring back precious memories. One reader said it well: “No one understands when I say that I had a lot of parents in Greenbelt and that they stayed our parents even when we grew up.”

Second, when I recently discovered these eulogies, I could see they offer great examples for writers and storytellers, of style, eloquence, and phrasing. And third, extended family and friends are learning more about their brother-in-law Harry, Uncle Harry, Cousin Harry, and dear friend Harry. They tell me they love that.



Where do I begin? How do we describe in a few brief words the impact that Florence Shinderman had on our lives? There are too many impressions, too many occasions, too many times, too many conversations, too many events, too many memories, all crowding in on us at once. The best we can do is to say how we remember Florence now. And then, as time goes by, each of us individually can allow the remembrances of her to rise to the surface of our minds and examine them in the privacy of our thoughts, where we can treasure them and dwell upon them until they slowly wipe away the pain and the grief of this moment, and we are left with a clear memory of the joy and the pleasure she brought to us.

What a remarkable woman she was! Long before the “feminist” movement became fashionable, she was a woman in her own right. Sure, she was a wife and a mother, a housewife and a homemaker, all of those so-called traditional things that were supposed to distinguish women from men. But we did not think of her so much as the wife of Nat Shinderman – or the mother of two lovely daughters – which she was, of course. We thought of her, though, as an individual, a separate, distinct personality, a woman of great strength and character, completely apart from the connection to her family. She was truly unique.

We can remember so many times when a circle of people would be heavily engaged in a discussion, each of us thinking we knew so much about the subject at hand, when suddenly she would insert a comment in her quiet voice that would set us all back on our heels – because what she said cut right through to the heart of the subject and made sense. She had that rare ability to perceive the essentials and to recognize the important truths, no matter how hidden they were behind a wall of nonsense. She had no pretensions or affectations, and she could see through the pretensions of others and quickly deflate anyone who had an exaggerated opinion of his own importance with a dry and delightful sense of humor.

But she never tried to hurt anyone or to wound their pride. Everyone who knew her can attest to her extraordinary sensitivity, to the fact that she cared about people – and cared, deeply cared, for them. She demonstrated, in countless ways, her concern for others. She made each of us consciously aware that she wanted to be sure that we were all right, and that if we had any kind of a problem, she was ready to share it with us. Her heart was big enough to include all of us.

She was knowledgeable and informed about many things, but she didn’t flaunt her knowledge the way so many of us do. We remember so many times when we thought we were talking about things she knew little about, only to be surprised when she would come up with observations that indicated a depth of knowledge we never suspected. She had such an active mind and such an agreeable disposition, and even in these latter days when the medication and treatments she was receiving would have dulled anyone’s mind, her wit and her intelligence shone in her eyes and she remained sharp and aware. All of us marveled at her ability to overcome.

She was a woman of great courage who met life and life’s challenges head on, without fear, and all of us who were blessed with her presence were inspired by her. In the highest tradition of our heritage, she was a woman of valor, and we will cherish the memory of her for as long as we live.