Karen loves old men. She sees them when we're out and coos, Isn't he adorable? I just want to take him home with me. I don't feel threatened because I'm reasonably confident I could take them, but I've gotten in the habit of noticing them before she does and telling her she can't fall in love with them. Then when she notices them she coos anyway.
Our parents raised us with the idea that we were to respect our elders. This is a noble idea, but it hurt me somewhat when I respected older people for whom the only reason to respect them was the year of their birth. Be that as it may, I have been fortunate to know some very wonderful older people, and I've been privileged to have them in my life to whatever degree I had them. Not every one of them was an integral part of my life, and some mattered more than others, but the thumbnail portraits that follow below give an idea of what these men were or are like and why they mattered to me in whatever degree.
There was a barber in my neighborhood back in Illinois who had a voice straight out of Andy Devine's family. He was a Navy vet who had fought in World War II, so by the time I met him in the late 80's he was about to retire. He'd not only served his country but had taken care of his family using the skill he'd learned in the service. His shop was a throwback barber shop, not one of these upscale hair salons, complete with the checkered tile floor and the smells that accompany an old barbershop. Once in awhile when I'd go in there there'd be another man in there. One time the landlord was there, some insurance salesman who owned the building. He was a German who'd served in the Wehrmacht in World War II but emigrated to the US after the war. The old guy, whose name was Joe, once gave me a straight razor, the first one I'd ever owned. I still have it somewhere, although I've never used it. The one thing that Joe always did was tell me, after I'd paid him, was Just stay healthy! with that old cowboy sidekick's voice. It never failed to make me smile.
The next older gentleman is a guy I met in my new state. As profane as he is generous, I've shared more work lunches with him than anyone I know, and I've only known him for seven months. He's been unfailingly generous to me, and he cracks me up with his profane conservatism. Anyone who's a liberal usually has a few rude adjectives prefacing his or her name when he's talking about them. But this man has, at age seventy-one, helped me mover furniture twice without asking for any recompense. He's talked to me about the nature of my new state, guns, hunting and fishing and life in general. Although our relationship only counts seven months, I feel like I've known him my whole life. If I mention that I'm interested in something, and he knows something about it, he offers to help me with it. His kindness matches his profanity, but the whole package tickles me and humbles me at the same time. I hope when I'm his age I have such a sunny perspective on life as he does.
There are many other men to whom I could refer, but the one man whose memory exceeds that of all others is a man named Henry Lilienheim. Henry worked as a patent attorney with my late aunt who introduced me to him because she thought we might have something in common. Henry, it seemed, like flamenco, and since I had lived in Spain, our introduction followed a natural progression for my aunt who never knew I hate flamenco. I met Henry with great pleasure, however, because he was such a warm, inviting and gregarious person it would have been a mistake not to pursue a friendship with him. As it turned out, this was one of the wisest decisions of my life, because I was enriched far more by knowing him.
Henry was Polish, an engineer by trade who had returned to Poland from France shortly before the Nazi invasion in 1939. He went to Dachau, while his wife went to Magdeburg. Both survived the camps and the war and found each other, miraculously, afterwards. Henry told me that he'd been offered a position in David Ben Gurion's first Israeli cabinet but turned it down to search for his wife, not even knowing at the time whether she'd survived.
Henry spoke nine languages. He came to the States and became a patent attorney, no mean feat for a foreigner much less for an American. He practiced for some thirty years with distinction. His daughter, a filmmaker based in Canada, made a film about his life called Dark Lullabies. Henry himself wrote a book about his experiences during and after the war called Aftermath. It's a searing portrait of what he endured that bears reading.
As luck would have it, my law school was located directly across the street from his office. I'd stop in, say hello to my aunt and then sit down with Henry. Most of our visits were convivial, but one day I found Henry in a very somber mood for some reason. As I sat down in his office he asked me if I believed that God existed. The first thought that came to my mind was What do I tell a man who's actually been to hell and survived? For one of the few times in my life I was able to give a diplomatic yet forthright answer and, I hope, managed not to upset him. We talked for a few minutes about it and then changed the subject. That one visit had a profound effect on me, and I can vividly recall virtually every minute of it.
Eventually, I graduated and began practicing and Henry retired. Once he retired I lost track of him until I learned that some years later that he'd died. Although we'd not spoken in a decade, I felt an irretrievable loss of a friend who, without setting out to do so, had taught me so much. His gentleness of spirit, his breadth of knowledge and his forgiveness were such lessons that I remain indebted to this man. Karen would have loved him.
The three men whom I've described were nothing alike. Joe was uneducated formally, the other two were attorneys. One was profane where the other two never uttered a profanity. One spoke nine languages fluently where the other two spoke only one, and one of them had difficulty with that. But each of them burned a memory into my brain, a memory that I'll try to remember and utilize when I read my dotage.
I was -- and continue to be -- very fortunate to have known these men whatever the capacity.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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