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That is what historians do! That is what preservationists do! Many a wise man has said that we can’t see where we’re going if we have no awareness of where we’ve been. Human Nature remains the same. The lessons we need to navigate forward are all there in our history. Two late Brookline people who knew that were Jane Holtz Kay and Dr. John ‘Jack’ Little. It seems Jane was born knowing it, raised by her eminent lawyer father, Jackson Holtz, to read, read, read, which brought her as a student at Radcliffe College to stand before Brookline’s 19th Century ornate and beautiful Town Hall in her famous and futile attempt to save it from the wrecking ball. That led to her book, “Lost Boston,” (1980), which told in words and remarkable pictures how many of Boston’s great homes and buildings of earlier times had met a similar fate. I clearly remember when first looking at that book how sad I was to see how development had won over good sense. It was In “Asphalt Nation, How the Automobile Took over America and How We Can Take It Back (1997), that the prescient Jane Holtz, expanding on the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s most renowned landscape architect, that Kay hit full stride as an exemplar of urban design and the conservation of natural and urban environments a generation before others got on board. She demonstrated the deleterious dominance of the car on American culture and climate. To prove it Jane sold her car and got along very well without it living in Boston’s Back Bay. She opted for trains, bicycles, less cars, and living densely. What a lady! What a generous person in my own life, always helping me in my early efforts as a writer.

And what about Jack Little, another Jewish preservationist whose mother, noted historian, Nina Fletcher Little, lived at Brookline’s famous palace of Jewish learning The Maimonides School, named after the famous Jewish 12th Century philosopher. Well, not reallly, not at all. The school stands on the grounds and in the structure of the former affluent Fletcher home where Nina lived as a child looking out on Boylston Street and its horse drawn carriages, now Route 9. In later years Nina returned home in 1978, by when it was the Maimonides School, to give a reading of her work, “Reminiscences of the Philbrick Road Neighborhood,” which the home and now the school partially bordered. She and her husband, Bertram Kimball Little, both noted preservationists, brought Jack Little up in the same tradition in an old house not far away on Warren Street. Besides preserving and building early TV’s, radios, and autos, Jack, as President of the Brookline Historical Society, preserved old houses such as the famous Devotion House which dated back to the 17th Century and where the curator of the Society lives. In his college years Jack and a friend drove an old Model T Ford 12,000 miles over four months seeing the USA, and repeated the exploit in his Army years in Europe in a French Citroen. That led to his collection of vintage cars and old medical apparatus. Truly, Jack Little preserved the past! Indeed Dr.Little even found time to become one of the most famous radiological researchers in the world during his long tenure as a Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, writing five hundred or more published articles, and receiving many honors. Whenever I ran into Jack he always met me with a big smile.

Listen to hear me tell more about these two incredible people!

People, Always People!

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How could I know that I would spend twenty of the happiest years of my life from age 69 to 89 at one of the most undesirable office locations in Brookline:), amidst a gang of Irishmen, two Irishwomen, a Garage Punk Midwesterner, and a severe  Italian landlady. After all, I had just recently inhabited the grandest office in Brookline’s famous Coolidge Corner. Sure, I wanted a small and private space to test out my notion of becoming an author and historian, but what was I getting myself into? My tough landlord, Patricia Simboli, had me cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s, probably figuring this old guy will be outta here in no time with his grandiose notions. As (bad) luck would have it, on my first day my office mates, each having their own small office, were out in the hall talking, chief among them the seemingly unwelcoming husband and wife legal team, Joe and Paula Killion. Being crazy me, I said, “Hey everybody, I’m just what you need up here, an old Jewish guy.” That broke the ice. We all became immediate friends, and that warmth continued forever.

Joe turned out to be a pussycat who helped me out of the trouble my bad driving habits induced, and discussed baseball with me constantly, he having been a star pitcher at Holy Cross. He also proved to be the Champion Pack-Rat of all time! Brilliant criminal defense lawyer, Paula Killion, stared at me with her gorgeous blue Irish eyes, set in a face of flawless alabaster skin, but later shared with me her vast knowledge of the criminal law and shrewd opinions of people. Linda Gavin, Esq. became a chapter in my book, “Voices of Brookline”, when she was married by the Town Clerk to her longtime same sex partner at the Brookline Town Hall right after the Massachusetts Supreme Court allowed such unions in the landmark “Goodrich” case. Gentle Walter Landergan flawlessly handled several cases I referred to him with honesty and respect. Walter was close to Joe, and was broken up, as were we all, when Joe passed early at seventy. Walter and I bonded as friends. So too I bonded with the low key Steve Simon who startlingly combined that persona with his love of garage punk music which he blasted out on his program on Boston College radio station WZBZ. Steve’s late small dog, Chloe, came to the office often with Steve, and whimpered when I called him down the hall from his sanctum sanctorum to fish me out of my ineptitude on my computer. It turned out that Patricia Simboli possessed a full measure of warm Italian family feeling when she told me of her happiness with me as a tenant, and of her pride in my success. My luck in friends had held, coming as I did from my previous big quarters and my long friendship there with David Jensen, Esq., who like those above possessed a warm personality that has made us friends to this day.

Listen and you’ll hear much more about these nice folks! Who knows, you might get to like lawyers’

People, Always People!

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Does anybody have the ridiculous notion he or she will live forever? Yeah, me! Not really, but when Jordan Rich asked me on this podcast why I had waited to age eighty-five to have drawn an estate plan, that is what I answered, along with saying I was having too much fun to think about death. He asked why so many people never get around to drawing a will, let alone an estate plan? I replied that folks don’t want to think about death, although that was not true in my case. My thinking was crystallized into action when an older couple for whom I had drafted a will some years previously consulted me about a codicil to their will. By that time it was plain that their holdings required an estate plan drawn by an expert in that specialty. I sought one out for them. We met with her. She impressed me mightily. Her name is Kristin Shirahama, whose persona impressed many, resulting in her election as President of the Womens’ Bar Association while still in her thirties, and a partnership in a large Boston law firm a few years after we met. Cool, calm, and collected is Kristin as a professional, warm as a person! I retained Kristin to draw a plan for Lois and me, a necessity in many ways, not least because I am a decade older than my wife of fifty-eight years.

In an unusual collaboration Kristin and I joined forces on a plan leaving major gifts to several charities when we’re gone. She handled the expert advising and drafting required, and I met the leaders of the various charities considered. It required two years to get it right, but the the result was the plan of my and Lois’ dreams. That included the warm friendship Lois and I sought with Kristin for the long term, unanticipated benefits from the charities chosen, such as the august New England Historical Genealogical Society collecting my authorial papers and publishing them on the worldwide net, arrangements for a foundation grant to the newly formed Jewish Heritage Center, a valued participatory association with the Yiddish Book Center, and other honors of the same ilk. The experience directed my thinking to the needs of elder people, and the ideas expressed in my memoir that older folks need not take to the sidelines, but can remain immersed every day in life. For example, anybody can write about their own life for the benefit of family, friends, and associates, even if not for commercial dissemination, by the simple act of dredging their memory for the forgotten incidents of a long life. Everyone has a story to tell! Everyone in reasonable health can contribute meaningfully to their own and others’ lives until their dying day.

Listen to this podcast and hear that not only in my words, but in how I speak those words.

People, Always People!

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You’ve had a look at some terrific lawyers in the last podcast. Now take a listen to some of my own interesting, if not fascinating, cases.

I got a call from my friend ‘Horatio’ one morning asking if I’d be interested in the case of the respected Newton minister who apparently drowned off scenic Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts some years past, and had suddenly turned up alive, wanting to return to home, parish, and wife who, along with everybody else, thought him dead. YES, I softly said at the top of my lungs. Too much to tell here about this publicity attracting case, the handling of which they don’t teach in law school, but listen and relive the adventure with me.

The same might be said about my participation in bringing to these shores the infamous porn film, “I am Curious Yellow.” The legal twists and turns of this case were way more titillating (pardon the pun) than those shown by the so-called lovers on the silver screen in that flick, but our legal team was rewarded aplenty as Americans flocked to see it.

Tinsel Town has its own dark side as you will hear in the case I’ve dubbed ‘“Righting a Wrong,.” In that one a lawyer from north of the Mason Dixon Line (me) joined with another barrister interested in justice from beneath it, to beat Hollywood at its own game and return wherewithal and mental health to a kindly gent who exhibited movies as a sideline. That kind of a case leaves one with a good feeling!

Should you get into an accident involving bodily injury, it’s a bad idea to flee the scene. This otherwise nice guy and family man did, and the gendarmes didn’t track him down until twenty or more miles from the scene. The lady DA was intent on putting him away in a dangerous State prison for a decade or more! What to do? How to help this guy? You’ll see how I did when you listen to this tale of tactical decisions in the courtroom setting along the way to the result.

No homeowner wants to have a single family house next door expanded into a much larger two family house to take advantage of the exploding value of houses in Brookline and depreciate the value of your own house, a town conveniently surrounded on three sides by easily reached Boston, but yet retaining its distinct non-commercial environment, open spaces, and great schools. I didn’t when I was threatened with such a disaster. So I fought it, rounding up all four of my adjacent and also threatened neighbors, joining  forces with a Brookline zoning lawyer, and going to work. Do you own a house, want to buy one, or have an interest in what lawyers do in this kind of not uncommon neighborhood dispute. Then you’ll learn a thing or two listening to this case.

Can you imagine arguing yet another movie case in front of the highly respected Chief Judge of the Massachusetts Superior Court in which the judge imitated a bunny rabbit. I can’t, but it happened to me, and here I’ll tell you all about it.

People, Always People.

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Do you want a look inside the otherwise opaque world of lawyers? Listen and you shall hear. Like when as a fledging lawyer I was assigned a criminal case to defend pro bono. I thought the defendant had been imprisoned too long to have received the speedy trial guaranteed by the Constitution, and took my argument to Judge Charles Wyzanski, appointed by FDR, and by then a mythical jurist, respected by all, feared by many. He bought my argument, and angrily summoned then Massachusetts United States Attorney, Elliott Richardson, who went on to world fame, to fess up. The case ended well, and Larry and  Elliott, an odd couple for sure, became longtime friends.

Several other well regarded attorneys, who may have viewed my work habits dimly, affected my development profoundly. Like Morris Michelson, a meticulous lawyer’s lawyer civil trial attorney who taught me the basics of that craft, introduced me to my lifelong passion for classical music, and to a Committee of top Boston lawyers committed to social justice and Jewish values.

My early association with wizard real estate attorney and draftsman, Melvin Newman, brought out my previously hidden talent for the facile and clear drafting of legal documents. Through Mel I met Julian Cohen, not a lawyer, but a fabulously talented real estate developer, Chief Fueling Officer in his twenties for convoys in the North Atlantic in WWII, the biggest philanthropist to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and to my good fortune, a valued friend.

Another legal eagle of my youth was Sumner Kaplan, Judge, Selectman, General in the Army, and State Representative, who was instrumental in my appointment as an Assistant AG for Civil Rights in the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Edward J. McCormack, Jr., whose uncle, John W. McCormack, was Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. My senior there was Gerald Berlin, a clarinet playing tough Southerner transplanted from Virginia, appointed by the forward looking Eddie McCormack to lead his newly formed and groundbreaking Office of Civil Rights. Gerry was passionate about fairness in our country, and included me to assist in the United Stated Supreme Court case of “Gideon vs. Wainwright,” one of the most famous cases in 20th Century jurisprudence.

The best friend of all is Paul Sugarman, who rose  from nearbthe bottom rung of the societal heap to the very top of the ladder as perhaps Boston’s top lawyer of the last half of the 20th Century, a man for all seasons, who found time to be my longtime friend in and out of bad times.

People, always People.

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How could I know my life changed direction the day my longtime and esteemed legal assistant, Cathy Jenness, came into my office and asked for a week off. “Sure,” I said, adding, “What for?” Cathy said her husband Mike was leading his gig racing crew to compete in the championships in the Scilly Isles off Land’s End in England. “Wow, sounds exciting,” I said to Cathy. “I wonder if Mike would let me come along.” A day or so later came a “Yes“ from Mike, star lineman at Northeastern, veteran police officer, boat builder with this father, team leader, and all around nice guy. So off I went.

The Scilly Isles are much more about the ocean than the mainland of England. Its folks are English, of course, but a people unto themselves, living on these remote islands. Famous for its gigs, an open narrow and light boat built for speed, requiring six rowers and a coxswain, used in the past from the late 17th Century to guide incoming sailing vessels over the dangerous shoals in the Scillies, or sometimes for the nefarious practice of plundering the cargo of foundered ships. Even worse was the practice of mooncussing, the placing of decoy signal fires to induce a shipwreck, subdue the survivors, and plunder the wreckage. In modern times gigs are more peaceably employed for racing among crews from the Scillies, England, France, the Netherlands, the Faroe Islands, Australia, Bermuda, and America.

The Scillies offer wind, weather, and rough seas enough too charm and excite any adventurer. So adventurous, in fact, that amid the tumult and excitement of the races, positioned on a crowded open observer boat with my heavy camera, accessories, and attire, standing to get a better view, I totally forgot caution, lost my balance, and began falling in the direction of the bottom of the sea, when a strong Dutch athlete caught me in her arms and stayed my fall. Water is life! Water is death! And yet, still adventurous enough for me to capture many more images of the races, stirring enough for me to write about those rapturous days with my new comrades, and to submit my first ever authorial effort to publisher Bob Hicks, who unexpectedly featured it on the front page that year, and again on the front page the following year in his national periodical, “Messing About in Boats”

That year Mike, his crew,  and lucky me ventured to the castle town of Muiden, outside of Amsterdam for another Pilot Gig  Racing Championship round. On that trip, I combined observing and photographing by day the rowers fighting the dangerous and storm swept seas which almost engulfed the women of “Team Saquish,” as Mike styled his team, and enjoying my abode along one of Amsterdam’s famous canals with my charming Dutch husband and wife bed and breakfast hosts. The Muiden races ended with a loud, boisterous, but quite friendly tent party of a thousand or more which inspired me to leap on a table and wave the Stars and Stripes aloft, and in Amsterdam with attending a rock concert with my host.

My life had changed. I had become a writer, another adventure which ultimately led to my writing my memoir which I came to realize was written not only to share my unexpected path into old age, but to give “….meaning to my life. That extends life! And it’s something YOU can experience. I think that is the main reason I wrote this memoir,….I’m hoping my life,…. may help you find meaning at any time of life,” as I put it spontaneously in the very first podcast of this series. Indeed, you can set your life down for your own family, friends, and associates.

People, always People.

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I think the title of this podcast could have been, “Greg Spiers – The Best Buy Next Door.” Here’s why. Some years ago I went to Best Buy for expert advice on an item I was considering. Greg was the salesman. Not only was he very pleasant to deal with, but seemed to know cyberspace from endless end to endless end. In our long conversation it turned out like ESP that Greg lived in the house a door or two down the street from my office. Like Rick and Captain Louis Renault in “Casablanca,” that was the start of a beautiful friendship between two guys fifty plus years apart in age, which continues to this day. Not only did the brilliant Greg drag me kicking and screaming into the computer age, and help me on my magnum opus about baseball and Jews. He met my wife, Lois, became like family, and watched over me with advice like, “Hang onto any railing in sight,” as I advanced from my seventies to my nineties. Not that it was one way. Greg sought my advice in his struggle between his low key outward demeanor, and the boiling anger in this highly idiosyncratic person against what he deemed to be the deficiencies in our society to which he would not kowtow. His views can be seen on his Facebook page. For example, Greg refused to do an unpaid internship to win an advanced degree which would have positioned him well to get a highly paid position in the field of cybernetics in biology. His objection was not money oriented, but because of his belief that the intern system took advantage of students. His posture today, fifteen or so years after we met, remains essentially the same. Somewhere along the line he met Carrie Schepker, then an aspiring doctor, now a respected one, who is headed for a starry career. Another example of ESP! Greg and Carrie have formed a warm and seemingly permanent bond in their years together, and prefer now to remain unmarried and without children, against the wishes of close family on both sides. Carrie, as warm as she is capable, as loyal as she is sure of her own mind, has become our dear friend too. Our friendship is a give and take between two very informed millennials and two very informed seniors which is of benefit to each twosome in expanding their respective consciousnesses of trends in societies today. Millennials will soon take over responsibility for administering the world with their very different and very welcome views on how people might get along better. I guess the moral of this story is that if you speak easily and naturally to folks you meet from all walks of life, you may find true friends from any generation who will expand the meaning of your own life.

People,  always people!

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On this podcast you will hear how a theatrical event that started out lightheartedly surprisingly turned into something deadly serious, became an adventure, and brought me a bunch of new and talented friends. Actor and playwright, Larry Tish, contacted me one day saying he would like to write a comic play adapted from my book, “American Jews and America’s Game.” Flattering? Yes. I met Larry. Terrific guy. Knew nothing about baseball. So what I told myself was, “I’ll teach him and his partner, Lee Goodwin, enough for the purpose.” I said, “How about a musical? I know a talented composer, Erin Murray, who just graduated Berklee College of Music.” The three took to each other, and ultimately decided to leave me out of the writing. OK, see how it goes. Well, it went well enough to be produced several times in Boston, Maine, New York, and finally at the home of the late philanthropist and arts enthusiast, Ted Cutler. Alas, money was wanting to continue advancing the play, cleverly named, “Jews on First,” by Larry Tish’s daughter, after Abbott and Costello’s famous line, “Who’s on First?” What to do? Larry and Lee bowed out, as it were. Using that title, I bowed in, writing a short history of Jews in America since the late 19th Century through Depression times to the present. I befriended and hired a brilliant young woman, Jillian Offermann, still in college, to gather illustrations to be sequenced and related to the history, a talent she had expertly nurtured since her mid-teens. The result was a montage of several hundred photos perfectly matched to the narrative, but which created copyright and brand liabilities in an age where MLB and all businesses protect their logos, brands, marks, and images zealously. At that time I formed a team with Jill, and Jordan Rich, veteran and popular broadcaster and podcaster, who you hear conversing with me on these podcasts. Just before Covid struck, Rotary invited me to tell them of the project on a Zoom show. The presentation impressed their audience, and their community oriented leader, Joyce Graff, asked if I could do the montage to be followed by my interview of an appropriate person from the front office of the Red Sox, directed by generous Brookline producer, Harvey Bravman. Joyce’s idea was that the interview would be on the issue of inclusiveness and discrimination in America. Joyce knew that I had some friends over there at Fenway Park, but hardly did I think I would be successful in obtaining anyone, let alone my first choice, Assistant Head of Baseball Operations, the articulate and engaging Eddie Romero Jr., born and bred in Puerto Rico. That was before generous and socially perceptive Red Sox President, Sam Kennedy, stepped in and made it all come true. Wow, this is getting serious. Well, there is much more to this story. Along the way key and accomplished people over there at Fenway Park like the aforementioned Sam Kennedy; the astute Chaim Bloom, Head of Baseball Operations; House Counsel, the brilliant Dave Friedman, Esq.; and Adam Grossman, Head of Marketing Operations, helped bring it to fruition. Not only did the story get serious but downright existential, as the subject matter segues from baseball to the survival of democracy. Any American interested in where our country may
be heading will want to hear this podcast.

People, always people!

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I never know exactly what will be discussed before any given podcast unfolds. That is because Jordan Rich poses the questions, and I answer spontaneously. Part Two of my memoir is entitled, “Why I wrote This Memoir: Friendship, Maturation, and Inquisitiveness.” It is a rather academic answer to that question, which I surmised Jordan would follow. He didn’t. So whatever came out, came out differently. Jordan’s comments and questions brought out that writing the memoir was a voyage of discovery in itself. Friends had said to me that I had led an interesting life, that I ought to write a memoir. I didn’t take that too seriously. I’d done a few things, nothing remarkable, I thought. I started it in a rather desultory manner. Then Covid came along. With time on my hands, I thought I’d give it a shot. Lots of my writings are autobiographical, so I strung them together. My capable formatter, Susan Worst, pointedly said, “Larry, this is an anthology, not a memoir.” So lazy Larry got to work in earnest, writing original material plumbing the labyrinthine caverns and crevices of my ninety year old memory. And you know what? I discovered that I had indeed lived an interesting life, albeit interesting mainly because with my limited authorial talent I could bring ordinary incidents to life, giving them meaning for me and others from which to learn. You have already heard about several such instances in previous podcasts. How I communed with the late Miss Marguerite Greenshields, whom I hadn’t seen since she was my Housemaster in high school, for example. A transformative and other worldly experience which I related in that mood! Or recently in the podcast on acting when I found new meaning about acting and life from attending Shakespeare’s poetry more closely. Or when Jordan described me as a Renaissance Man because of my many interests, including education, history, politics, music, baseball, whatever, which caused me to view myself as moving slightly away from my previous view of myself as a dilettante. Not much, but some. Or when the modest Jordan asked if I considered myself a little “edgy?” And hearing myself answer that, “Yes I think so. But I am because I always want to be true to myself. I’m lucky now at this age not to be hurt easily, and unafraid to put myself on the line.” Wise man Jordan then asked whether it was hard for me to write negatives about myself, to which I blurted out, “I have no shame.” These late coming experiences coming as part of writing the memoir, or growing from it, like podcasting, have educated me about my own persona, and equipped me to relate my life meaningfully to others, warts and all. As you will hear me say to Jordan, no one is interested in a memoir by a famous person if the warts are not revealed,  but many will be interested in one by an ordinary person if he or she tells the truth, most especially if the telling is done with reasonable skill. Add to that all the noteworthy people I’ve been fortunate to meet, write about, and befriend, and you have a book which may win some favor. Indeed, friendship, maturation, and inquisitiveness!

People – Always People

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Naturally, Shakespeare got it right. Everybody is an actor. He expounded that notion in his original and poetic way in lines familiar to all of us in his play, “As You Like It,” Here are a few of them:

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages…..”

Not that the idea was original with the Bard. He just expressed it way better than anyone else! But it had new meaning to me when I began to think about acting after Jordan Rich brought up the subject in the last podcast. Thinking about it, I thought how much we all act all the time. Take lying. That is acting. We do it every day, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, sometimes out of habit. We often lie to save a friend’s feelings, or to hide from others what we’re doing. Hitler lied to amass power he used to annihilate millions in the Holocaust, and bring on WWII! Haven’t all dictators lied forever? So too do leaders of free countries like America and England lie to save the day. Think FDR and Churchill. Perhaps the most prevalent form of lying are the lies we tell ourselves to deceive ourselves as to who we really are, and what our true thoughts and feelings are, which causes so much insecurity and indecision. All of this might be defined as acting off the stage. Acting on the stage is defined as a craft, even an art, but if what I’ve said above is meaningful, one might reasonably ask, why do we need stage actors? Aren’t they merely dramatizing what we know to be true. Well, no. They are doing something profoundly more important! What is it that they do that invokes names like Shakespeare himself, not to mention a host of Greek playwrights like Euripides, Aeschylus, and Aristophanes who lived two and a half millennia ago, musicians like Mozart and Verdi, and all the folks who support dramatic, musical and poetic presentations the world over – the playwrights, scriptwriters composers, librettists, editors, singers, dancers, actors, and others, of the highest order of artistic abilty. Why is it I choose too call such people “reactors,” as much as actors. Listen to this podcast and you’ll find out why all people owe a special debt to all actors and their cohorts the world over, and why all societies honor the acting art in whatever form it is presented.

People – Always People