Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website

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Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
a Quarterly Journal by and for
             the Residents of NewBridge on the Charles in Dedham, MA
  VOLUME 10, NUMBER 3                                           SPRING 2021

                                   Cardinal
                          Photograph by Michael Ross

The Bridge                                                             SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
Notes from the Editor
As winter draws on, it seems that our residents’
creativity is increasing. I have had to hold over
several submissions for our next issue because we
                                                                     The Bridge
just don’t have enough space to print all the
creative pieces that have come in. Many thanks to
                                                               Volume 10, Number 3           SPRING 2021
our generous donors who have supported this
issue. Please keep the articles, anecdotes, poems              Editor: Prue Thorner
and photos coming
                                                               Layout and Design: Stan Treitman
Prue Thorner                                                   New resident interviews: Barbara Naditch
                                                                Reviewers: Ed Goldstein and Ann Moll
                      IN THIS ISSUE
                                                                Photographers: Diana Bronner
                                                                               Michael Ross
   The Miracle of the Flowers               Ed Goldstein                       Sam Lehrer

   Fast Forward                            Howard Cohen
   Meet Estelle and                                                   Our generous donors who have
                                      Barbara Naditch
   Jacob Shammash                                                        contributed to this issue:
   Gabi                                     Peter Halfon

   A Family Novella                           Ruth Ades
   Birthday Dinner                            Len Green        Phyllis Hersch   In memory of her brother,
                                                                                Sheldon Hersch
   A Firm Pillow                              Jack Sobel
                                                               Rosalie Dana     In memory of Millard Kay
   When the Day is Lazy                Rona Goodman
                                                               Paul Fruitt      In memory of Millard Kay

                                                               Judy Rosenberg   In memory of Ralph Gold-
                                                                                man, Marie Clark,
                      CONTRIBUTIONS                                             Mel Rosenkranz and Ernest
                                                                                Greenberg
      The Bridge is produced entirely with the
      support of NewBridge residents, so it does               Marilyn Stone    In honor of Brenda Keegan
      rely on your donations.                                  Dorrit Senior

      There are envelopes in the Library and at                Jerry Wyner
      the Concierge Desk if you would like to                  Joan Rome        In honor of Prue Thorner
      make a donation to a future issue. These can
      be made in honor or in memory of                         Marlene Yesley   In honor of Prue Thorner
      someone. Your check should be made
                                                               Michael and Prue In memory of Jerry Klein
      payable to Hebrew Senior Life, with a note               Thorner
      that it is for The Bridge.
                                                               Frances Budd     In memory of Ezra Vogel
      Submissions of written materials must be                                  and Mel Rosenkranz
      made via email, either using Microsoft Word
      or Pages. Handwritten materials cannot
      be accepted.

The Bridge                                                 2                                        SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
The Miracle of Flowers
                                             By Ed Goldstein
The famous Finnish architect, Eero Saarinen had          to connect the pipes and wiring that controlled
designed Bell Labs’ latest facility at Holmdel,          the humidity throughout the building. The
New Jersey. As you turned into its long driveway,        theoretical solution was obvious: to increase the
the first thing that struck you was the futuristic       humidity in my office. How to put it into practice?
water tower looking like a three-legged                  That evening, I went shopping at the local five
spaceship that had just landed. The building             and dime store. Next morning I brought my
itself was an all-glass box. Walking to the              purchase—a really cute red and yellow plastic
entrance from the front parking lot, with the            watering can—to the office. I filled it with water
wind from just the right direction, you were             and watered my rug from corner to corner. To
quite likely to receive an unwanted shower from          test the result, I shuffled my feet on the rug,
the decorative fountains playing in the reflecting       took a key out of my pocket and held it within a
pool. The inside was at the same time grandiose          half inch of one of the walls. Nothing! Eureka!
and comfortable. My department, of which I was
                                                         From that day, my rug got a thorough watering
the newly-appointed head, was the first to move
                                                         every morning when I came to work and every
into this building.
                                                         lunch hour. The people in my department,
For the first time since I had joined Bell Labs          especially the secretaries, would ask their friends
more than twenty years earlier, I now had an             and any visitors to come watch Mr. Goldstein
office with a door that actually closed. In              water his rug. Then, one morning when I arrived
addition to the usual steel desk and ergonomic           at work, I noticed a bright yellow flower, maybe
office chair, there was a conference table around        three inches tall, seemingly growing out of the
which four people could sit comfortably. The             rug in one corner of my office. It was obviously
office had no windows, but its floor was covered         artificial, but I thought it made a nice addition to
by industrial-gray wall-to-wall carpeting with a         the otherwise rather drab décor. I watered it
soft underpadding. With special permission, it           along with the rest of the rug.
was possible to hang a picture or two on the
                                                         By the next morning, the little flower had
three metal walls that were not taken up by the
                                                         miraculously grown to about six inches in
metal whiteboard. I loved the building and my
                                                         height. And the morning after, it was a full nine
new office at first sight.
                                                         inches tall. Then came the weekend. On Monday
There was just one problem: anyone who got               morning, next to the nine-inch flower, there was
within a few inches of the walls or whiteboard           also a three-inch one. And so it went. Eventually
got zapped by a powerful and rather painful              my little garden contained four fully-grown
spark. Equally nasty sparks would greet any              flowers.
attempt to shake another person’s hand. It took
                                                         At that point, the building engineers finally fixed
a few days for me to become sufficiently
                                                         the humidity control and I stopped watering my
annoyed at this to sit down and analyze the
                                                         rug. The next day, each of the four flowers,
situation. After all, I was an electrical engineer
                                                         instead of standing up straight, drooped sadly
employed by probably the most prestigious
                                                         toward the floor.
research organization in the world! It took only
a few minutes to figure out that the humidity            Desperate, I gave them a thorough watering.
was too low.                                             But it was apparently too late for that. By the
                                                         next morning, the flowers had disappeared. I
Further research disclosed that the air
                                                         never found out who was responsible for this
conditioning contractors had not yet been able
                                                         little miracle.

The Bridge                                           3                                             SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
Fast Forward
                               By Howard Cohen

                 Blue Jay
             by Michael Ross

                                                 Shadows in the River
                                                    by Sam Lehrer

The Bridge                          4                                   SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
Meet Estelle and Jacob Shammash

Estelle was born in Bangor,                                            graduate. When he went to Medical
Maine. She attended college                                            School in Buffalo, NY, he received
at the University of Maine. She                                        his Middlebury bachelors’ degree
met Jacob in Boston in 1955                                            after completing his MD. He
and they married in 1956 and                                           completed residencies in Buffalo
lived in Longmeadow, MA. She                                           and a three-year surgical residency
had a busy life driving kids to                                        at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston,
swimming and piano lessons,                                            then spent two years in the U.S.
but as the children grew up,                                           Navy as a surgeon at Portsmouth
she and a friend became                                                Naval Hospital, New Hampshire. He
camp counselors.                                                       became a boarded Thoracic
                                                                       Surgeon with privileges at Beth
Jacob was born in Baghdad,
                                                                       Israel Hospital. Eventually the
Iraq. His parents sent him to
                                                                       family moved to Springfield, MA.
Middlebury College in
                                                                       The Shammashes have five
Vermont for two years plus a
                                                                       children: four daughters and a son.
summer where he earned 95
                                                      Two of their children are MD’s, one is a cantor, one
credits out of the 120 credits he needed to
                                                      is an art historian, and one is a CPA.

                                            River in Snow
                                       Photo by Diana Bronner

The Bridge                                        5                                          SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
GABI
                                            By Peter Halfon

 In June, 2017 our son forwarded us an email              residents was hung on the building wall. Gabi
 from a professor, unknown to him. The                    read a description of the birth of the idea and
 message read, in part:                                   the correspondence between her and me. She
                                                          included some words which she had asked me
 “I write today…in regard to a personal matter,
                                                          to send her of why and how my parents
 that intersects with my research interests in the
                                                          managed to leave Vienna and what became of
 history of the Habsburg Empire and the Shoah
                                                          us. Here’s what I wrote:
 and its representation. Good friends of mine in
 Vienna are working to create a memorial to the           November 10, 2017
 Jewish residents who once lived in their building        Yesterday, 79 years ago was Kristallnacht in
 at Untere Weissgerberstraße 49…. Records                 which 42 Austrian Synagogues and over 17,000
 show that a Paul Halfon…. and his immediate              Jewish shops and factories were ransacked, the
 family were the only Jewish residents of the             start of a period in which man’s inhumanity to
 building who were able to escape, and that they          man showed no limits.
 made their way to the United States…. if you are         My family and I are humbled and grateful that
 indeed a descendent of Peter Halfon…. you can            Gabi sought us out so that we could, even
 contact them…”                                           remotely, share with your community the
                                                          setting of this stone in recognition of those
 I immediately responded and confirmed that my
                                                          Jewish families who in 1939 resided in 49
 family had lived at Untere Weissgerberstrasse
                                                          Weissgerberstrasse and who either perished in
 49 in Vienna. I have a vaccination record from
                                                          the Holocaust, or like me and my parents, were
 October 1939 confirming that. Also, Carol and I
                                                          able to begin a new life in the United States or
 had visited there. Several emails ensued, back
                                                          elsewhere. While I had known bits and pieces of
 and forth. We learned that Gabi, her husband
                                                          my parents’ story, it wasn’t until my father was
 Andreas and children Leo and Emilia, a non-
                                                          82 that he filled in the blanks and we learned
 Jewish family, have lived at #49 since 2005. Their
                                                          more.
 historical interest in who had lived there and
 what became of them, especially those of the             In mid-1939, a storm trooper came to my
 Jewish faith, led them to the “District Museum”          parent’s fourth floor apartment. He informed
 and subsequently to the head of the “Society of          my mother, home alone with me, that the Nazis
 Memorial Stones”. In turn, they received many            needed the apartment and that we had one
 documents, including a list of the former                week to vacate it. My mother was able to reach
 residents of their building, which they shared           my father who came home and showed the Nazi
 with us.                                                 an old Turkish citizenship paper written in
                                                          Arabic, threatened to call the ambassador and
 With urging from the Society, their friendship
                                                          bought more time. My father was born in
 with a Syrian refugee family whose experiences
                                                          Vienna, his father in Turkey. My mother came
 paralleled those of victims of the Shoah and the
                                                          from Berlin.
 fact that Andreas, a historian, had Jewish family
 history, led them to organize the placing of a           My parents immediately decided to leave Vienna
 memorial stone in the sidewalk in front of #49.          and ultimately, made plans to go to America. It
 The stone was placed in November 2017.                   was a difficult process to obtain the correct
 Residents of the building and of the Society of          documents and affidavits. However, in
 Memorial Stones attended. A poster that                  December 1939 we arrived in New York with no
 included a picture of me with my parents, the            money, no silver, no jewelry but some clothing
 wording on the stone and the names of former                                                (Continued on page 7)

The Bridge                                            6                                            SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
and small household items. My grandparents, not          mentions Adele Halfon, whom I have no
 believing that things would get worse, stayed            knowledge of. Under that it has the names and
 behind only to eventually perish. Without skills         birthdates of my father, mother and me followed
 and not knowing English, my parents, with the            by “saved by escaping”. It concludes, “Another 56
 help of Jewish agencies, were offered some               Jewish citizens lived in this house”.
 menial employment and child care Their early
                                                     We all looked at the pictures, viewed the video,
 years in the U.S. were difficult, but by late 1955
                                                     listened to Gabi’s talk and thanked her. The next
 they were able to achieve the American dream
                                                     day I sat at my computer and found myself
 and purchased a small house in Queens NY,
                                                     staring at the poster on the wall with the picture
 where they lived the rest of their lives.
                                                     of my parents and me, a picture I had seen
 My early childhood, without siblings or             innumerable times before. That’s when the “what
 grandparents, was not that much different than      ifs” hit me. What if my parents had not left, would
 many of my contemporaries. By necessity, I was      I be writing this story or any story? If the situation
 quite independent. Through adolescence I never in Europe would have miraculously changed, as
 felt deprived or different. I was the first in my   my grandparents and many others thought it
 family to earn a college degree, served in the      would, would I have had a relationship with them
 Army as a reserve officer, had a meaningful         or my other grandmother in Germany? Would I
 career as an architect, and for 56 wonderful years have had siblings? What would my childhood in
 have been married to Carol. Together, we raised Vienna (besides a lot of Sachertorte) have been
 three amazing children, two girls and a boy, and    like? Would I have become an architect? And most
 we are blessed with four of the greatest            importantly, would I have met Carol with whom
 grandchildren, the oldest of whom will be married I’ve shared so many loving years with? What
 next year. So, ultimately, the Nazis were not       if……?? What if…….??
 successful.
                                                     In April, 2018 our two daughters were able to
 However, in a world witnessing ever increasing      spend several delightful days in Vienna visiting
 terrorism, authoritarian leadership and             with Gabi, Andy and their children on the fourth
 nationalistic fervor the stone you set today and    floor of #49. My parents lived on that floor and
 others set throughout Vienna, will hopefully serve Gabi insists, without proof, that was their
 as a continuous reminder not only of what did       apartment. In July, Gabi and family visited Boston.
 occur here but that we must all stand together      We spent two days with them including a
 and fervently say: “Never again”.                   promised ‘lobstah’ dinner. With all the emails,
                                                     back and forth, the stories and pictures our
                                                     daughters shared with us after their visit, it felt as
                                                     if we had known each other for years. A few days
                                                     ago, realizing that the district where the recent
                                                     terror attacks in Vienna occurred was near their
                                                     apartment, I emailed to check if all was OK. They
                                                     responded they would have been dining there as
                                                     it was the last night before a curfew was to be
 After the ceremony, Gabi sent us a video and        imposed. However, they were home, in
 many pictures of the event, two are above. The      quarantine, having been exposed to COVID-19.
 picture on the left is the memorial stone in place. Our friendship, concern for one another and
 On the right is the previously mentioned poster     frequent correspondence continue, as do the
 hanging on the building wall. The translation of    virtual hugs we started to exchange long before
 the wording on the stone starts with “1938-1945     there was a pandemic.
 as Jews, Robbed - Expelled - Murdered. It

The Bridge                                            7                                          SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
A Family Novella
                                           By Ruth Ades
When one lives by the water’s edge, the backdrop         destruction along the roads he took, but he got
of water scenes change daily. Storms come and            through. As he drew closer, he saw our summer
storms go, but on August 30, 1954, Hurricane             home appearing to be upright. The winds had
Carol decided to show her ugly face. She came,           subsided, the waters had receded, as the storm
she attacked, and she destroyed! There was a             had passed. However, as he got closer to our
questionable weather forecast that morning in            beach home, he saw that the second floor had
South Dartmouth, MA, but Alan and his father             tipped, and two adjacent sides of the house were
had gone to the factory very early, as usual. The        gone. Alan realized that the waters that had
rest of the family remained at home, comfortable         flooded the first floor and then receded, had
in our summer cottage. We kept track of the              taken every bit of furniture and all our
forthcoming Hurricane Carol, and we kept Alan            possessions. Our beautiful and comfortable
alert as to the height of the water. As the waters       beach home was empty. Everything was gone.
became higher, quicker than expected, thrashing          The house had been hit by the floating fence
fiercely against the oceanfront windows, our             across the street, which gave a karate chop to the
concerns began to grow about evacuating. I               corner of the house, knocking it off its
contacted Alan and requested he return home              foundation. How devastating this was for him to
immediately, and he did.                                 see. Alan returned home to report, and we were
                                                         all anxious to see for ourselves. We learned later
We and 12 of our neighbors evacuated with two
                                                         that Hurricane Carol had struck our beach home
dogs from our beach homes. As we left our
                                                         at noon, just minutes after we left. It looked like a
wonderful summer cottage, the water level in the
                                                         scene from a movie as everything had been
driveway was already ten inches high, we all
                                                         totally destroyed. What was once our wonderful
crawled into the car that Alan had placed there
                                                         inviting summer home, was no longer.
just in case it was needed. He could barely see
through the rain thrashing the windshield. The           Alan and I had been married just the year before.
brakes were wet, and the water was halfway up            We had many pictures taken, but more
the hub caps. Alan went very slowly as the car           important, we had beautiful movies taken of our
chugged forward with difficulty to the flooded           wedding. While we were being married, my
street. Could we make it up the hill through the         brother received a phone call from our neighbor
very low-lying area? The rains were attacking            telling him my parents’ home was burning due to
from above, and the wind whipped through the             an electrical fire. My brother left the wedding, but
streets, against the trees and our car, while the        I had no idea why. The next day, my parents went
floodwaters under us were churning away. We              to see the damage, and my father had a
had to drive more than three miles to our winter         debilitating stroke and died months later.
home which usually takes seven minutes, but this         Whatever memories I had from my wedding were
day took us 20 minutes, as we drove through              in pictures and movies once stored at the
blocked roads from fallen branches, trees, and           summer beach home and were now gone, thanks
downed power lines, but we did make it safely,           to Hurricane Carol.
thank God. Now, we all thought, what is
                                                         Mother Ades and I spent day after day at the
happening at our beach home?
                                                         beach house and woods next door trying to find
We were safely at home when Alan decided to              anything that we had lost, especially photos, that
take the car and return to the beach carefully. We       belonged to the family. Every now and then we
urged him not to go since it was still very stormy       found a silver candlestick buried in the sand, or
outside, but he went. We were worried about him          something worthwhile. The beach we now had
and what he would find. There was more                                                         (Continued on page 9)
The Bridge                                           8                                             SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
was full of newly acquired sand brought in from            which was such a gift for us. Six weeks later, while
the floor of the ocean. Every day we searched in           still searching on the beach, I found the second
the sand. One day after several weeks had passed,          reel, buried in the sand, and again Kodak was able
I saw the very top of what looked like a movie reel        to restore it. Slowly, Mother Ades and I found
box peeking through the sand, and lo and behold,           several items that kept popping out from the sand
it was one of the reels from our wedding. I was so         and in the woods. We loved finding whatever little
grateful and wondered if it could be saved from            we could, but we were very grateful for our lives.
having been soaked in the water and the sand for           After three years, in 1957, our summer home was
such a long time. Kodak in Rochester gave us               rebuilt and then enjoyed by four generations for
hope, and after we unrolled the footage and hung           60 years. We sadly sold this family home and
it up to dry as they requested, it was sent to Kodak       moved to NewBridge in 2016. We are very thankful
and refinished. Yes, it was the first reel of our          and happy here with the majority of our family
wedding, and once again, we saw my father ‘living’         close by. We are indeed blessed.

                                              Winter at Newbridge

         Barred Owl
     Photo by Michael Ross

                               Courtyard Sculpture
                              Photo by Diana Bronner

The Bridge                                             9                                           SPRING 2021
Cardinal Photograph by Michael Ross - the NewBridge Residents Website
Birthday Dinner
                                          By Len Green

 I grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, which is a blue-   duck as a special dinner for me on that day, and
 collar city of 100,000 people. We were an            she did so for several years. Then, years later, well
 observant, kosher family all of my childhood, but    after I was married with children of my own, we
 we lived in an entirely non-Jewish neighborhood.     had next door neighbors, Judy and Jordan, with
 We lived next door to the tiny corner grocery        whom we were very friendly. And Judy also had
 store that my father owned which was known as        her mother, Betty, living with her. As we were all
 “Sammy’s” or “the Jew store”, depending on who       sitting around one day telling stories, I related to
 was talking. When I was a boy, I always loved        them that my mother had adopted the idea many
 sports and we played in the street every day that    years earlier of cooking a duck for dinner every
 it was possible. It was entirely common for a        year to celebrate my birthday. On hearing that
 mother to holler from her window and say:            story, Betty said to all of us that next December
 “Tommy, go up to the Jew store and get a bottle      25, she would follow suit and prepare a duck for
 of milk”. It was just the vernacular of the street,  dinner us to celebrate my birthday together.
 and no offense was taken, until we got into an       So the following December 25, we went next door
 argument. Then, I was a “dirty Jew” and we           to our neighbors and while our children and their
 scuffled, until the next day and we were out         children played downstairs, Judy and Jordan and
 playing ball again.                                  my wife Arlene and I were having before-dinner
                                                      drinks while Betty was in the kitchen basting the
 Now, many of you here at NewBridge know from duck. Judy told us that her mother had gotten up
 Birthday Night that my birthday is December 25. early that morning and she had been in the
 And although my mother was an observant              kitchen preparing dinner for us since then. While
 Jewish woman, on Christmas Eve, she invited my we were enjoying our cocktails, Betty yelled out
 two sisters and me to hang stockings in order to from the kitchen “Jordan, you had better come in
 receive small gifts. As I grew older, I came to      here” and when Jordan went in, we heard Betty
 understand that my mother felt that although         say “Jordan, something doesn’t smell good” and,
 December 25 was my birthday, and although we sure enough, Jordan quickly determined that the
 did not observe Christmas, if all the other children duck that Betty had been preparing all morning,
 in our neighborhood were receiving gifts on that was spoiled, and had to be thrown out.
 day, why shouldn’t her children also have some
 fun? So my sisters and I would hang our              So suddenly, there were two families consisting of
 stockings the night before, and in the morning,      nine of us, at 2 o’clock on a holiday afternoon
 we each would find an orange, or an apple, or a      without the dinner that had been planned. Jordan
 couple of walnuts. We were quite poor and that’s and I got into a car and went out to buy dinner,
 all she could afford, but at least we received       and instead of the Chinese restaurant which we
 something.                                           knew would be open, we came upon a place that
                                                      sold barbecued ribs which was open on the
 As we grew a little older, my mother decided that holiday, and we quickly brought dinner back for
 we should have a special dinner to celebrate         our families, and laughed good-naturedly about
 my birthday. She decided that she would cook a       Betty’s good intentions.

The Bridge                                             10                                        SPRING 2021
“Knocking my head against a firm pillow”
                                                by Jack Sobel

 It was time to sell my jobbing company as I faced          4:45, the President called his treasurer to draw
 an uncertain future. For the moment, it provided           me a check. He never looked at my balance sheet
 an excellent income, but now Barbara was                   or profit & loss statement. I had to get a salary
 pregnant. I was frozen. What should I do with my           plus commission from an insurance agency. All
 BBA from Baruch College? Law was my first love             five insurance agencies asked for a list of contacts
 but so was finance and marketing. Accounting               to establish credibility and the amount they would
 and statistics were just tools for me, so I went to a      offer but I had no list to give them. I found an
 career counselor. He was an older executive, and           agency manager who offered six months' salary
 he told me that people coming from my class                and half the regular commission against a draw.
 would not make it because “you do not have the
                                                            My days were spent knocking on doors selling
 confidence, sophistication, and contacts”. Perhaps
                                                            group life and health insurance—evenings were
 he should have added: “And you’re Jewish”.
                                                            spent making cold calls from purchased lists, such
 I could not budge from my jobbing company, so              as new parents. Days and nights included courses
 the next stop was to see an elderly psychiatrist           with the American Society of Pension Actuaries
 who advised me to go into the insurance business           and seminars, including on Trusts, and Estates. I
 as she had a very successful nephew in that                would later add local and national study groups. I
 field. After three sessions, I thought it was worth a      was a lifetime student and loved it, and it
 try. The jobbing company had funded my evening             extended to other areas of business, investing,
 college and conservative lifestyle with its 14 hour        and even science. My first pension client was
 workdays. Going into life Insurance and employee           referred to me by an accountant. The plan design
 benefits would also allow me the freedom to                and actuarial assumptions went to this client's
 continue my education in the field. I needed to            attorney. He included it in his document
 sell my company but to whom? The small                     and submitted it to the IRS, but they declined it.
 manufacturers I approached said: “Go away and              He was not a pension attorney and had used an
 we will pick up your customers”. But they could            old forms book, because he was not up-to-date
 not duplicate my product diversity and                     on the code or regulations. I took his document
 proprietary products. A new tack was necessary.            back and changed a third of it by cutting, pasting
                                                            and photocopying after I had read the code,
 I called the president of one of the industry's
                                                            regulations, and court cases. But now I
 largest manufacturers and said I would either sell
                                                            understood the code better than ever before.
 my company or go into manufacturing. "Let's
                                                            Negotiation with the IRS enhanced my
 have lunch," he said. Careful to hide my 1950
                                                            knowledge. The IRS approved my plan, and now I
 Nash in the corner of the rear parking lot, I didn’t
                                                            vowed that I would never have an attorney
 want to outshine the Cadillacs, Mercedes, and
                                                            uneducated about pensions submit any
 BMW’s! As I sat down with him, he just happened
                                                            documents to the IRS. Later I was assigned by the
 to see his attorney in the restaurant, so he invited
                                                            American Society of Pension Actuaries to be part
 him over. For the next two hours, I told the same
                                                            of various task forces to help in 1973 with the new
 story: if I couldn’t sell, I would go into
                                                            pension laws.
 manufacturing. The three of us then went to the
 president's office. Finally, the attorney he had to  The final legislation was called ERISA: the
 leave as it was now about 3:30. I could see in his   Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. The
 eyes that he wondered why his client was             law included spousal rights, employee vesting,
 pursuing this question with this stupid kid. At                                           (Continued on page 12)

The Bridge                                             11                                            SPRING 2021
pension guarantees, and more, but was so               minutes. He said, “Go and bang your head against
convoluted and hard to understand. It was              the wall”. The wall turned out to be a firm pillow,
followed by multiple amendments, temporary and         because I had IRS approval for my plan
proposed regulations and so forth. Attorneys           design. Most of my plan designs had substantial
were bailing out with their clients into the hands     tax-deductible allocations to the owners. That tax
of pension consultants like my company.                attorney gave me referrals, which propelled me to
Commissions were modest but were a relatively          the high net worth clients, which became my
easy sale but, more importantly, a door opener to      target market—a big jump from my former
wealthy clients. One such the firm, a fourth-          modest clientele. One accountant said you have it
generation company with substantial prime NY           all: legal knowledge, actuarial expertise, and the
real estate, responded to my question of why they      ability to market.
didn’t have a pension plan. The clients told me
                                                       I used all that I had learned from Baruch College
that they had their top tax attorney who headed
                                                       in my pension operations. I was a lucky man
the accounting tax department, and their leading
                                                       because I was supported by a wife who ran the
law firm received an IRS rejection. I called the tax
                                                       household, raised our children, and let me knock
attorney with their permission, and he barked:
                                                       my head against a firm pillow.
“You have 15 minutes”, but it turned into 45

                                       When the Day is Lazy
                                        By Rona Goodman

               When the day is lazy                         even in a time of social unrest
               and heavy and thoughts                       even when so much seems dark
               about our uncertain future                   and lost. The sweet air coming
               crowd my mind, I try to                      through the open window
               find the flow of breath                      on this sunny afternoon is
               again, try to remember                       still cool as it touches my nostrils
               that breath is still a rare                  still sweet and fresh. The Earth
               miracle in this empty universe.              is still offering us this gift of life
               This may be the only place                   embedded in each breath. So,
               In the whole cosmos                          finding the flow of breath again,
               where breath exists                          is finding life again when so much
               Thus, every moment spent                     pulls toward fear and death. For now,
               breathing is still remarkable,               I choose to breathe and remember.
               even in a time of pandemic

The Bridge                                             12                                        SPRING 2021
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