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Showing posts from June, 2011

Arthur M. Goldberg. 1926-2003.

For Father’s Day, I am posting the remembrance of my father I wrote upon his death in 2003. It is still my first inclination to phone him when I have something to discuss. My father was a complex man in a very simple package. Growing up, I heard the tales of his earlier life. An apartment on 26th Street in a building which still had an outhouse … the move to Sunnyside … summers in Carmel and weekends in Rockaway … Xavier High School – a Catholic military school – as a twelve year old “Jew” … Manhattan College at 15 … off to war as an enlisted sailor at 17 before returning to graduate. Fordham Law … my mother … L.A. … Middle Bay Golf Club … the law practice in Jackson Heights. I heard all the stories – most many times – and I loved to listen. But I never knew that guy. I’m sure others could better capture that Arthur Goldberg on paper. I did, however, know my father and he, too, inspired a few tales worth telling. When I was young I could not imagine why he was not sitting in the Oval O