Someone I'd Like You To Know

For my last post on the last day of the year and the decade, I want to take an opportunity to use my blog to say a few things about someone I know and love.  It’s a very quiet New Year’s Eve in my home just north of London. I have a few child-friendly games and perhaps some fireworks to look forward to with my husband and children, but there’s a lull in activity right now.  I’m going to use it to toot someone’s horn; which is particularly appropriate as it is his birthday: Step up to the podium Gene Marsh, my father. 

My Dad, who is 74 years old today, is the most interesting and happy, retired person I know. Actually, “retired” sounds wrong, because he is busy all the time.  Since ending his second career in commercial real estate a dozen or so years ago, he has cultivated a life that is active, fulfilling, sociable and community-minded. Giving up paid employment meant gaining more days in the week to devote to improving himself and the world around him.  I am guessing that his level of activity is rather higher than most retirees, which is why 74 is no longer old in my mind.

Who is Gene Marsh?  He and my mother Lynda have been together for 55 years, married for 51 of them. He is Dad to me and my brothers, Larry and Jonathan.  He is a loving grandfather, (from afar unfortunately) to Elias, Sophie, Koa and Pip.  He is the eldest brother of three; Joel and George live in California. I think that if you asked family, friends and acquaintances alike, they would say that his most apparent trait is that he is always learning, eager to pass on his knowledge and generous with his time and attention.  Over the years, he has taken classes at Ramapo College and One Day University, finding himself a keener student in mid-life than when he was at the University of Bridgeport 50 years ago.  I’ll admit that there have been times when I didn’t appreciate the seemingly constant flow of information from him, but as my father well knows, when the child grows up, the parent seems somehow smarter.  I’m glad he persevered. Now the newspaper clippings that arrived by Post, come via hyperlink. Gene with old friends Harry Rutten & Erwin Frankel

In recounting Gene’s many pursuits, I don't have exact names and dates without calling "home" and asking, so I write as an observer rather than as a biographer.  Give me a break if I mix up my stories a bit.  For more than 30 years, Gene’s favourite pastime has been cycling. I don’t remember how much he cycled beforehand but, suddenly around 1978 he was a founding member of the Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey.  Back then, as a 17 year-old, I was mortified by my father’s form-fitting woollen cycling outfit.  Since then, Lycra has become the ubiquitous cycling gear and his fitness at 70 outstripped many men of my age.  He is a past President of the now 1,300 member club, was a ride leader, bike safety and maintenance teacher, a lobbyist on behalf of bicycle lane and helmet laws, social event coordinator extraordinaire, newsletter editor and bicycle mechanic.  BTCNJ brought together his love of scenery, travel and fitness, new and different people and group membership together.  Gene did everything from ½ day rides up the Hudson River to 10-day bicycle trips in America and Europe. Last year, with great regret, Gene had to give up cycling, but I suspect that if the ban is lifted by his doctor, he will be back on his bike before you can blink.  Still, he has always had other interests.  He has been a member and patron, with my mother, of the Wyckoff YMCA, spending winter mornings there for yoga, swimming and weight-training and wishing for snow so he can cross-country ski or snowshoe. 

While BTCNJ is a volunteer, non-profit organization, he seemed to get back as much as he put in.  You can’t buy the rich experiences or relationships Gene has had through cycling.  However, it was just the start of several “volunteer” roles he has held.  His next step was to qualify as a Literacy Volunteer to teach adults to read.   Several years later, he moved on to teach English to Russian immigrants via Jewish Family Service.  These students, many of whom had been professionals in their native country, needed better English in order to attain admission to post-graduate studies, professional bodies and/or full employment in fields like engineering and dentistry, in the United States. He took a personal interest in his students’ lives, helping them get jobs, their children into special school programs and summer camp and acting as an all-round advisor.  We became accustomed to the heavily-accented voices of his students phoning him to talk things through, and exotic boxes of chocolate, halvah and Russian folk dolls being brought home at the holidays.  It was clear that he occupied a special place in their lives long after the tutoring was finished; some of those relationships lasting to the present.

Tutoring eventually gave way to house-building projects when Gene joined Habitat for Humanity.  I think the ethos of the organization appeals to him; it requires recipient families to donate hours to the project, doing whatever they can to earn a stake in their project. It’s a logical fit anyhow.  Gene likes architecture and what he didn’t learn from doing renovation for his own investment, he learned on the Habitat job. He’s always been the kind of father that points out comforting symmetry and likable eccentricity in buildings, quizzing me about columns, plinths, windows and lintels.  Gene’s commitment to Habitat has gotten him out of the house at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday mornings for years to lead a crew, doing plaster-boarding I think.  Not even falling between one house’s upstairs floor joists, skinning his torso, losing his glasses and caught by his elbows, cooled his interest. His enthusiasm for the work they do has inspired friends to volunteer as well.  Maybe I will too, one day.  As a teenager, he introduced me to This Old House and later HGTV.  Indirectly, it was probably responsible for my purchase of an un-modernized, 150 year old cottage in England, unafraid of living through a complete renovation. I’m waiting for an opportunity to actually get my hands dirty.

What came next? Approximately five years ago, Gene joined two friends, Drs. Sam Cassell and David Roth, and others in a 5-year project of social activism that culminated last month in the opening of the Bergen Volunteer Medical Initiative, Inc.’s Healthcare Center in Hackensack, New Jersey. The BVMI will provide free medical care to Bergen County residents who fall into the crack between social services and being able to afford private health insurance. Initially thinking he would be useful to BVMI because of his knowledge of New Jersey commercial real estate and building practices, Gene‘s stint on the Board of Directors and position of Vice-Chairman of the Board, has encompassed everything from site inspection to personally fund-raising among his many friends, overseeing paint colours and then, actually putting up chair rails himself after the contractor had finished.  He even stepped in as the acting Chairman of the Board for a while this year while the incumbent was away, giving up much of his time to ensure that the opening would not be hit by delays. 

You know what I love the most about it all? When Gene was telling me all about the opening of the Healthcare Center and the festivities afterward, he told me that the response to the Center was unlike anything he had experienced before; the feedback, appreciation and support for the quality, scale and significance of the project was more than he could take in.  He had known why he wanted to be a part of BVMI from a political perspective and how he felt this was a contribution he could (therefore should) make to the community.  The significance of it to the people it will actually serve didn’t really hit home until its opening. My family visited the site while wires were still hanging.  I’m sorry we couldn’t be there with my children, to show them that individuals like their grandfather, can come together and bring an idea to life.  Now, Gene has the pleasure of taking back his free time and I wonder what is on the horizon.

I don’t mean to confine this to the highlights of his retirement, make him sound like a boring do-gooder and myself a hired Toastmaster. Gene is multidimensional, commendable for much, but also a person with self-awareness, striving to improve himself all the time.  We share our love of cooking and I have many newspaper clippings of recipes he has tried, tweaked and passed on. I now put my own spin on Genie’s Bean Salad, Coq au Vin and Beef Stew.  In fact, all three of us kids cook, so I hear about my brother’s recipes, cooking and parties through Dad, tinged with pride.  He is also the father who introduced me to camping, took me to work with him on days off from school, made a place for me near him at his basement workbench and passed on to me his appreciation of art, photography, classical music, foreign travel and all sorts of people. He and I have enough qualities in common that we have been known to butt heads. His mastery of sarcasm is one trait of which I wish I hadn’t been on the receiving end so many times, or acquired myself.  Nobody’s perfect.  Thankfully, he is also sensitive, humble and warm.  Now, it’s my children's turn to have bike-riding lessons from Papa, sing to his ukulele playing and toast marshmallows over a fire.  They get his and my Mom’s emails with links to You Tube, amazing photographs and silly jokes.  More importantly, he shows keen interest in who they are and who they will become.  I’m proud of him, his achievements and how he has lived his life and I’m happy to share some of him with you.

Happy birthday Dad.  Over in England, we are raising a toast to your great life.