Harvey Goldberg Remembered
In the last several years I learned from Mitchel Cohen that my personal knowledge of Harvey Goldberg would be of value to those who honor him today. When I told Mitchel that I had gone to the U. of Wisconsin I did not know anyone honored Harvey or of his importance to the academic world.
In response, I promised to write about my past knowledge and friendship and Mitchel kept telling me, ‘time is running out’.
So before that happens, I am putting into the written word, my rich memories of Harvey so others can know him as I once did.
I don’t think Harvey would object.
It was in late Nov 1963, the same year, day President Kennedy was shot that I met Harvey..
I was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin Madison. I had finished my Swimming Class at the bottom of The Hill and was making my way up to the Academic classroom, a trek which I accomplished with great effort as the Hill was steep, time was limited and my mind was on my efforts to be on time, when someone yelled at me from a slight distance away, “No class today”
A phrase they repeated until I stopped my arduous trek.
The words formed an incredulous thought. “No school. Classes cancelled”
At the U of Wisconsin there was probably only one other time when classes had been cancelled for inclement weather that defied traversing but today the weather was tolerable, average for the Wisconsin hearty.
“Why “ I asked as if the knowledge of the what would calm my disbelief.
“The President’s been shot”, my informer said. “Which President?” I asked.
“Kennedy”, he yelled back. Annoyed at my ignorance he rushed on leaving me standing on the Hill trying to understand and decide what to do at this critical moment.
I went home
As I made my way down the Hill I realized that I was alone, No one on the Hill. A deafening silence overwhelmed this campus where 26 thousand students went to class, climbed the Hill on many a day. Now there was no one, just me rushing, running away hoping to find something of the usual. Even the Bar at the bottom of the Hill where on any morning at seven thirty or earlier men stood by the Bar window, beer in hand looking out at us pathetic students walking briskly to class. Even they were not there. It was surrealistic, this moment between when Kennedy was shot and his death was yet to be announced.
Arthur was at home when I got there. He was sitting on the sofa listening to the radio.
Arthur Gundershein and I shared a small studio apartment with a common bathroom off the second floor hall way. Arthur was soft spoken seemingly shy man who I was instantly attracted to because of his beautiful very straight, dark blond hair that moved as he moved, even, it seemed, when he talked. He was domestically inclined without compromising his masculinity. That meant he did the shopping for food with me and then he cooked, he did the dishes, he walked the dog and I played with the Cat.
And he did it all, he said, and I agreed, because it was his apartment. I shared the expenses and he paid the bills.
Arthur was both restless and transfixed. The radio was on and we heard over and over again, it was The Cubans who did it. The Radical Left.” those damn Commies” was the phrase implied. They cause nothing but trouble.
I sat next to Arthur, frozen with trauma. Suddenly Arthur got up. I can’t stay here” he said. “I can’t listen to this anymore. I’m going to the Union”.
The Student Union, situated on Lade Mendoza was home to most students at one time or another. It was where students hung out night and day rather than going to class, or because they went to class and needed a beer to recover. Or just because it was there and it was filled with like-minded people, student all approximately the same age.
“I’ll be back soon”, he promised and he was.
He rushed into the apartment and announced he had met a Professor who was new to Wisconsin, just back from India. He was very upset and Arthur invited him to come over to our place.
“Here!” I asked, again placed into instant shock at the unusual, the unexpected. “Yes”, He answered as he started to straighten up our usual mess.
“No one has ever visited us before. Arthur. He probably won’t come”
“Oh, he will come Arthur “,insisted.
“Within the next half hour. You’ll see. He’ll be here”.
And he was
“His name is Harvey Goldberg.
“ NO. Not my history Professor?”
“Yelp”
But I forged his signature”, I protested. “Remember? His class was all filled up and what if he finds out?”.
“He won’t”, Arthur said
“He is upset about Kennedy. That’s what he cares about. He thinks this is all very very important”.
It was less than an half hour.
Arthur answered the door.
Harvey came up the stairs without undo noise or commotion, following in Arthur’s wake he entered the apartment quietly.
Even close up Harvey was very thin and very busy. There was an oral of activity about him even though the first day in the apartment he made an effort to sit quietly, asking questions, talking about the book, a biography that he had recently completed an a minor person in the French revolution.
Arthur lingered in the kitchen area getting something for Harvey to eat or drink.
I sat near Harvey on sofa while the cat played with my hair from above. (Harvey did not like cats or dogs) and we had one of each) Harvey asked me if I would cook dinner when he accepted Arthur’s invitation. When I said, no. I don’t cook Harvey was very surprised.
The image of the American housewife dispelled as the radio announced that it wasn’t a left wing radical but someone from the other side of the divide.
A crazy man. A lone shooter. By the time Harvey left the apartment Kennedy was pronounced dead and the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, and the grassy knoll was about to become a most talked about piece of American real estate, a permanent part of our collective memories.
That’s what I remember.
It was a long time ago and my facts might be wrong but the essence of our initial meeting is captured. That moment when for years later people would ask, what were doing when Kennedy was shot.
Harvey became a regular visitor to our humble abode. He came over after classes, traversing the stairs in a noisy seemingly single bouncy fashion due to his always being in a rush, a hurry to go nowhere but that was his way.
He took us to his apartment to show us his books. I can remember every apartment/home I have ever been to. That is the kind of specific memory I have. But Harvey’s apartment defied my usual acumen. I remember nothing but the books.
It was the first time I saw floor to ceiling bookcases that covered the entire length of his one room apartment and both sides leaving room in the middle for his necessities for living and of course the doorway was book free.
I remember him, standing in front of the huge expansive bookcases telling us about what books he put where and pulling out a book talking about it briefly then returning it to “it’s rightful place”. I remember nothing of what he said and even if I did I doubt that I understood it.
Nothing about Harvey was usual or expected which made him difficult to understand and equally difficult to forget. But we tried.
He told us he had just returned from India and he described his New Year’s Eve at the Taj Mahal with great love of detail. Men, men he said, endless supply of men
Clearly Harvey was not comfortable in the company of Women but that didn’t stop him from coming over for his daily visit.
Harvey never ate with us. He stood over the table while we ate making his displeasure of our ways painfully obvious. Our feeding the dog on the floor and the cat on our kitchen table was unacceptable. he declared the arrangement “worse than India” something that at that time I didn’t fully appreciate. (I visited India many years later).
In the fullness of time we learned that Harvey had in fact not traveled alone. He traveled with a young man, a sophomore who returned from India with Harvey and now attended the U of W.
Both he and Harvey had applied to Wisconsin at the same time, Harvey to teach since he had been banned from Harvard because of his radical left leanings and the student because he followed Harvey to the end of the World and enjoyed a rich sexual life with him as well.
I don’t remember the man’s name but at some point they broke off their relationship and the young man found himself, with our help, in his first heterosexual relationship and Harvey was lost in the moment of change.
My last memory of Harvey made a dramatic impact in my life which I never spoke about and could never forget.
I was in his history class and earned the third highest mark out of several hundred students on my six week exam. I did equally well on my twelve week exam.
There was something about the way Harvey spoke, his dramatic style of jumping onto the stage, wiping his glasses off his face is a flamboyant gesture and taking the chalk in hand commencing to write furiously on the provided blackboard that set my mind in motion. The dates, names, places, stories filled me with awe and my notes written in my own personal hieroglyphics were sufficient to bring back the sound of his voice, the content of the lectures.
One day it was spring. Just like that. Spring came suddenly after the long hard winter and I didn’t go to class. Like everyone else, I went to the Union, the fresh smell of grass , the lake invited us all. My towel in hand my mind on nothing but the warmth of the sun and the inner sense of life that warm weather brings to the sufferers of extreme cold.
Harvey came over that evening.
His classes finished he came rushing into the apartment more excited than usual. “I remember”, he said ” I remember when I was a student here and the first day of spring when I too was at the Union. I didn’t go to class. But now, I am a professor and I had to go to class. HAHAHA” he laughed joyfully. “And I gave two thousand years of Egyptian history today” he said. “HAHAHA”. He went on happier than I had ever seen him. Two thousand years and only three students were sitting in the auditorium taking notes.
“HA HA” he laughed and left us in the same hurried manner that brought him into our midst. Even though I was gripped by fear at an impeding academic doom I too laughed as I pictured him writing more frenzied than ever as his love of knowledge and his instant understanding of the down side of being a professor converged.
He never tested us on Egypt. The final was on Iran, Iraq Syria and another country that I don’t remember now.
I had a solid A going into the final.
I remember taking my class notes with me to study for the final down by the lake. I was with my friend Ben. We were playing around and the wind came and my notes went into the lake. We retrieved them but they were compromised and I used some one else’s notes to study for the exam.
I didn’t think too much about this because with an A going into he final I was guaranteed a C in the course and that was okay with me. A C or an occasional B. I wasn’t known as a student. I cut classes regularly and rarely studied. I went to college to develop my mind, not to gain knowledge per se. And grades were an unwelcome part of the process.
Again we were at diner when Harvey rushed upstairs, he had my test paper in his hand. He didn’t’ throw it at me. He held it above us as he yelled down onto the tops of our heads, the papers rattling.
“I didn’t believe it”, he said. “ I had to get hold of your test to see for myself. How did you do this, how did you get a D on my test. You knew it all. You were my best student” he yelled. How did this happen!”
And then he said words that stayed with me for the rest of my life. He said.
“You are sick:, locking his eyes into mine. “You are a very sick lady!” then he turned away and rushed out of the apartment angry, disappointed. Finished. He was finished with us, with me.
He was right.
At the moment of Harvey’s retreat punctuated by his flamboyant nature, his energy his unabashed expression of what he cared most about
I was brought into an awareness that changed my life forever.
The next semester I took a course in Personality 101 and for extra credit I wrote a paper what has been used by many. I wrote a seemingly simple essay on why I need to fail and ended by affirming that success is still possible.
I remember standing in my kitchen at home. My mother was doing laundry downstairs. I held the report card in my hand, the A in Personality 101 bold on the page. And I was afraid afraid to show it to her.
I remember standing in that ambivalent state when the world seems to be on an edge and I remember simultaneously thinking about Harvey, how he ran down the stairs all a flutter, and I went downstairs and gave my mother my report card and quickly as quickly as I could I ran back up and out of the house, feeling on my own, ready to tackle the world.
Thank you Harvey for giving me an adult life filled with ideas and a kind of fanatic energy that often defies reason.
With the fondest of memories………
Linda Glasser Zises
