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Un
Homenaje a Jeff
(An
Homage to Jeff)
(Title
a bit pretentious perhaps, but just offbeat enough
that
we hope Jeff would approve. PBSII, no doubt, would.)
(Cherry
Red and Silver background to signify Jeff's school spirit)
Jeff's
senior picture - Accolade 1963
Sad
news: Jeff S., the President of the M/THS Alumni Association, member of
the Class of 1963, Princeton undergraduate and Stanford Law graduate, and the
single most important person in the organization over the last two decades in
terms of personal time spent managing it for free, annual work publishing the
alumni directory that has enabled hundreds, perhaps thousands of old friends to
reconnect, and much more, passed away in San Francisco, Tuesday evening,
September 24, following a long illness and hospitalization. When we learn
funeral arrangements, we'll post them.
This
page is devoted to Jeff recognizing his accomplishments and the invaluable
pro bono work he did to make the association and our reunions such
successes. More material to follow. Check back soon.
Some
reminiscences about Jeff from emails and our class message board
From
Roger H. (Lightly edited to remove last names).
Dear Jill -- I'm on the plane heading for San Francisco. It's the first time in a while I've been able to get out to that city where I lived for four years in the 1970s. And, until I got the news, I was planning to go see Jeff in the hospital -- hoping, perhaps to get a glimmer of recognition from him -- at least to say good-bye. Now,
except for Jo and others we are grateful for tending to him, most of us have to say good bye by sharing our memories.
Jeff has done an amazing thing with this MHS network -- re-connecting us all in this community of memories and renewed friendship. But the Jeff I knew was a pretty unique personality who had quite an impact on me at MHS and Madrid. Jeff was one of my best friends -- a friendship that began because we lived in the same area of Madrid, near the Estadio and the
Gran Via and so we rode the same bus to and from Torrejon. I was a pretty anti-social guy back then. In Jeff, I recognized a fellow nerd. He was one year older than me and he was still expanding his model railroad layout -- a little American world, really --that occupied a whole room in his (diplomatic corps) parents' apartment. From listening to LPs, he knew by heart the routines of comedians Bob Newhart, Shelly Berman, and Victor Borge, whose combination of puns, language play, and classical music seemed to fit Jeff's fertile mind and interests perfectly.
But while I was serious and solitary, Jeff was constantly amused with the world -- and happy to engage with anyone, especially people who had a sense of humor and the absurd. The time I spent with Jeff and Sam and Mr.
Sullivan in and around Russian class involved a multi-sided ping-pong game of outrageous puns and jokes in many languages going back to the origins of language and culture -- with Jeff and Sam egging on Sullivan because they could keep up with him. I read JD Salinger and Russian novels -- Jeff did that too, but he also regularly won choice roles in MHS theater productions and he was always provided the energy of the play.
I discovered Madrid by trailing after Jeff as we bounced from the Prado to a great place to buy explosive chemicals to the premiere of the movie version of Kafka's The Trial -- in Spanish in one of the biggest theaters in Madrid. We didn't do a lot of drinking or dating, nerds that we were, but we had a great time on the loose in that great city. And somewhere I have the mimeographed application form that Jeff (and perhaps John
P.) put together to screen applicants for an exclusive club: the International Fellowship in Defense of Learning and Culture. The actual name was longer -- and inevitably Jeff came up with an acronym. For Jeff, the world was a wonderful trove of treasures. I learned from him about music and literature and language and comedy. I learned about culture and intellectuals as a social force -- and I enjoyed his playful pillaging of American and European politics.
Turns out I had a lot to remember about Jeff. He was important to a shy guy way back then. We moved away, I plunged into the full panoply of the 1960s – civil rights, Vietnam, politics (and probably a delayed adolescence) in places like Alabama, Virginia, DC, Atlanta. And by the time I got to San Francisco and Jeff and I finally got together in the late 70s, it was great to reconnect, but we didn’t have the same things in common and we didn’t get together much. Instead, Jeff got us ALL together, and even when I moved back east, I just started taking for granted that he would be sending me Xeroxed directories, looking for “lost sheep” and reminding me about reunions. And the DC reunion was the last time I saw Jeff. I was amazed at how friendly my classmates now were toward me. And there was Jeff, who never had to learn that. He was right in the middle of the far-flung group, enjoying the society of his best friends who knew each other in the best times of our lives.
We’ll miss you, friend. Thanks for getting us all together. – Roger H. MHS 64
From
Janice L.
One
of my fondest memories of Jeff was a few years ago when I was in SF for work. I
had called him and we arranged to meet at a favorite Spanish restaurant where he
took over the ordering of both wine and food very capably. Then we jumped in
some old white rattly sports car he had and he gave me a grand and very
informative tour of "his" city. That was before he'd been exiled to
Vallejo. He was dealt some pretty severe disappointments over the years, in
love, career, domicile (about broke his heart when he had to leave SF) and he
pretty much unfailingly dealt with them gracefully and with good (and very dry)
humor. It was also delightful to see the joy he took in sharing his wine cellar
at Ft. Lauderdale - great wine - it was like food! great company!
I spoke with him fairly often. I'll miss him. I have been missing him.
From
Jill C.
One
of the things I loved about Jeff was his great, dry sense of humor. I think my
favorite memory of him will always be that Friday night at the Ft. Lauderdale
when a bunch of us were in his suite till the wee small hours laughing up a
storm. He was having such a good time and in top form.
Bless
his feisty soul. I sorely missed his presence at the reunion and will forever do
so.
From
Tony R.
I
never knew Jeff.
It appears that this is my loss.
I wish I had known him.
May he rest in peace.
From
Sam
I've always thought of Jeff - ever since the fall of 1964 - with equal measures
of affection, fondness, hilarity, admiration, guilt and shame.
Jeff, with his erstwhile partners in crime Mr. Pitts, Mr. Adams, Mr. Hickey,
Miss (Lash) LaRue and above all Mr. Sullivan, was the spark to almost every day
for me at MHS. I was lucky enough to have the Beloved Professor for three years
of Latin and two years of Russian (with one overlapping year, I think), and Jeff
was in all of them. The mental charge and challenge of just walking into class
every day was incredible. Sometimes I think that if we had all stuck together
for another couple of years the bunch of us would have cornered the market on
Pulitzers, Nobels, Rhodes and any other grand thing available - such was the
power of PBSII's ability to inspire and the potential of those of us who let him
inspire us. A pretentious thought, but not all that much off the mark.
Once - since I was notorious for cramming for tests and hating pop quizzes - I
was beautifully set up by Jeff and PBSII. I scooted into class just as the bell
was ringing - no doubt doing my best to spend time with Bill T. between classes 
- only to find the map rolled down over the blackboard, with the tail ends of
some Latin phrases peeking out at the left and right margins of the board. Oh
damn! A quiz! Somehow containing their glee, and feigning complete innocence
that I was in some way unaware of a well-known
and announced quiz, PBSII agreed to five minutes of prep time. The whole damn
class must have been in on it, because there was not a snicker or stifled laugh
while I sat there sweating bullets over some passage from De
Senectute or whatever the hell it was. Then came the dramatic reveal:
PBSII rolled up the map ... to a BLANK blackboard except for random words
written down the sides of the board. GOTCHA MISS STANLEY!!!
Jeff, as we all know, was more than a bit awkward socially. During junior year,
he finally screwed up his courage, as I was hoping he would NOT be able to do,
and asked me to the Prom. To my everlasting shame, I told him I had already been
asked by someone else. I had not, and I lied to him so I could hold out for a
"better" offer. I think he knew, but we never talked about it. A
little over a year later, when he was a freshman at Princeton and I was a HS
senior in Carlisle PA, he invited me for a football weekend. I accepted, of
course, but mostly because I wanted to go to PRINCETON, not to spend time with
Jeff. He put me up at the Princeton Inn - at no small cost, I'm sure. He and
Pitts had a room on the ground floor in their dorm, and many people stopped by
on Saturday before the game, including MHS people from up and down the East
Coast. The only person who would have been less likely to endure a football game
for me is Flip (hates sports except cricket), but Jeff went - even bought me a
mum corsage for the game. That night we went to see "Hedda Gabler" at
a local theater, after a really nice dinner.
Was I grateful or appreciative? No. I was a petulant little witch with a capital
B. I'm sure Jeff was more than happy to put me on the train back to Harrisburg.
He finally got the message ... and I didn't hear from him for years. Later, even
I couldn't believe how abominably I behaved towards such a sweet boy who's only
problems were that (a) he liked me and (b) he wasn't "cool" enough.
We finally talked about that disastrous weekend during a reunion get-together in
the '80s or '90s, and he was gracious in accepting my apologies. But I've always
felt like a heel.
Jeff was a kind, cantankerous, funny, wise, thoughtful, acerbic, and absolute
one-of-a-kind guy. Perhaps the family of his own that he never had let him bring
us all around him into the Association he groomed and nurtured. WE were his
family, and he was part of ours. Like Janice, I've missed him since this time
last year, and now that there is no hope of seeing him behind those sign-in
tables at a reunion again, a big piece of what has always been part of MHS is
truly gone.
I hope you are at peace Jeff - you deserve it. And thank you for all you did for
us.
More
to follow...
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MADRID
HIGH SCHOOL
fresco!