Saturday, February 8, 2014

Myles - by David Sanders

To the Friends of Myles Beskind. Below is the text of my tribute to him.

***********************
This morning I am have to say something that I've never said. Something I hope I won't ever have to say again. Go Dogs!

Marcie has asked that this memorial be uplifting and funny. I'd like to apologize right now for not entirely meeting this requirement.

I am not very good at this, speaking in front of such a huge crowd. But I had a friend in High School who was. He loved to speak in front of people. He was a natural leader. He always seemed to strike a perfect balance between maturity and mahem, between serious and fun. I can assure you none of his friends did this as well.

He ran for class vice President in 8th grade and won. Then he ran for president the next year, but lost. It didn’t matter, to me that was brave enough. He competed in Mr. Briarcliff, was the anchor on our fake news show, loved debating and was not only comfortable, but was clever and sneaky. Like the time he was debating, against, the raising of the drinking age. The opposing team pointed out the dangers of teenage drinking and driving. When Myles suggested raising the driving age instead, the other team readily accepted.

If he were here today, he'd be the MC and have the most fun. Obviously he couldn’t be here today, but I can tell you, he was fun, he was funny, he was serious, and, as my grandmother often said, good looking. He easily moved between the cliques that you find in High School, but for some reason, he was very dedicated to his friendship with me, even though I was in the remedial stoner football clique, obviously.

He was a good guy, but not always good. We had a 9th grade geometry teacher, who was a holdover from a previous generation of teachers. I guess from a time when students had respect. He smoked cigarettes and always had a cup of coffee. One quarter we had biology just before Geometry. Myles and I decided it would be funny to put dissected frog parts into his coffee. It seems kind of sick now. What a bad influence you were, Myles.

Myles was a very smart guy, balanced in his verbal and math skills. In 11th grade, I was in his advanced English class. We had an assignment to write an essay on the worst, the deadliest, of the seven deadly sins. Which are, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride

I knew which was the worst sin. We had talked about it in class, Pride! Myles didn’t choose to write about Pride, he chose Sloth. Sloth? My immediate reaction was, that’s stupid! But I learned a few lessons from that, one be different, be creative. The point was the writing and the arguing, not the answer. I also realize today, that maybe Myles really did believe that sloth was the deadliest sin. Maybe that is why he ran marathons and wrote a book in a month. The book not the marathons. I consider this another example of what made him different. He always had a more sophisticated view of the world. He could see further than I could. He could see our situation from the outside. And he was more serious about the future.

I went to hebrew day school from kindergarten through 7th grade. I attended the Hebrew Academy of Atlanta, and some of my classmates are here today. Myles went to public school all the way. In 11th grade, Myles suggested we take a Hebrew test for high school credit. Who thinks of that? So we went down to the old Jewish Community Center. Of course, Myles did the planning and I drove. We took that test and Myles did better on it than I did. I had hebrew half of the school day for 8 years, and he did better on the hebrew test than I did. Honestly, to this day, I still don’t know how that is possible.

Who remembers the movie Animal House. The Delta Chi fraternity of John Belushi had something in common with our Bnai Brith Youth Group chapter, the Sons of Israel. In our youth group, (Anyone here from SOI?) he was the smooth leader, Eric "Otter" Stratton, to a bunch of hooligans. At our convention, each chapter President would present their chapter with a preamble. He always had a long and entertaining one. One year, one of our brothers, who I will refer to as our Chief Hooligan, got into a little scuffle with another attendee. From that convention on, Myles would introduce us with, among many other, “SOI, home of fighting Kevin Rubin.” It stuck with me. No, he wasn't the president every year, but that's how I remember it now.

Myles was a very hard worker. He got his first job at Solo Foods, a, now gone, grocery at La Font Plaza. He worked at the pretzel place in the "new" food court at Lenox Mall, right across the gyro place where I worked. Later we worked together at Krogers at Toco, where he was promoted to cashier and I was fired!

Next Topic: A typical High School Friday or Saturday Night.
The only difference really was whether Danny Glusman could be there or not.
Step 1, get beer. This could be done at the Pitch and Putt on Johnson Road, or perhaps the 7-11 on Briarcliff, or maybe A&P, which is now closed.
Step 2, find location. We really only had 2 beer drinking locations, Executive Park, the office complex near Briarcliff and North Druid Hills or, for real excitement, the Cliffs, an office park overlooking I-85 near Clairmont.
If it wasn’t beer, it was Panchos on Buford Highway. There we could get margheritas and chips.
In college, we moved on to Good’Ol Days in Buckhead. I think we went there 6 days a week one summer. When we did become legal to drink, we were embarassed to show our IDs.
In high school, we were pretty much inseparable, and, obviously, we have remained close ever since. I was his best man at his wedding, and we looked awesome in tuxedos. My son Danny and Josh and Ali were born at the same time. It was always important to me that they have a relationship.

I am proud to say, as well, that Myles and Marcie are the god parents to our son Jeremy.

When Myles was diagnosed with cancer again! I suggested we take a trip to a road race with Danny and Luis. By the first race, he had already had cancer for a year and undergone many weeks of chemo, so he beat me in the half marathon by 45 minutes. After his second year with cancer and another year of chemo, he beat me by an hour. My wife, Ghila, made these t-shirts in support of Myles and in commemoration of our trip. During my last brutal 5 miles of that race, I got a lot of "you're doing greats" from other runners. I used up my voice yelling, "no, the guy with cancer is already done!"

I spent a lot of time with Myles these past four weeks. I tried to be with him every day and many days more than once. I know, however, that he would have done the same for me. He always was supportive of me. He always defended me. I know I didn’t always deserve it. I know he could have hung out with more popular people, but apparently he had an eye for hidden talent. For me, the most important thing about Myles, was that he was a very loyal friend."

No comments:

Post a Comment