Eulogy for Dr. Norbert Sander, Jr. by James Conroy

On July 11th, 1937, at the age of 38 George Gershwin died suddenly. The next day there ran an obituary by John O'Hara that began: "George Gershwin died yesterday. But I don't have to believe it if I don't want to."

The shock, incredulity, even total denial conveyed in those words echo back in the reaction we have all shared to the death last Friday of our great good friend Norbert Sander. I would give anything not to be standing here now facing you and trying to express on your behalf the numbing sense of loss his death brings.

His achievements in the public realm have been praised over the last few days in print, in cyberspace, and over the airwaves. Words like champion, hero, and visionary are repeated again and again. And they are true. And they are merited. But, they say little of the extraordinary qualities of the private man we have loved.

And he was a rip from the very start. Three nights ago, I sat at his dining table with his mother, Gertrude, a glorious 95 years of age and a woman whose laugh says all we need to know about the source of Norb's joy in life. She recalled that he arrived here in Yonkers, after a 26-hour labor, with two black eyes and his fists raised and clenched. He had muscled his way past the finish line and won his first race.

Gertrude saw him through many, many more contests and victories, and despite the sorrow of this moment, she still revels in the brilliance of her son. As Norb, in the persona of the Frenchman we know he secretly wanted to be, would say so often, "Quelle histoire!" "What a story!" His sister Carroll described his early days as a sports impresario. In 1956, while Don Larsen of the Yankees was merely pitching the only perfect game in World Series history, Norb organized, administered, and starred in the legendary world series between the Amackassin Indians and the Eastview Tigers. That success was quickly followed by a fair directed by Norb that boasted an underground fort, a roller coaster, and a fun house. The fun house cost 10 cents to enter; the experience consisted of having a sheet dropped over your head and being pummeled by the carnival workers. "Quelle histoire!" "What a story!"

The scant five minutes I've been allotted here barely allows a peek into the richness of this man. The embracing warmth, the zest for life, the abiding faith in God, and the lifelong romance with the Catholic Church. And above all his consuming love for his family -- Bridget, his bride, with whom he found as great a share of earthly happiness as anyone would be lucky to claim. And his four cherished daughters, Eva, Jessica, Emma, and Phoebe, on whom he lavished an unbounded, ever-giving love.

In wider realms, Norb found his metier in competitive running, and as we all know from the public tributes, won a track scholarship to Fordham Prep and then to Fordham College. Not as well-known is that after Fordham he taught high school biology for a year at St. Raymond. By the end of that year, he had decided to go to medical school. Learning this, his students chipped in (as we say in the Bronx) and bought him a stethoscope. Beautiful story. "Quelle histoire!"

So, on to medical school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he merely compiled the highest grades ever recorded by a foreign student in the history of that venerable university. Instruction, of course, was entirely in French. Formidable! "Quelle histoire!"

He continued competitive running while in Switzerland and, returning to New York, he linked up with a pioneering band of road runners who, all unaware, were forging the soon to be world-wide phenomenon of grass roots long distance running. Here, Norb found his path to public renown, with victories in the New York City Marathon, the New Orleans marathon, the Yonkers marathon, the London to Brighton race, and on and on, and on.

His crowning public glory was the miraculous victory embodied in the restoration of the Fort Washington Armory into the premiere track and field and youth service facility it is today. I am privileged to be one of the half-dozen or so people Norb invited to sit with him one evening about 25 years ago in the balcony of the Armory and gaze down upon a defunct drill floor peopled by hundreds of homeless men on cots, while he spun his dream of future glory. I am confident that when we left that building that evening, Norb was the only one who believed it would ever happen. And of course, thanks to him, it did. "Quelle histoire!"

But still there is so much more to the man. What initially hooked me is that he is the greatest, funniest storyteller I've ever heard. His encounters with life were just the raw material for epic, almost operatic, arias about: flying over Long Island Sound with his pilot father at the controls; the dreaded Friday night dinners of fish cakes and stewed tomatoes; hidden meanings in the movie Mighty Joe Young; dilapidated cars careening in the dark in the Swiss Alps; playing violin for a posh crowd in a fancy Manhattan apartment though he could not in fact play the violin; baking and eating potatoes with a gang of young peers over an open fire in the Westchester woods; working in the Post Office at Christmas time; and helping to lift the formidable Mrs. Reilly out of the snow bank she had fallen into near Amackassin Terrace. "Quelle histoire!" in the hundreds.

It simply never stopped. Until now.

At the end of countless evenings of food, wine, music, singing, poetry recitations, political arguments, Joycean wordplay and Yeatsian eloquence, we happy few would customarily wind up on a quieter note. We would sing a song that, since Friday, I've come to hear as Norb's own words. In all the years we sang it, I never imagined it would become his valedictory and final earthly wish for us.

All the money that 'ere I spent

I spent it in good company,

And all the harm that 'ere I've done

Alas; it was to none but me;

And all I've done for want of wit

To memory now I can't recall.

So fill to me the parting glass.

Good night, and joy be with you all.

All the comrades that 'ere I had

Were sorry for my going away,

And all the sweethearts that 'ere I had

Would wish me one more day to stay.

But since it falls unto my lot

That I should rise and you should not

I'll gently rise and I'll softly call,

Good night. And joy be with you all.

Au revoir, Norbert.

Quelle Histoire!