Our English language obscurities
Along with several previous essays on this blog, Harry saved the ones on this page in a computer file he titled “BOOK 1”. He likely collected the pieces from his speeches or articles over the years,...
View ArticleOpinions on change, criticism and clarity
After a 36-year career in the federal government, Harry walked away in 1986 as an expert in his field, the media. But he never stopped writing about the media. I uncovered these 1991 essays in a...
View ArticleA tearjerker – and dream songs – to remember
Harry the music man, 2012 Did you see the movie “An Affair to Remember”? Note to young people: Watch it! I saw the Cary Grant version many times in my youth. Harry discusses the movie’s music in the...
View ArticleMy father’s advice: How to play the personnel game
On Sunday I’ll turn 65 (oh my!), so I thought it fitting to post a letter my dad wrote to me. In 1975, I was a college graduate living in northeast Atlanta and working downtown as a secretary in the...
View ArticleHarry’s telling story of his pal Al
Harry and his friend Al Skolnik in 1962, in Greenbelt, MD, News Review clippings I remember my parents’ dear friends Al and Elaine Skolnik, in our hometown Greenbelt, MD, always smiling and friendly....
View ArticleHarry wrote novels, too
Harry in the early 1960s Last year on this blog, I posted a slew of unpublished short stories Harry wrote during his life. Most I discovered in his boxed paper files, a few on his computer. He also...
View ArticleHarry’s taste for writing mystery
Did he pull out an old manuscript in the ’90s? After Harry died in 2014, I inherited the boxes he’d long-ago packed with bulky, brown accordion folders containing his typewritten novels – or parts of...
View ArticleHarry the correspondent
My dad answers questions I never asked him, in the following four communications he wrote in his elderly years. Each reveals an activity or feelings from his past, and each offers a bit of advice to...
View ArticleYoung Harry’s Greenbelt editorials
In this glimpse of Harry’s life, he was volunteer editor of his city newspaper, for 10-12 years in the 1950s and ’60s. Named the Cooperator in 1937, Greenbelt, MD, residents changed its name to the...
View ArticleEditorials recall events of the early ’50s
This is the second in a series of posts showing Harry’s editorials from the newspaper in Greenbelt, MD, in the 1950s. Greenbelt is a DC suburb founded in 1937 under FDR’s post-depression New Deal. The...
View ArticleEditorials spotlight changing times in old Greenbelt
On this page, we see more views of Greenbelt life in the 1950s. And, we see Harry’s budding passion for independent, community newspapers. This blog post is the third in a series of Harry’s editorials...
View ArticleHarry’s 1957 movie review, old Greenbelt anecdotes
In this fourth blog post showing Harry’s editorials in the Greenbelt News Review, we see more of his opinions and stories from life in the 1950s. One line in particular is a telling example of Harry’s...
View ArticleFor this editor, honesty was the best policy
As editor of the Greenbelt News Review (in a DC suburb) during the 1950s, Harry infused his honest feelings in the following stories. He also added humor in all but one – a comment on the free press....
View Article60-year-old articles store memories of friends, town
This page is the sixth (and last) consecutive post displaying some of Harry’s editorials as a young man in Greenbelt, MD. They’ve shown me more about the history of my childhood town and my dad’s...
View ArticleRadio interview conveys Harry’s diplomatic nature
Harry poses in the Pentagon parking lot for a media story in the 1980s If you stumbled across this page online, you may wonder what the big deal is about a 1986 National Public Radio interview with a...
View ArticleGreetings by Harry live on after all
This folder full of little poems led me to another discovery about my dad: He mailed them to greeting-card companies, only to be rejected by all. Throughout his life, he seemed to think...
View ArticleTimeless news-reading tips in 1973 speech
Publicity and photos from 1973 speech Click on photos to enlarge Do you remember ’73? Two weeks after President Nixon’s second inauguration, on Feb. 4, 1973, Harry delivered the following speech at...
View ArticlePoems honor marriages, friends not forgotten
Two years ago I began this blog to show us more about Harry’s life through his left-behind writings. In this post, we see yet more colorful memories from his personal files! When our family lived in...
View ArticleMemories for the Pentagon historians - Part 1
Since I began this blog in May 2015, I’ve focused on paying tribute to my dad through writings discovered in his files. In so doing I’ve delighted in connecting or reconnecting with family and friends...
View ArticleHarry recounts ’50s-era Pentagon publishing – Part 2
Harry’s notes below appear to be continued from those in the previous post on this blog. There he recounted how the Early Bird, the Pentagon’s former signature publication, got its name in the 1950s,...
View ArticleHistorical notes highlight Pentagon players – Part 3
Harry was fond of boss Zuckert (on right, above and below) On this page we see more reflections from Harry’s early Pentagon years. Whether he intended anyone to see them (other than the original...
View ArticleHarry’s wrap of ’50s Pentagon memories – Part 4
Here’s the last of Harry’s pages of notes in his computer files on the Pentagon publishing operation in the 1950s. They were last edited March 3, 2010, although that could be the date he reorganized...
View ArticleHarry as funnyman at reunion in ’96 – Part 1
Harry loved jokes. On March 23, 1996, he kicked off an event with lots and lots of them, chuckling as he went along. And judging from the laughter on the audio cassette tape, the audience enjoyed...
View ArticleGreenbelt’s laugh-a-minute reunion – Part 2
Mark with his Zadie in ’86 – a chip off the old block? Maybe Harry was a wannabe comedian. Luckily he lived to see my son actually become one. I dedicate this post to Harry’s grandson, Mark, in honor...
View ArticleHarry’s interview with WWII Oral History Project
In his interview with the World War II Oral History Project, Harry recalled that Aug. 15, 1945, was the day President Truman announced the end of the war. He also mentioned another reason for the...
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