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Myra Hirschberg - Brampton,
Ontario, Canada
Larry has been in my life and in my heart since 1969, when he was an almost pathologically withdrawn freshman at the University of Rochester, managing to throw himself with great enthusiasm into folk dancing, which he discovered there for the first time, without ever actually speaking to anyone for most of that first year. Somehow, his talent, his intelligence, and his essential goodness of character came through, and over time, the Larry we all know emerged from the silence - in fact, he became hard to shut up. I remember one famous night when he insisted on describing, in microscopic detail, each of the Ten Decisive Battles of History. (I remember the night, but not the Battles: his lecture technique was still in development.) When we were still in college, we found ourselves, one Christmas, travelling together in Ireland. We were young, broke, and stupid, which is the only explanation for why we ended up, for reasons that escape me now, deciding that having hitchhiked to the ruins of the medieval Mellifont Abbey and being unable to find a ride back to town, the only logical thing to do was to spend the night in the outside public restroom at the abbey ruins. This was a less than edifying adventure, but he told the story with glee for many years afterward - never more so than a couple of years ago, when I received a postcard from Mellifont Abbey, which he was now visiting as a respectable grown-up academic colleague and friend of the current curator, entertaining the entire staff with his recital of the tale. Larry and I remained close friends through the decades and the distance that life imposes on us. He stayed with me on his regular trips to New York - he loved New York City and his enthusiasm always recharged my affection for the city - I never really knew my Brooklyn neighborhood until I saw his brillliant photographs of the streets I walked every day. What I will carry with me always is the memory of Larry's laugh - and with it his humor; his joy in life; his enthusiasm for meeting people and finding out what makes them tick; his passion for art in all its forms: dance, music, photography, architecture; his warm intelligence and his boundless capacity for friendship. I will miss him always.
Addendum:
About 25 relatives and close friends from all over - Milwaukee, Harrisburg, Atlanta, New York, Reading, New Jersey, London, Toronto, Maine and elsewhere - gathered for the weekend, renewed old friendships, and shared fond memories, photos, slides and even a recording of Larry playing Bach, as well as the kind of wonderful food and drink that Larry would have greatly appreciated - including wild blueberries from Maine, bagels and lox from Manhattan, kringle from Wisconsin, and Tom's delectable fruit wines and hard cider. On Sunday afternoon, we all walked along
a fern-scented path, past the maypole, to a glade in the woods behind Tom
and Gail's house, where Larry's ashes were laid to rest under an oak tree.
Following this, we moved to a chapel whose clean spare lines and lovely
architecture Larry would also surely have appreciated, for a service that
included Paul Sullivan, a friend, playing one of Larry's own compositions,
and Larry's lovely nieces Emily and Dierdre playing "Ashokan Farewell"
on fiddle and piano. Many, many people spoke - there were stories and memories
from every stage of Larry's life, reflecting the myriad sides of his character.
Larry's cousin Brian designed a gravestone based on Gothic architectural
elements, but also including allusions to Larry's life as a dancer, writer,
musician, opera and ballet fanatic, hiker, nature lover, and eater (the
design includes his grandmother's apple pie, barbecue sandwiches, and chocolate
chip cookies!)
This is the piece that Tom wrote and graced us with at the graveside: For Larry
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