Burt’s stories

Burt always loved talking. Thanks to this gift of gab, I had heard all his recollections before he retold them to me after he got dementia.

I knew about his teen loves, the two Marcias, and his guy friends Paul and Eddie. I heard about his after-school jobs at the camera shop and a grocery.

Burt had told me about his thrill at making a delivery to Kim Novak at the Sherry Netherland. He hoped to see her but her maid took the package of photos at the door.

In the summers, he worked as a soda jerk/ short-order cook in what Jews of that generation called the mountains. He had even served bacon and eggs to Henny Youngman at one time.

When his boss refused to pay him his due, Burt walked out. Burt went back to Brooklyn where he met his cousin’s best friend.

She said he was too young for her but she had a sister. Burt was married to that sister for 24 years; they had four children, 2 boys and 2 girls whom I consider my daughters.

They divorced and Burt had a six-year interim relationship before we met. He was not a man to live alone.

Burt enjoyed some fifty years on Wall Street. He worked all over; every firm but one went out of business.

He was proud of his experiences. As well he should have been. He started as a runner. He became a stock loan clerk. He worked on the floor of the Exchange at some point. He was an options trader when we met, working at one of the old renowned firms.

In the breaks between jobs on Wall Street, Burt sold pipes to plumbers and supers at a Harlem supplier. He had a short gig driving a dry cleaner’s truck, too.

Ultimately, we worked together in the business I had started for some 5 or 6 years. I closed that business in 2016. Burt had stopped participating a few years before that. He spent his days walking around town while I worked; he was in his 70s and had earned a retirement.