In This Brutal, Divisive Election Year, Choose Optimism
Bernard Schwartz was the last person in my life to regularly refer to me as “kid.” When in the course of our many collaborations over the past two decades, he would approve of a job I had done on something, he would say, “Nice work, kid.” It was, when you are, as I am, well into your sixties, a title that was as appreciated as it was misplaced.
Bernard, a philanthropist, political activist, business leader, father, grandfather, husband, and mensch to the very marrow of his bones was born the same year as my own father, 1925. He was of the greatest generation. He remembered the Depression and served during World War II. Those experiences, as much as the great business success he worked for throughout his adult life, shaped who he was and the kind of America he so strongly believed in.
He died earlier this month at the age of 98 after a long and extraordinary life. If, based on that life and the spirit of the man, I were able to bestow a title on him, it would be “the most optimistic man in America.”