After almost a century, a light goes out

MY DAD, who was buried yesterday, died happy, but not satisfied.

Happy for the gifts of family, good health, longevity and love, but not satisfied, because America had not achieved all she could. He believed that America's people deserve health care - the last crusade of his life - as they deserve, say, free education through college.

Sydney Bernard Bykofsky, who spent 98 years among us, believed that every American deserves a job that pays at least a living wage, and that a rich America had no excuse to allow a child to go to bed hungry - anywhere.

Since moving to Florida about 20 years ago, and acquiring a wardrobe as colorful as the Seychelles flag, Dad's single extravagance was leasing a new car every three years.

About a decade ago, he picked me up at Palm Beach International in a low-slung, supercharged, sporty white Trans Am with a spoiler. Like a teenager, he just liked the way it looked.

His cars had radios, but he rarely listened. His cars had CD players and he had CDs, mostly Broadway musicals. That was strange because he seldom went to Broadway during the 75 years he lived in New York. Who could afford it?

A favorite of his was "Man of La Mancha" and it had been mine, too. Of course, he loved a play about a man tilting at windmills. "The Impossible Dream" was his life's mission.

In the car, no radio. At home, CNN, MSNBC and especially C-SPAN. (No Fox News at all.)

Dad was a socialist who voted Democratic out of necessity rather than conviction.

Socialism requires putting the needs of society ahead of individual wants. If everyone were like Dad, socialism would work. Because they're not, it can't.

In the mammoth 1947 blizzard, he put me on my sled and dragged me six blocks through waist-high drifts to the milk plant. He loaded the sled with cases of milk, dragged it back to our block and sold it to our neighbors for what he paid. He could have made a killing, but such a thought would never occur to him.

As a young father, in a brief encounter with capitalism, he and his brothers launched GM Trucking, a small trucking firm in the Bronx that went bankrupt. Employees were paid. The owners weren't.

Before moving into a housing project in Brooklyn, we lived in the South Bronx, a neighborhood of fire escapes and close scrapes. Dad was out of work for a time, supported by my grandparents, and after a few years of unhappy drift - baker, seltzer worker, egg deliveryman - he became an organizer for Local 169 of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. It was a job that gave meaning to his life.

He eventually was elected manager by the overwhelmingly black and Puerto Rican members who saw in him no gender, no color, no religion. They saw just Syd, who fought for them and put them first. They loved him, he loved them, and he loved the Amalgamated. He said "Amalgamated" the way patriots say "America."

The Amalgamated provided for its members better than America provided for its citizens. That's not to put down America, which I deeply love. The Amalgamated built low-cost housing for its members, opened health centers, created a bank to provide low-interest loans to members who would be chum to conventional bank sharks.

When retirement came, Dad wisely didn't slow down and administered to his Amalgamated retirees who had settled in Florida, and those in the Workmen's Circle, a Jewish fraternal organization on which board my father served for decades. Then he became involved with the Alliance for Retired Americans, the left-wing version of AARP.

Dad never took a dime for volunteering. Truth to tell, he did appreciate praise, which he unfailingly shared with his one and only love, his wife Jeanette, even after her death.

Treasured granddaughter Diana once observed, "Pop likes a good plaque." He had enough of them to nearly collapse a wall in his bedroom, representing the causes to which he gave his time and organizational talent - civil rights, labor, education (at one point he was president of both the PTA and the Fathers' Club at my elementary school), Israel, immigration, seniors' rights. He gave much, and he asked little.

To support these causes, he wasn't always around in the evenings and on weekends. Mom and Dad had a pact: He would save the world, and she would raise the children. We knew when he wasn't home that he wasn't in a bar or a pool hall. He was out helping people who had less than we did, and God knows we didn't have much.

Back then, he wasn't very demonstrative. I didn't learn much from what Dad said because, like most kids, I wasn't listening. I came to realize that I learned from what Dad did - the integrity with which he conducted himself, and how he treated others.

This didn't stop Dad and me from arguing. We argued - loudly and often - but never absent love. Who will I argue with now?

His emotions blossomed with the arrival of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And how he loved them, and how they loved him. It was amazing to see these generations mix and laugh as "Pop" taught them card games they had never seen before (and then he would let them win).

Well into his 90s, blessed with strong health and a sharp mind, he never, ever, stopped fighting for what was right. He never, ever, stopped trying to do the best for the greatest number. And he never had that "old man" smell.

When someone is 98, how surprised should you be by death's arrival? I was, because when I campaigned with him for Democrats in Florida in October, the best man I ever knew was energetic and strong. I believed he would touch 100, but that didn't happen. When he went, he went out mercifully fast, like a light being turned off.

That was what happened. For the family, and for America, after almost a century, a light went out.

Phone: 215-854-5977

On Twitter: @StuBykofsky

Blog: ph.ly/Byko

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