Meetings With Remarkable Men

1 He was at least two parties in Powelton Village (1964-67) with future Hippie Guru/Trunk Murderer Ira Einhorn.

2 He exhaled when handed a hash pipe by S. Clay Wilson and blew onto the floor the contents thereof, doing nothing for his outlaw reputation (2006-ish).

3 Melvin Belli once said to him, “Good to see you, Gerry.” (His name was Bob.) (1981).

4 He ran into Stan Musial and Red Schoendist in a Center City movie theater one rainy afternoon when he was cutting Hebrew school and they autographed his history of the Jews book. (1954-ish). [He chased Robin Roberts (1951/52), shouting “Hey!”, as he exited the Phillies locker room, and Robin Roberts stopped, said that was impolite – and gave his autograph anyway. And he got Jack Molinas’s autograph (1953), when Molinas was a college All-Star playing the Harlem Globetrotters, well-before he was either (a) was arrested for fixing games (1961), let alone (b) killed by the mob (1975).]

5 He peed at the urinal next to Roger Federer’s father. (2007).

6 Two or three members of Danny and the Juniors (perhaps including Danny) chased him from a pinball machine in a Southwest Philly luncheonette (1958ish). [He also slow-danced with an ex-girlfriend of U.S. Bonds (1960).]

7 He confessed to James Baldwin (1961/62) that he’d feel differently if James Baldwin married his sister – hypothetically, since he did not have a sister – than if his roommate did. “You’ve got to call a spade a spade,” James Baldwin said.

8 He was on the field when Joe Biden caught three fourth-quarter touchdown passes against his team (1959), which had been leading 30-0 and still won.

9 He passed Jeff Fort, leader of the Blackstone Rangers (now the El Rukhs) in a South Side Chicago church hallway (1968) shortly after charges against him of paying 12-year-olds bologna sandwiches to murder drug dealers had been dropped but (1987) before he was sentenced to life for conspiring with Libyan terrorists to blow up federal buildings. “Who’s he?” Fort said.

10 He let Ram Das – and, simultaneously, but separately, Harriet Blumberg – into his wife’s sister’s house the evening following their father’s funeral (1986). When Ram Das said he felt blessed to be caring for his incapacitated father, Harriet Blumberg said that was because his father’s stroke had left him incapable of yelling at him.