Lou Sanders
To this day I don’t know how my father got to know Lou Sanders. My Dad was a member the service club called Kiwanas but I don’t believe Lou was a member. They could have both been affiliated with the Better Business Bureau in Cuyahoga Falls since they were both businessmen, Dad a veterinarian and Lou the owner of a hardware store at Blake Road Shopping Center. We had purchased all kinds of hardware, including lawn mowers, from Lou---“Mr. Sanders” to me---when I was a child and into my teenage years. Maybe Mr. Sanders had a dog or cat that my father looked after. I just don’t know. Since both Dad and Mr. Sanders are gone now, there’s no one to ask.
Another puzzling thing regarding their friendship and mutual respect for one another was that Dad came from a Presbyterian farm background and Mr. Sanders was Jewish. Neither of them held prejudiced opinions but they wouldn’t exactly have operated in the same social or religious circles in those days, and my father never socialized anyway.
I often heard my father speak of Mr. Sanders in positive terms at home. He admired his business sense and his fairness in dealing with customers, and that included our family. He liked his sense of humor and ability to put customers at ease with talk about baseball, the weather, city hall, anything really. He knew how to do some pretty clever card tricks and could dazzle kids with his skill there, and he always had a new joke. The thing to note here was that the jokes were never dirty yet they always made you laugh. That’s hard to do.
When I was about twelve Dad took me to Mr. Sander’s store at the end of a workday after both he and Mr. Sanders had closed their businesses for the day. Dad greeted him with a handshake and a smile. He always shook my father’s hand earnestly---pumping it with his right hand while holding Dad’s elbow with his left---very warm and genuine.
Mr. Sanders had some tea and cookies for us so I realized that this meeting had been planned. I felt kind of grown up since I didn’t drink tea or coffee at that point in my life. But I did that day.
After Dad and Mr. Sanders chatted for a bit, covering some municipal issue or point about taxes, Dad asked him politely to “Please tell my son your story.”
That afternoon I heard a personal account from a survivor of the Holocaust. Mr. Sanders spoke calmly and diplomatically, describing his childhood in Poland, his friends, his large, extended family, a special girl he thought resembled one of the Hollywood movie stars of the 1930’s---stuff we all experience. He talked of the dreams he had for his future. He had hoped to become a doctor and help others. He liked to play soccer---“football” he called it, as it is known all over the world, and he loved attending magic shows. Maybe that’s what sparked his interest in card tricks. As a young man Mr. Sanders dreamed of having a large family of his own one day.
Mr. Sanders lost his parents, grandparents and siblings in one of the death camps operated by the Nazis in Poland. He outlined their incarceration, deportation and deaths without any show of emotion, which made the saga even more chilling, more resonant, for me. He alone managed to survive and immigrated to the United States shortly after the end of the war, and lived alone in an apartment in Cuyahoga Falls until he passed away.
I had learned about the Holocaust in school but the story Mr. Sanders told me changed the way I viewed the world.
When Mr. Sanders had finished he asked if I had any questions. I was stunned by his story and had none.
My Dad, who had sat silently throughout, said to me “Don’t ever forget what you’ve heard here, and don’t ever let it happen again.”
Then he stood up and shook Mr. Sanders hand, using the same firm handshake that they greeted one another with earlier, and we went home.
© Kent Jones 2016
To this day I don’t know how my father got to know Lou Sanders. My Dad was a member the service club called Kiwanas but I don’t believe Lou was a member. They could have both been affiliated with the Better Business Bureau in Cuyahoga Falls since they were both businessmen, Dad a veterinarian and Lou the owner of a hardware store at Blake Road Shopping Center. We had purchased all kinds of hardware, including lawn mowers, from Lou---“Mr. Sanders” to me---when I was a child and into my teenage years. Maybe Mr. Sanders had a dog or cat that my father looked after. I just don’t know. Since both Dad and Mr. Sanders are gone now, there’s no one to ask.
Another puzzling thing regarding their friendship and mutual respect for one another was that Dad came from a Presbyterian farm background and Mr. Sanders was Jewish. Neither of them held prejudiced opinions but they wouldn’t exactly have operated in the same social or religious circles in those days, and my father never socialized anyway.
I often heard my father speak of Mr. Sanders in positive terms at home. He admired his business sense and his fairness in dealing with customers, and that included our family. He liked his sense of humor and ability to put customers at ease with talk about baseball, the weather, city hall, anything really. He knew how to do some pretty clever card tricks and could dazzle kids with his skill there, and he always had a new joke. The thing to note here was that the jokes were never dirty yet they always made you laugh. That’s hard to do.
When I was about twelve Dad took me to Mr. Sander’s store at the end of a workday after both he and Mr. Sanders had closed their businesses for the day. Dad greeted him with a handshake and a smile. He always shook my father’s hand earnestly---pumping it with his right hand while holding Dad’s elbow with his left---very warm and genuine.
Mr. Sanders had some tea and cookies for us so I realized that this meeting had been planned. I felt kind of grown up since I didn’t drink tea or coffee at that point in my life. But I did that day.
After Dad and Mr. Sanders chatted for a bit, covering some municipal issue or point about taxes, Dad asked him politely to “Please tell my son your story.”
That afternoon I heard a personal account from a survivor of the Holocaust. Mr. Sanders spoke calmly and diplomatically, describing his childhood in Poland, his friends, his large, extended family, a special girl he thought resembled one of the Hollywood movie stars of the 1930’s---stuff we all experience. He talked of the dreams he had for his future. He had hoped to become a doctor and help others. He liked to play soccer---“football” he called it, as it is known all over the world, and he loved attending magic shows. Maybe that’s what sparked his interest in card tricks. As a young man Mr. Sanders dreamed of having a large family of his own one day.
Mr. Sanders lost his parents, grandparents and siblings in one of the death camps operated by the Nazis in Poland. He outlined their incarceration, deportation and deaths without any show of emotion, which made the saga even more chilling, more resonant, for me. He alone managed to survive and immigrated to the United States shortly after the end of the war, and lived alone in an apartment in Cuyahoga Falls until he passed away.
I had learned about the Holocaust in school but the story Mr. Sanders told me changed the way I viewed the world.
When Mr. Sanders had finished he asked if I had any questions. I was stunned by his story and had none.
My Dad, who had sat silently throughout, said to me “Don’t ever forget what you’ve heard here, and don’t ever let it happen again.”
Then he stood up and shook Mr. Sanders hand, using the same firm handshake that they greeted one another with earlier, and we went home.
© Kent Jones 2016