Henry Littlefield Remembered 2003

I really appreciate your wonderful remarks. I was very lucky to know Henry for all those years. When I flew up to Niagara University for the State Championships of 1967, I experienced a similar type of departure. Here I was included as almost a member of that great team. Here was Jimmy Davis, on top of the wrestling world (he's still talked about today), the late great Alex Cunningham, Doug Garr and Mario Criscione all winners, and scoring members of that championship team. Here is the great Henry Littlefield in the center of the action and adulation, along with Randy Forrest one of the greatest competitors of our time and me! Here I come along from Boston University, flying in from Providence, Hartford and Syracuse and landing in a snowstorm. Here I am with not a bed to sleep in, nor literally a “pot to piss in” and Henry says, “Richie get in the picture, you belong as much as anyone!” Wow! Top of the scholastic wrestling world, and even I did not know that this was his last match. The saga ended there and that night. I was there with him when we walked out of the door of the White Plains HS on that cool March night of 1962, and he put his big arm around my shoulder. In our first official year as a team, Henry was telling me how he had made the mistake of wrestling Bobby Danetz at 183 instead of Howie Wilson, who wrestled up at heavyweight. He told me that he would never again let his heart outweigh his brain when it came to who should wrestle where. I was always at his side during the Divisions and Sections the next five championship years. In fact at age 18 he had me run the Sections at MVHS and I ran it the next two years. What a great five years they were. We were undefeated in Section I dual meets, won all the Holiday tourneys and the Divisions and the Sections. We broke all the scoring records, and re-wrote the history book of Section I!

So that night it was all over. The next year Henry went to Northampton and the book closed on a unique time. Of course Randy and Jimmy were good, very good, but nothing would really be the same. I stayed around until about 1977 when Jimmy left and that was it for me. I had a business to run, a house to maintain and two children to raise no less being active in local politics. An era ended.

Henry grew up without a father, went to Trinity Prep, lived in Manhasset, LI, taught Jimmy Brown how to wrestle in the “Y” pool, went to Columbia University, wrestled and played football for the class of 1954, met Madeline Smith from Long Island, fell in love, got married and went into the Marine Corp. He told me once how he came to Mount Vernon, but I forgot. He met the legendary General Lewis “Chesty” Puller at Camp Lejeune, re-enacted the famous Marine landings on Okinawa for the 10th Anniversary of that great battle in 1955, and started to teach in Mount Vernon in 1958. He started a wrestling club with Sully Mott and the great Bill Sywetz, and their first official team year was 1961-2. I met him in the AB Davis gym, after; I was cut from the basketball team by Vinnie Olson. We had had our differences. When I talked to Henry I told him that I had spent one year at Horace Mann and came in contact with Gus Petersen, who was the trainer there. Petersen was a famous turn of the century wrestler, and an equally famous coach at Columbia where Henry met him as his career wound down. We both liked history and Henry ask me to help him with the team. From that day on we were rarely out of communication with each other for almost 40 years. Henry loved science fiction, baseball, mysticism (especially Edgar Cayce) and the ironies of history. When I met him, in my junior year at Davis, I was already regarded as one of the top history students. I had read practically every book on WWII in the MV public library by the time I was 12, and Henry and I talked WWII history constantly. We rarely talked about wrestling and I rarely gave him my opinion on the sport until years later. I helped him run the practices at Edison Tech, and he turned over almost everything to me that involved management. I did the ordering of the uniforms, the wrestling shoes, not sneakers, the headpieces, the kneepads and even the tape. I organized everything with complete fiat from the Coach. We had huge teams and he had to make order out of the chaos that could have developed. The high point of the practices was the wrestle-offs. I would time and score the wrestle offs. Quite often I would let the clock run and run to make sure a real decision was rendered. But no one ever questioned me. In fact over those 5 years and the ensuing 10 or so, no one ever questioned me about anything. Just the fact that I had a “special” relationship with the “Man” gave me a lifetime pass. Both Randy and Jimmy always treated me like a “brother” and we got along famously until the end of the run in 1977. I was 32 years old and had seen hundreds of matches, scores of tournaments, and G-D knows how many matches. I knew all the Section greats from 1961 until 1977. Who I did not know, Randy or Henry told met about. But after Lee's departure, I never saw Mount Vernon wrestle again.

By the way I know your sister, and just spoke to her husband the other day about our upcoming 40th reunion. I write a newsletter twice a year for my class in the name of the late Jon Breen, a close friend and classmate of mine who died at age 48 in 1993. I have raised about $25,000 in Jon's name and sponsor an essay contest yearly. I give and judge a history prize in Henry's name yearly. I have been doing the Jon Breen Memorial Fund Essay contest for 9 years. I know Linda Fairstein and used to golf with her older brother Guy. I'll e-mail you a copy of the last few newsletters.

So, hopefully I have filled in some of the gaps; give me a call one of these days. It will be fun to talk about those “good old bygone days”.   rjg  

Henry Littlefield Article in the London Financial Times            3-2003

My sister, Mrs. Charles (Kaaren) Hale of London, sent me your article that included your section on “Back to Oz.”  It was of great interest to me because I knew the great Henry Littlefield longer and better than anyone except his dear wife and widow Madeline. I met Henry as a high school student in Mount Vernon, NY, a medium sized city just north of the Bronx, a borough of NYC. It was in 1960 when I was 15. Henry was an exceptional history teacher and history was one of my intellectual interests then and now. But I was also an athlete and Henry was emerging as one of the finest scholastic wrestling coaches in America. He had been a great competitor at Columbia University, was a Lieutenant in the US Marine Corp, where he wrestled and earned a black belt in Judo. After his discharge he competed in the American amateur wrestling world of Olympic freestyle, Greco-Roman, and Partire. Henry competed for the NY Athletic Club and was a member of a number of National AAU winning teams. At 6'5″ and 250 lbs he was quite a mountain of a man. John Irving, the novelist and a enthusiastic amateur wrestler and coach described Henry in his memoir “Trying to Save Piggy Sneed” affectionately and he stated in an interview with “Salon” magazine, that he had two sets of friends, the literary types and the athletes- and they were mutually exclusive. Littlefield would have been one of the few friends of his that bridged the gap between his literary and athletic sides.

I knew and loved that great man for 40 years until his untimely death at age 66. He left Mount Vernon High School for Northampton, Ma, and eventually Amherst College in 1967 as I had graduated college. He came to my wedding; my wife Linda and I visited him and his wife and daughters in his home on Massasoit Street in Northampton Ma. He taught history at Amherst, was Dean of Men, was their outstanding wrestling coach, and by the way lived in Calvin Coolidge's old home! Henry wrote some great pieces on Cool Cal. I raised a family, ran a business, and we both talked on the phone and wrote often to each other. In fact I estimate about 5000 letters were exchanged from September 1963 when I left for college and the spring of 2000 when he left us.

Henry went out to Monterrey, California after 9 years at Amherst. He was such a great legendary figure in the Amherst wrestling room, that when he left, the team refused to have another coach. Henry settled eventually in Pacific Grove, ran the York School as Headmaster, taught and lectured at the Stevenson School on the Monterrey Peninsular and created a whole new world for himself. He acted, he preached Church sermons, wrote poetry and was a counselor to many. When Henry died of colon cancer, I traveled out there with a protégé of Henry's a wonderful former wrestler and coach named Randy Forrest. Even though we flew to San Francisco together and drove down and back to Monterrey it was a lonely journey. Neither of us, both married with grown children and at ages 55 and 61, had ever been to California. It was a brave sad new world for both of us. Randy a giant of a black man from neighboring New Rochelle, was a legendary figure to a nicely well off Jewish kid from Mount Vernon. We came from two different worlds when we met in 1960. We were two different and distinct types of worshippers at the feet of this great and wonderful man. Even though he was only 11 years older than I and 5 years older than Randy he was our leader bar none. We talked all the way to Monterrey and back. Once there, we were part of an incredible throng of 1000 or more people that came to his memorial service. Of those people, few even knew he had wrestled or had been one of the great coaches in America. If he had lived in the East for that extra 24 years, maybe 10,000 would have come out! It really closed a great and marvelous chapter of my life. It was a tearful farewell to his wonderful wife Madeline and their now grown children. I remembered when their second child Mary was born when I was a sophomore in high school. Now both little girls were grown women. So Randy and I traveled back after 3 long days together. We had not talked much in the last number of years, but we were totally immersed with each other. Can you imagine two men married about 70 years combined, traveling without our wives for the first time, and re-hashing wrestling bouts competed 35 years earlier? Strange! That was the last time I saw Randy. He moved to Virginia to be near his wife's family and left New York, Westchester County and New Rochelle behind after 60 years. It was fitting. I met him because of Henry, and over the intervening 40 years we always talked about Henry, and now that Henry was gone maybe our time was gone too.

I remember so well Henry's constant interest in the “Wizard of Oz.” He loved that story, and he loved mysticism. He always talked about Baum and what he was trying to say. Henry always was searching for the real meaning of life. He was always wondering about those elusive answers. There was no one like him, and all who knew him will miss him forever.

October 3, 2003

The Journal News

Letter to the Editor:

letters@thejournalnews.com

The Money Pit President and the “Do-Nothing” Congress

Here we are thirteen months from our next national election and we are experiencing an interesting phenomenon. On one hand we have the Money Pit President who has spent this country into unprecedented deficits without doing anything to improve the deteriorating rolling stock of the country. With schools, bridges, roads, sewage systems, watersheds, and the power grids of the country suffering from a case of fiscal starvation, the President, like Tom Hanks asks for billions for his Money Pit in Iraq. Most people would probably support his effort there if he hadn’t fabricated most of the information that led the people and Congress to initially support the recent and continuing war. On the other hand we have our new version of the “Do-Nothing Congress”. This term was first used by President Truman to characterize the Republican led Senate and House during the 1948 campaign. We have a Congress that has passed tax relief for multi millionaires, while ignoring health coverage for millions, soaring prescription drug costs, the drainage of American jobs overseas, unprecedented trade deficits, increased crime, rising unemployment, scandals on Wall Street, the profligacy of corporate brigands, global warming, water quality, energy dependency on foreign suppliers, funding for Homeland Security and an endless and growing list of other inadequacies. When President Bush came into the White House, on his full first day in officer, he reflected on a prayer inscribed on a mantelpiece from John Adams, “… that only the wise and honest may rule under this roof.” Can we really believe that that prayer has been fulfilled?

Richard J. Garfunkel

Letters to the Editor

The Journal News

letters@thejournalnews.com

June 30, 2004

To the Editor:

Last night my wife Linda and I went to the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville to see Fahrenheit 9/11. At the end of the sellout performance, Michael Moore’s film was given a standing ovation. Mr. Moore has done a great service to this nation with his powerful cinematic indictment of the Bush administration and its cynical defense of the war in Iraq, its unseemly and duplicitous connections with the Saudi Arabian royal family, its failure to capture Osama Bin Ladin and his Taliban allies, and its payoff to big business at the expense of the average soldier. As Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” President Bush has wrapped himself in the bloody red flag of patriotism to indulge in foreign adventurism without true regard to the ongoing problem of worldwide terrorism. Moore alerts us to the fact that Bush had exercised little regard for terrorism before 9/11, was unprepared for the possibility of attack, and had Sadaam Hussein in his sights from his first day in office. No one doubts that Sadaam Hussein, and his regime, were a stain on the worldwide body politic. But after years of containment and the attrition of his armed forces, why were we lied to about his power, his weapons of mass destruction and his connection to Al Queda? Why didn’t the Bush Administration level with the American people? Maybe the American people would have felt differently, and thought twice, about sacrificing its sons and daughters for a war fought over oil and the removal of another petty dictator.

Richard J. Garfunkel

The Journal News

Letter to the Editor:

May 17, 2004

Recently we have all been suffering from the effects of escalating gasoline prices. This negative trend for the average American driver will probably be replicated for all of us in the coming heating months. The long-term prognosis of being dependent on foreign fossil fuels is not only unhealthy for our balance of payments deficits, our supposed economic recovery and ultimately our national independence. Therefore, again the impetus for alternate sources of energy must be explored with vigor. Recently I met with Ms. Nicola Coddington, who coordinates the Town of Greenburgh’s Department of Energy Conservation. Not only does her department dispense invaluable material on energy conservation, but also she informed me of the upcoming June 8, 2004, meeting at the New York Power Authority offices in White Plains on energy and technology. This meeting has been called to encourage the efficient usage of energy to boost one’s businesses and institutions. I have recommended to Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner to set up a town commission to explore the uses of wind turbines, solar energy, and hybrid cars in helping lower town energy costs and also finding ways to supply less expensive renewable energy to the citizenry of the Town of Greenburgh. Only through aggressive local actions can our communities start to reverse this continuing disastrous trend.

Regards,

Richard J. Garfunkel

Member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board

Town of Greenburgh

Letter to the Editor

CBS- News880 Radio

Chrys Quimby

July 2, 2004

 Thanks for your response- below is a letter to the editor that will be published in the Journal News. I have paid attention to politics and public policy since I was in my teens. Over the past 40 years I have been in more political campaigns than I care to remember. I wish to reiterate that your on-air remarks smacked of “monster media” arrogance. Whether one agrees with George Bush, current American policy, the direction we are going as a society, our leadership of the western (free) world, or a myriad of other issues, one must understand that we have become a terribly divided and polarized nation. What so irks me, and so many others, is the fact that much of the airwaves are dominated by previously marginalized one-issue endomorphs.  It seems that the “mainstream” media constantly seems to bend over backwards to be fair to these individuals, especially the ones on the right. I regard myself as a “centrist” who clearly understands the dynamics of what motivates the many different aspects and angles of opinion in America. But for sure, Moore's film has, in the vernacular, exposed the sordid underbelly of international business regarding the Bush family's relationship with the House of Saud. In the main, though, we as a society must confront the fact that lower middle class Americans are doing most of the fighting and dying for our continued American economic hegemony. I have nothing against our hegemony, and I support our dynamic capitalistic system. But we need “fairness” and the current rift in the American body politic is a reflection of that 'great divide” that continues to widen between rich and poor. Essentially the mainstream media is “rich” and must be careful to not exacerbate that continuing fissure. Michael Moore has exposed that growing chasm more than once. He has taken on the corporate greed resulting in the degradation of Flint, Michigan. He has taken on the NRA and the fact that we have over 11,000 firearm deaths in America, probably more than the whole outside civilized world has had in decades, and now has taken on the “war for oil.” There is no doubt that we need oil and it is the lifeblood and mother's milk of our industrialized world. But let us recognize that fact and spell it out. Moore's “documentary” is no less dramatic than Murrow's “Harvest of Shame” or his exposure of Senator Joe McCarthy and his tactic of political character assassination. We must recognize that Moore has made an important and dramatic contribution to this ongoing argument as to who “rules” America, the people or Wall Street?

RJ Garfunkel

October 30, 2003

Letter to the Editor

The Journal News

 Beware the lure of Network News!

Recently my parents, who are respectively 99 and 95, were part of a National Study conducted by scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of Maryland and led by Dr. Nir Barzilai. Because of its conclusion that there may be a cholesterol-linked gene that may be the key to long life, ABC World News Tonight contacted me. I was asked to please make my parents available for an interview that they wanted to do on this emerging story. I agreed and was at my parent’s apartment this past Tuesday to facilitate this effort. Little did I know, but I was soon aware, that this interview team would take up five hours of my parent’s and my time and it would be as disruptive and intrusive as possible. Of course we went along with the delays, repetitiveness and insipid questions for the sake of the story and to be part of history. After it was all over, I had second thoughts about the whole ordeal, but thankfully my parents didn’t get to their advanced age by not being hardy folk. It wasn’t long until I received the foreshadowing call, that the ABC News was limited on their time, and the segment would have to be trimmed. So in conclusion, like many others their segment was left on the “cutting floor.” What a waste of time, what a waste of money, and besides, I was told that five other teams were intruding on others, no less! The report came on, last night it said very little, not unlike the rest of network news. So beware of the lure of fame, it is fleeting.

Richard J. Garfunkel

September 24, 2003

To the Editor:

Rights without Responsibility

I read with curious bemusement the recent article regarding the antitrust suit filed by Mr. Alan C. Milstein on behalf of his client the former and now suspended Ohio State University running back Maurice Clarett. The athletic department of Ohio State, for certain actions and violations of university and NCAA rules, suspended Mr. Clarett. They generally involve the allegation that Mr. Clarett did not fulfill academic requirements, that he took monies from a businessman “booster” of the team, and that he exaggerated the value of items supposedly stolen from his vehicle. Because of these indiscretions, Mr. Clarett has been suspended from playing football. To Mr. Clarett’s lawyer this conduct is irrelevant, and because his client can no longer play football, staying in school is meaningless. What was he doing in school in first place? Education? Are you kidding? Oh! He was playing football. Now that he cannot play, because of his alleged violation of the rules, Mr. Clarett wants to be rewarded by having professional teams bid for his services by entering the college football 2004 draft. But the rules state that one must be at least three years past one’s graduating high school class year. Hence Mr. Clarett is ineligible until the 2005 draft, and therefore enter lawyer Milstein. Mr. Milstein says throw out the NFL Draft rule, because his client is being economically harmed, and therefore the courts should trash the “draft” standards the league have imposed. What does all this mean, rights without responsibility. Mr. Clarett wants what he can get, and he will go around or over the rules or have them changed. I say reform must start long before we get to this stage. Big-time college sports should bring back “education” into the equation and stop “babying” these so-called students from day one. If they want to turn “professional” so be it. If the NFL wants mature athletes and has an “age criteria” so be it. But the “bottom line” to this whole equation is, end the duplicitous charade that big-time college sports have become. 

Richard J. Garfunkel

Letter to the Editor

The Journal News

July 27, 2004  

Even though I have generally disagreed with former President Jimmy Carter, I admired his speech as well crafted and his extensive interview with PBS's Jim Lehrer. As a consequence of that speech and interview, President Carter was questioned by David Brooks of the Times and Mark Shields. Both Brooks and Shields acted like professionals in stark contrast to that troglodyte Chris Matthews. Watching Matthews bait the Governor of Michigan was the ultimate example of tastelessness in reporting and interviewing. The story isn't Matthews ambition for the spotlight and his constant interrupting harangues, but what our political leaders have to say. For my money, I find his type of so-called throw-back to gonzo journalism repugnant. Whatever happened to civility and intelligent discourse?

But of course the highlight of this great evening was the appearance of that dynamic duo Hillary and Big Bill Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, a greatly admired US Senator from New York, who nationally is the most respected woman in America, framed the argument perfectly for the former President. She spoke from the heart about the need for unity in our politically fractured land. She talked eloquently about how 9/11 changed the political and social landscape of our country and how the present administration has squandered our world-wide capital in unilateral and divisive actions.

Of course former President Bill Clinton, who holds the unique position as one of the only surviving popular two-term Democratic Presidents in American history, held the convention in his hands. Bill Clinton is still dramatically admired and respected by most rank and file Democrats, and he was welcomed with uncommon appreciation by  the collective throng of the party faithful. President Clinton did not disappoint the thousands who reveled at his feet. His metaphoric prose was Clintonesque at his best. He drew strong comparisons regarding the legacy that Bush inherited and the political and military morass we currently face. President Clinton was able, with his uncommon skill, to juxtapose John Kerry's heroic leadership in war and his domestic attributes as a fighter for social justice against the failed policies of the present incumbent. His characterization that brains and strength are not incompatible brought the house down.

All in all, the lead Democratic speakers of the evening, former Vice-President Al Gore, former President Jimmy Carter, Senator Hillary Clinton and the dynamic former President Bill Clinton set the theme for the rest of the convention; leadership with strength of inclusion at home and abroad. They all stressed the cost of this misdirected war, the unfairness of the Republican tax cuts, and the unfulfilled promises of the current administration. Are we better off after four years of the Cowboy from Crawford? The convention answered a resounding no a thousand times!

Richard J. Garfunkel 

Journal News

7-13-03

To the Editor:

I am a relatively new resident of Greenburgh, and recently had the opportunity to attend an outdoor Greenburgh Town Board Meeting. I found Supervisor Paul Feiner's style and the Town Board Meeting very refreshing and open after being a veteran of 33 years of attending and speaking at City Council meetings in White Plains.

Last night I attended my first outdoor Town Board Meeting at Babbit Court, Elmsford. What could be more open than that in a neighborhood that has experienced flooding problems. Supervisor Feiner answered questions, promised follow-up action and made people, who normally are frustrated with government red tape, smile and applaud.

After the meeting ended, Supervisor Feiner (along with Councilwoman Eddie Mae Barnes) stayed around and held an informal meeting (that was taped for cable) with a handful of residents. That give and take chat listed until 11:25 pm. Mr. Feiner's opponent in the upcoming election participated in this informal, but animated chat as did a handful of others. The main topic was cable television. Mr. Feiner really tried to be responsive to his critics – inviting them to submit six or seven specific suggestions on how the level of service can improve. My impression, after at least two hours of formal and informal interaction on the subject of local access to cable television, was that the Town of Greenburgh and Supervisor Paul Feiner support open and unfettered programming without government interference. Hopefully suggestions that come out of this forum will help move the process of community involvement and participation forward. The Greenburgh Town Board meeting that I attended was a model of open government and should serve as an inspiration for other elected officials.

Richard J. Garfunkel