Mel

Mickey Friedman
July 19, 2019

The last few years it was touch and go. And I wondered which would come first, whether Mel Greenberg would succumb to cancer or Mel and I would die while he was driving us to pick up food. Our smart friend Jurek bailed and took his own truck. He couldn’t bear riding shotgun, dependent on Mel’s failing vision. Because it was always a gamble whether Mel would make that tricky right turn into Big Y’s parking lot.

But I knew fiercely independent Mel was never going to stop driving and knew he wanted company. To talk politics. And so each Thursday morning I would hoist my bad back and creaking knees up into his funky pickup truck. Surrendering to the fates. There are many ways to die, I told myself each week, and leaving this life while feeding the hungry had to rank in the top ten.

Mel told me stories on many Thursday mornings. We shared The Bronx, City College, progressive politics. One morning Mel told me about selling light fixtures for the halls of Trump Tower. Negotiating a fair price with Ivana Trump who was supervising some of the interior construction. When Donald walked in, rudely interrupting his wife, demanding to know how much. When she told him they had settled on eighty bucks a unit, he started to scream at her, calling her a stupid “four-letter word” I won’t repeat. Insisting they weren’t worth more than fifty and repeating she was a moron. Mel was amazed and felt bad for Ivana. But from that day forward, he’d pretend that I was a Trump supporter and each week would ask me to explain what my President was doing.

The fact is I always thought Mel was on a mission from God. Mel had a healthy relationship with God. He was active in his temple and I always imagined he and God were members of a mutual admiration society. He’d consistently invite me to share Passover but Passover was far too tricky for me. I never successfully made it past the plagues without wanting to argue with God. And nobody needs that at their Seder.

My ambivalence probably goes back to my childhood. Possibly because my Italian mother, who was shipped out to the nuns as a little girl, sometimes needed to be restrained when she saw one on the street. And I was furious my Jewish relatives never approved of the Catholic my father married. I don’t think it’s surprising that purebreds are often suspicious of the mutts. And the truth is with the possible exception of Martin Luther King I usually doubted the ability of those who loudly pronounced their faith to practice what they preached.

But Mel’s mission was clear and he was never ambivalent. He lived to serve the less fortunate. And spent his days feeding the hungry. Day after day, relentlessly committed.

I don’t think I fully appreciated it until he was gone but Mel recruited me. He had read my articles in The Berkshire Record and seen me demonstrating. I imagine he thought he could count on me to help. First, he asked me to create a website for an organization called The Friends of The Claire Teague Senior Center. Always, his concerns transcended hunger. Heating oil, diapers, rides to the doctor.

I don’t think I ever said no to Mel. His purpose was always so compelling. And before I knew what was happening I was working with Mel and Rebecca Tillinghast to create a presence for the Senior Center on the internet. Because, of course, Mel wanted to make life better in every respect.

So I began to help Jurek help Mel and Phyllis with pickups. Thursdays, sometimes Tuesday or Friday. To Big Y, Guido’s, Mazzeos, Marketplace, Barrington Bagel, sometimes dropping food off at the Children’s Health Program, Senior Center, People’s Pantry.

One of my jobs was to counsel patience. If Mel had one fault it was his indomitable need to do more. And so each Thursday morning when we’d arrive at the Guido’s loading deck and there was a delivery in progress I would have to remind Mel that the truck driver would be done within ten minutes, this week much like last week, and we’d keep our schedule. But Mel hated having to sit there doing nothing. For Mel, time was food. There was always more that needed to be done.

And it wasn’t enough for Mel to solicit enormous amounts of food for people who couldn’t afford it, he was driven to provide a communal place for people to eat together. And so not only did we collect food to distribute but we had to gather food for weekly dinners. To this day whenever I see crescent rolls I want to gather them up so that Mel can use them for his next dinner.

Mel is gone. But I’m on a mission from Mel.

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“Mel” was first published in the July 11, 2019 issue of the Berkshire Record.