Yes, that’s HG, in person, looking at you. In HG’s hand is an 1892 Kiddush cup. (For wine in sabbath religious ceremony). In HG’s lapel is the pin of the Smolovechi soccer team. (Off to the right is a BSK sculpture evoking the adobe churches and crucifixes of Northern New Mexico). The cup and the pin are explained in a letter from wonderful Anthony and Claudia Cragg which accompanied these 90th birthday gifts for HG. “We scoured the universe for ‘Gerry gifts’ to celebrate your magnificent 90th. Nothing could really do justice to the man you are, so we sought treats from your Dear Mama’s ‘shtetel’, Plestyanitz, Belarus, and from your Father’s in Smulovitch, Belarus. And, so the trinkets unearthed are a circa 1892 Imperial Russian Sterling Silver Kiddush cup from the closest place we could find to Plestyanitz, and from Smulovitch a football (soccer) sports pin from the Smolovichi team sent to you with love.” These are not just gifts. They are treasures linking HG to HG ancestry almost 200 years ago. There are no words to express HG’s gratitude to Anthony and Claudia for their imagination, painstaking research, generosity and thoughtfulness. And, who are Anthony and Claudia? Though their principal residence is a Colorado mountain top, they remain very English. Anthony is of noble lineage and looks it. He is an eminent investment expert and manager of mutual funds. Claudia is an exuberant force of nature from a theatrical background. Presently an incisive radio interviewer, she has had a distinguished career as a journalist, author and editor specializing in the finance and politics of Asia. Anthony and Claudia’s love and friendship, which HG/BSK wholeheartedly reciprocate, is one of the delights life has given HG/BSK.
Those words (“imagination, painstaking research, generosity, thoughtfulness”) seem a perfect wrap-up of these gifts. Wish I had met these special people.