GEORGE BOOKMAN
90TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
NEW YORK CITY
DECEMBER 5, 2004

George and Ruth visited us in Seattle a couple of months ago. Since George professes finally to be writing his memoirs, we spent a morning looking through boxes of family photographs with the object of selecting a few illustrations. We spent the most time on the photos from World War 2. There was George judging a beauty contest in Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa. There's George riding a camel in the desert with the Sphinx looming over his shoulder. There's lots of photos of middle eastern embassy parties. The men wear fezzes and dance with sultry women in front of long banquet tables of food. There's George looking well into his cups in a boite in Beirut. There are the cedars of Lebanon, and then a shot of Baghdad and the Tigris taken from a hotel balcony. 

One banquet after another. Finally there is a shot of George and a couple of uniformed GIs in a jeep. "Where's that?" I ask. "Oh, that's atop the Brenner Pass, between Austria and Germany on VE day." We're listening to Winston Churchill announce Germany's capitulation. Then there's a shot of George sitting in an overstuffed arm chair in a burnt-out building somewhere in Bavaria. "Where's that?" I ask. "Oh, he says. That's Berchtesgarden, Hitler's Eagle's nest, about ten days after the surrender."

George's war is like no body else's war. It's more like out-takes from Casablanca than "Willie and Joe".

Tom Brokaw has popularized the phrase, "The greatest generation." George's generation gave us two generations of relative peace and prosperity. How many of you know that George was one of the original political pundits? A Washington correspondent for Time Inc in the 1950's he covered the major political conventions. He appeared regularly on the original Meet the Press shows and helped cement the marriage between the working press and the politicians in the early days of television.

The sixties and seventies found him working on Wall Street, and he continues to be a lifelong leader in journalism. Earlier this year, the Overseas Press Club wrote leaders of several middle eastern nations to protest their treatment of journalists. Who signed the letters for the organization? None other than GBB. He is still active and a leader, a career that spans 70 years.

We have in the room both new and old family, and I want to acknowledge and thank everyone for being here. Ask any of the grandkids here today, they will tell you what a wonderful grandparent George is to them. As for my sister and me, it is as Mark Twain said, "When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

A couple of years ago, at a celebration dinner for Zac's graduation from the University of Maryland, Roger Bernstein, the father of one of Zac's good buddies, clinked his glass, stood up and soberly intoned, "George, you've got good sperm!" "What's left of it!" George shot back.

Another bit of wisdom from Mark Twain is that, "Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen." That observation is particularly apt to George, and to Ruth. These two people are truly happy to have found each other. So on this celebration, let us lift our glasses and toast George, and George and Ruth, Mazel tov, long life--you have had a long life!--and happiness for the rest of your days.

Several guests have shared stages of George's journey with him--the War years, the journalism years, family adventures--and would like to share a story or two.

--Roy Block has known my father since before they crossed the Brenner Pass together in April 1945.

--Bob Estabrook unwittingly triggered one of my father's most memorable adventures. Many years he and his wife Mary Lou shared the pleasures of Lakeville, CT with my parents.

--Myron Kandel worked on Wall Street with George.

--Bernie Landau worked at the NY Stock Exchange with my father. Many years later they indoctrinated Hungary's new market entrepreneurs in the wonders of  American-style capitalism.

--Ruth, this is your party, would you like to say a few words?

[other family members]



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