For the brief moment we have passed together with your father, we could percieve the same energy and passion you devote to people and student.

I have learnt through previous similar experience that the best way to render our dears alive forever is to reproduce their teachment and thoughts; I am sure that you are already pursuing this aspiration.

We stay close to you and your mother and sister with our heart and soul, I hope you may feel the warmth of our words.

To All You Wonderful Manheims:

What a privilege it has been to share this amazing show of love for this wonderful man.
Many times in the past I have confided to friends about how I regretted not knowing Jerry & Sylvia when they were younger.

Your presentations confirmed everything I suspected about what wonderful people they have been.
Each of your heartfelt and humorous talks were extremely touching.

Thank you.  Thank you.   

Jan Berliner

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. What a loss. I was always sorry not to have known him enough even when I was around him. A latecomer. What I did know of him was wonderful. An inquisitive mind, a gentle spirit, plus, he was just cute and endearing. And he loved your mother. You are so lucky to have had such a good father.

I'm really sorry that he had to go. If there is an opportunity to come to Skamania and celebrate, I'd like that, even if I have only one small story to share. I think that's good enough.

A big hug to you. (PS I saw the invite, but didn't open it -- I thought, hmmm, a younger member of the Manheim family, barmitzah? Cory told me just now that Jerry had died. No wonder. Who was Jerome anyway!)

Dear Camryn, Lisa, and Karl --

Margot and I extend to you and all the family our deep sympathy.

In the weeks since Karl called with the most unwelcome news, hardly a waking hour goes by without some reminder of your dad's importance in my life. You and the others who spoke at the "remembrance/celebration" event captured much of his wit, his determination, and his boundless curiosity and enthusiasm. I surely remember that, but also the personal recollections that meant so much to a growing boy, an impressionable adolescent, and an admiring almost contemporary (11 years difference was huge once; not so much recently!).

The loss you, your mother, and the boys have suffered in Jerry's passing of course far surpasses mine, but you should know that the pleasure he gave, and the warmth of his personality were not reserved for immediate family. His absence hurts.

Immediately after Karl's call, I drafted an email for sons Dan and John, which I also sent to ex-wife Joan, and sister Ellie. The idea was just to give my boys a better sense of who Jerry was. I didn't know that Ellie would pass it along to you, and then it would be posted on the remembrance web site. I don't mind that at all, but that quick message for my boys couldn't begin to capture what your dad meant to me.

My earliest memories were a really big deal. He saved my mother's life with a blood transfusion (and none of this "put it in a bottle and transfuse it later" stuff, but real arm-to-arm tubes). I'm sure I didn't see it, but mom talked about it often enough so that I thought I did. And, of comparable importance to an under 10-year-old, while in uniform during WWII (perhaps about the time when your grandmother, my Aunt Camille, died) Jerry joined my family at a rare event -- eating at a restaurant -- and ordered a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of milk, just as I had! Wow!

He gave me his baseball cards (some waxed for greater distance and accuracy in tossing to a line between sidewalk squares) and his marbles in a Hills Brothers coffee tin (including some agates and some "clearies" of various sizes, and -- my favorites of course -- a few ball bearings). I don't think he minded about the lost marbles, but he never quite forgave me for failing to prevent my mother's disposing of the cards. And, not just bubble gum cards of ballplayers, but also some of Disney cartoons and war cards showing Japanese atrocities during the invasion of China. Really. (I'm not sure I've forgiven my mother.)

When, probably in the mid-1940s, he "proved" to me that 1 = 2, then explained the fallacy of dividing by zero, I knew I was in the company of someone not only generous but very, very wise. I never revised that conclusion.

A major turning point for me was Jerry's gift, when I was a sophomore in high school, of three books: Kafka's Metamorphosis, E.E. Cummings' The Enormous Room, and Flatland, by "A Square." Although I have yet to finish the Cummings book (perhaps, someday), the other two were profound influences. Of course I was as confused as I was enthralled by Kafka, and if after a lifetime of reading his other work I understand better the depth of his alienation and hopelessness amid the absurdity, it is only a little better understanding. But, what an introduction to critical reading! And Flatland, which starts out as an amusing fantasy of social strata, and then suddenly becomes a challenging critique of scientific reasoning and obstinacy, certainly affected my view not just of math and science, but of law, for the rest of my life. Recently, talking to Ken Rubinson, he reminded me that I introduced him to the same three books when he was a teen-ager; Jerry's ultimate influence cannot be quantified!

His pedagogical efforts were not always successful. Notwithstanding his enthusiastic confidence (including the delivery of a one-page sheet that he assured me explained everything), I never learned trigonometry. Even sitting in on his class at Wilson Junior College in Chicago didn't work. And I found his puzzles really difficult, often impossible. To this day, I haven't given up on Caliban's Will (and won't look up the solution), but doubt I'll solve it.

More recently, visiting Jerry, either in Skamania with side trips to locks, shops, a waterfall or a pool, or in California, with museums, that funky restaurant, and Sylvia's unsurpassed hospitality, was always the high point of any west coast trip. Although early on I more than held my own at cribbage, in our last 2-game match I was soundly defeated, skunked in the last game. I'm kind of glad that happened; Jerry was so pleased.

I treasure most though the memory of how grand it was just to be in his company (and my eyes are tearing up writing this). He listened, we argued, he explained, he understood, he was always clear-headed, open to other points of view (but unquestionably stubborn), with a perspective far broader than that of ordinary men.

I am so glad that you all have inherited those qualities (and so many wonderful others of your own). In your company, and that of your marvelous mother, I look forward to future reminders of your father's undying influence.

-- love, Cousin Eddie