Andrew I. Sverdlove

Do you remember the blizzard of 1948?  “…life is a journey….From childhood to maturity….victory lies not at some high place along the way, But in having made the journey, stage by stage….a sacred pilgrimage. Birth is a beginning and death a destination..  But life is a journey.…” Excerpt from a poem by Alvin Fine:  (http://home.earthlink.net/~chavele/lifeis.html).  Dr. Jane Simon and I have laughed and lived together nine years. Our journeys intersected as friends meeting at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun. We enjoy New York theatre, poetry events, our New Year’s Eve party, exercise classes, our five children and six grandchildren. Our travels included Tahiti and China (suggested by Neil Fogel’s sister, Muriel ’62 and Gene Holland ’60), Japan (with my sister Zolita ’53 www.love-art.com, and family events of Frank (Nancy) Portugal and the Holland’s. Escape is to our farm near Sweet Briar College, Amherst, Virginia. My business success in my journey was in 1970 when my company, Johnson Electrical Corporation wired the Pan Am World Port at J.F. Kennedy Airport and employed 250 people. The journey before and after was a roller coaster. At 15, my parents sent me to Cheshire Academy…then told me my mother was ill (cancer). After Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), I went to Stern School of Business, NYU. She died never knowing I headed the accounting honor society, I was 20.  I served on active duty six-months of a six-year commitment. The only memorable aspect was I entered the day after President Kennedy’s assassination.  My father passed in December 1966, two weeks after I become a Master Electrician in New York City, I was 26. While I mourned, I reorganized his bankrupt firm. My wife and baby moved to my childhood home.  In 1979, I bought an attached townhouse in Larchmont, a few doors from my former wife.  My three children (Lisa, 41; Jill, 38; and Harry, 37) used my home as the band room, party room, and for sleepovers. I hosted exchange students for a year from Brazil, and France, and shorter visits from disabled Israeli veterans, and others. My career continued in construction, Quality Control, and management.