|
Post by schlager7 on Jan 22, 2008 20:20:56 GMT -6
ALVIN LEVY GOODSTEIN 1918-2008
While this may mean little to most reading this forum, I feel compelled to make a brief note now and a longer post later. I have just received an email informing me of the death this last weekend of Alvin Goodstein.
Alvin began fencing as a teen in Dallas under Oskar Grunow in the 1930s. He then matriculated to Texas A&M and for four years was an active competitor for that school's fencing club. He and his clubmates frequently had to hitch-hike to Dallas and Galveston for competitions (hiding their fencing gear in bushes near the highway, lest the sight of them scare off would-be rides).
He fenced briefly in Dallas after graduating, but was called to active duty as America edged closer to WWII. His field was electronics and he worked in radar development and on isolated radar posts.
After the war he resumed fencing and coaching in the Dallas area into the early 1950s.
Not too long after the old Texas Division was split in the Gulf Coast Division and the North Texas Division, he became president of the latter.
I contacted Alvin for the first time a few years back as I worked on my fencing history. He gave me a dozen stories and thrice as many leads, all of which panned out. He was exuberant, fun and very gracious in his decriptions of both friends and adversaries.
He had class.
He answered several hundred questions for me and I wish I could ask him several hundred more.
|
|
theluz
Scribe
[ss:Default]
Posts: 26
|
Post by theluz on Feb 18, 2008 11:33:02 GMT -6
I fenced in Dallas, but never knew him. I wish I did.
|
|