Arnold Skolnick

   I don't remember for sure where I was when I took this picture, but I do seem to recall that it was when I was in a restaurant. It may have been The Yellow Deli, a casual restaurant in Oneonta, New York  (and affiliated with the twelve tribes religious group, which I found interesting), where I ate a few times when I was visiting my mother. Wherever it was, I recall that the part of this poster that you see below was very close to me, at my eye level, and it reminded of a part of my childhood, as the poster was done by the father of my oldest friend, Alexander Skolnick (our parents were good friends, and he was born one month after me). The picture you see here is a snapshot of what is probably the most iconic poster of the 1960's; the poster for the Woodstock festival.

   Alexander's family was a very interesting one, meaning that they were to me unique (and somewhat crazy) in the way that in my opinion makes people memorable. I remember being afraid of Arnold (the creator of the poster) as a child. He was loud, at times vulgar, and I remember him telling stories about his friend Jeremiah, who according to the story as Arnold told it, "punched a cop" on at least one occasion. Arnold had a house in the woods in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he used to spend his weekends (he later moved there full time), and I recall riding up from New York City with him in his old Volvo station wagon (which seemed like a kind of unknown car at that time), and he would loudly tell me stories for what seemed like the seemingly endless, three hour trip. On one occasion, he was eating a meatball hero sandwich, and I remember his mouth full of meatballs and bread as he laughed and cursed loudly.

   I also remember Arnold fondly for a man who was very independent in his thinking, who started many of his own companies (producing books about artists he liked and a company which made stained glass are two that I remember), and who used to say about a person that had a lot of money that they were "richer than God".

   Arnold went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, with my father, and they were good friends. I remember him seeming to be both perplexed and hurt about my father's condition, who had suffered an emotional break, and never really bounced back from it. The look of concern on his face about my father, when he saw me on the day that his own son, Alexander, had their wedding ceremony on the property at his Springfield home, still is with me and touches me up until this day when I think about it. 

   Even though the poster that he made far eclipsed Arnold Skolnick's own fame (which I thought was basically non-existent, though there is a Wikipedia entry on him), to me he is a person who can elicit in me feelings which seem both highly personal and nearly global at the same time.

   This is for you, Arnold Skolnick.