Lester Wilensky, a neighbor of ours, was described at his funeral this week as “a bundle of joy.” Although he was a man in his 80s, Lester always had a story or a joke to tell. If he started a joke when his wife, Elaine, was with him, she would roll her eyes, a signal that she had heard this one 4,000 times. They were always clean jokes and a little corny but never dirty or mean. And always delivered with enthusiasm and a smile.
I saw Lester a couple of weeks ago near the mailbox in our neighborhood. He was in a bright red car with, as always, American flags mounted on each side. I asked, “Did you get a new car?”
“Yes,” Lester said. “I lease them. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“It looks good,” I said.
“My wife picks out the colors. This one’s yellow.”
I laughed, waved and got back into my car. It was the last time I talked to him, and it ended with a joke. He was “a bundle of joy.” Imagine being over 80 years old, and a rabbi at your funeral says that about you and people laugh and nod at each other because it was so true.
Lester Wilensky was a combat engineer in the United States Army and on June 6, 1944 was on a beach in Normandy. One of the speakers at his funeral said only Lester and one other member of his platoon survived the invasion. He earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster and the French Croix de Guerre.
Members of the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans were at the funeral and spoke. As they left, the former soldiers - men with white hair and moving stiffly - paused in front of Lester’s coffin and saluted. A few of them could be heard saying, “Farewell.”
Lester had been a long-time Boy Scout leader and twenty or so Boy Scout
leaders were there, in uniform.
Everyone who spoke - the veterans, the Boy Scout leaders and two rabbis –
mentioned how much Lester gave of himself to his community and to his
country and of his love of stories and jokes. A white-haired rabbi said Lester
had a standing greeting whenever he saw the rabbi and his wife. Lester told
the rabbi it was nice he brought his daughter with him.
The rabbi said that only recently had Lester begun to talk more about the
Second World War and some of his stories were as long as the war. You
could always tell when Lester was arriving, the rabbi said, by the American
flags flying on his car.
Lester Wilensky was a big enough deal that the Republican leader of the
New York State Senate, Dean Skelos, was at the funeral.
Whenever you saw Lester in the neighborhood, he would stop you and
talk. If you were with a grandkid, Lester always had something to say to the
grandkid too. When I was still working, I had to interrupt him a number of
times, politely I hope, and tell him I was rushing to catch a train.
Irene and I counted on Lester to help us out. If it was a holiday week and
we weren’t sure there would be garbage or newspaper pickup on a certain
day, we would look at Lester’s curb and see if he had put anything out. That
would tell us what we needed to know without searching for the pickup
schedule the town sends out every year.
A younger rabbi who spoke at the funeral told of being asked to make
some remarks at a park where a traveling monument for the Vietnam War
was being displayed. It was a miserable, rainy day, and when he got to the
park, Lester and his wife had been there for some time and were soaked.
Lester asked the rabbi if he had been in the service. No, the rabbi said, he
was underweight when he took the physical.
Was the rabbi ever a member of the Boy Scouts? No, the rabbi told Lester.
He had been a Cub Scout but did something silly and got kicked out.
Did the rabbi speak Yiddish? No unfortunately, he didn’t.
Lester then asked the rabbi, “Are you Jewish?”
Like the other rabbi said, he was a bundle of joy.
(Posted December 22, 2010)