Behind the Scenes

by Tom Stewart

I saw an article regarding my father while he was at the University at Buffalo, having resumed his education after having been in World War II.

This article indicated that my father's lunches were disappearing, and it brought to mind my recollection of his side of the story. It's pretty simple: my father had the very good fortune to have parents who had done well. He had gone to the war, he had come back alive and well, and he was grateful for the blessings that he had received.

From what I can gather, he would take his lunch to the university and leave it in a coatroom. This was a routine affair and common for most of the students. But after several weeks, portions of his lunch began to disappear. Not hard to miss.

Rather than getting upset, defensive, or selfish, my father decided to have a little fun with the whole episode. He went back home and asked the person preparing the next day's lunch to make it a little bigger. And so the second sandwich was placed in the bag, and sure enough, that disappeared. Over a period of days or weeks, the lunches became bigger and bigger.

Since my father was very trim and fit at the time, the person preparing the lunches was beginning to wonder where all the food was going, because it wasn't appearing on his waistline. While my father knew, he never told.

He knew that people had come back from the war to find circumstances not as favorable as his. So the lunches were an act of his benevolence, if you will, in terms of providing for people who he figured probably weren't eating very well. He never viewed it as theft, just as meeting people's needs.

For me, it's a wonderful kind of benchmark, because it defines his life. You can look at what he did for UB in terms of the endowment, or for other charities in which he participated. He was always very quiet and modest, always behind the scenes, always with profound impact in terms of putting his thumb on the exact need at the exact time and place.

The only mystery for him was that he never knew how many people he was helping.