My daddy was
the strongest man in the world. My daddy was the smartest man in the
world. My daddy could build or fix anything, and he was an expert on
everything. That's how I thought of him when I was growing up, and most
of it turned out to be true.
My dad, Harry Zarchy, was a Renaissance man, a teacher in the New York
City schools for 36 years, a skilled musician, a hobbyist and craftsman
who excelled in fields as diverse as jewelry making, watch repair, clock
making, furniture building, ham radio, photography, drawing, and countless
others. And he was an author, the creator of over 30 books on crafts
and hobbies and the outdoors for kids and teenagers, mostly with his
own photographs and drawings. Between 1941, the year my sister Sue was
born, and 1973, he published 36 books.
Listen to some of the titles:
Let's Make Something, Let's Make More Things, Let's Make a Lot of Things,
Here's Your Hobby, Creative Hobbies, Let's Go Camping, Let's Go Boating,
Let's Fish, Wheel of Time, What Does A Scientist Do?, Jewelry Making
& Enameling, Model Railroading, Stamp Collector's Guide, Ceramics,
and the last one, the Betty Crocker Modern Woman's Fix It Yourself Handbook
of Home Repair, and many others. His books sold well in the education
market, especially to schools and libraries, and they stayed in print
for a long time.
He was a great teacher, both in and out of the classroom, and he could
study and master any subject. Pop played violin, banjo, cello and guitar
when he was growing up. When we moved to Long Island, he met Joe Muro,
our neighbor over the back fence. Joe played string bass, the huge upright
bass fiddle, in various jazz combos. When he found out Pop had played
cello decades before, he taught Pop the bass. In typical fashion, Pop
mastered the instrument, then bought an old bass with a big hole in
the side, repaired the hole, refinished it, and, with Joe's help, started
working as a freelance bass player. Eventually he was elected Vice President
of the Long Island Musicians' Society.
Similarly, he attended adult education courses in golf, taught by a
friend of his, mastered the game, and soon was teaching the classes
himself, despite being a relative rookie.
When an encyclopedia hired him to write an article about archery, he
researched and learned all about it. Soon he was making bows out of
multiple wood layers bonded together, and arrows from dowels, feathers,
and points, and we were shooting at a target in the back yard. He got
interested in amateur radio, so we had a two-way ham rig in our basement,
and an antenna in the attic. He wrote a book on model railroading, so
we had the coolest HO gauge train setup that anyone had ever seen, complete
with mountains, tunnels, villages, switches, and signals.
He was a unique personality who didn't follow the crowd and delighted
in being an individual. He liked to wear brown shoes to weddings, which
drove Mom crazy, and he had crepe soles years before they became popular.
He bought one of the first Volkswagens imported into this country in
the early 1950s, and loved it when neighbors came by to marvel over
it and its daring design. "Where's the engine, Harry?" "In
the rear." "Where do you put water in?" "You don't,
it's air-cooled."
This was the first
of a series of foreign cars he had, at a time when everyone else was
driving huge American boats. He was a horse trader. He also had a Hillman
Minx, a Sunbeam Talbot, another Hillman, a Fiat, and others, and another
Volkswagen in which he installed a Porsche engine. On more than one
occasion, he left home in the morning with one car, and returned that
night with another. But never more than one at a time.
Years before the women's movement, he taught me, by example, a deep-seated
respect for women. He never disparaged women or made lewd remarks. He
believed strongly that women could and should have access to the same
jobs and opportunities as men, just as he showed us that men could and
should share in housecleaning, cooking, and gardening.
After retirement, Pop got a computer so he could write a mystery novel.
Well, not just one computer. In typical fashion, he constantly traded
them in and traded up. He had a Macintosh, then an IBM, an Amiga, another
Mac, another Amiga, another IBM, another Mac, and on and on. I lost
count at twelve computers.
Pop also had a great sense of humor and he delighted in telling and
retelling some of the silliest jokes you've ever heard. He always called
me "Will-yam" even when he greeted me on my last visit to
see him at the nursing home. When we got together, he loved to catch
me up on the latest details of his new tools, computers, books, or projects.
On more then one occasion, his enthusiasm boiled over, and he looked
at me with a twinkle in his eye, turned sideways, stuck a thumb in his
belt, and said, "And… can you tell I'm about to lose some
weight?"
He loved recounting an incident from his teaching years: One day he
noticed that some students walking by his room seemed to be laughing
at him. When he questioned them, one asked, "Mr. Zarchy, is it
true what Mr. Coleman said about you changing your name?" Jerry
Coleman was Pop's good buddy, and quite a jokester, so Pop asked them
warily what Jerry had said. "Well," said the student, "Mr.
Coleman said your name was originally Archibald Zarchibald, but you
shortened it to Harry Zarchy."
On my last visit with him, I told him I had just interviewed Bill Clinton
and was about to go meet Gerald Ford. "They named a theatre after
him," he replied. "You mean Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln
was shot?" I laughed. He grinned, happy that I'd gotten the joke.
It wasn't always easy growing up as the son of a Renaissance man. Occasionally
he was gruff with me, if I didn’t live up to his expectations
or his standards or his amazing energy level. Pop played semipro soccer
for a short time in his youth, and I felt I could never be the athlete
or outdoorsman he was. He was a musical snob, and sometimes we clashed
about that. He loved only classical music and jazz written before 1945.
Rock and roll was based on jungle rhythms, he told me, and therefore
it wasn't music at all. "All the experts agree," he would
say. But I never doubted his love for me for a second, and our relationship
smoothed out as I grew out of my adolescence. Also, I started dating
in high school, and I became more diligent about cutting the grass and
doing other chores on time, so that I could be sure about borrowing
the car.
Pop never questioned my choice of career as a cameraman. In recent years,
I have grown aware of how much of him is in me, as I have started writing
and teaching too. But when I was younger, I had to find something to
do with my life that was outside of his experience, because he did know
so much about so many things. He always asked me about my work, and
one time he told me he hoped I would get to shoot a big movie some day.
Well, that day has still not come, but I did get to shoot an episode
of a big TV show recently. I told him a lot about it on my last visit
here to see him a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately, he didn't
get to see it. After the show aired Wednesday night, I got an email
from a friend who was enthusiastic about the program and knew of Pop's
passing. He ended it this way:
"Bill, I know it must have been a bittersweet experience for you
to watch the show tonight after having just lost your father, but I
kept thinking about how he would have kvelled at your success. Who really
knows? Maybe he did... at least I would like to think so."
For you kids out there, who only knew Poppy as an old man, you should
know that he was a sweet, gentle, vibrant, brilliant, man, a great man,
respected and admired by everyone he knew. His passing makes us all
very sad, but it is not a tragedy. We are lucky to have had him so long.
He had a long and fulfilling life, a fascinating and multifaceted career,
and a great family. He and Nanny were married 64 years, and they delighted
in their children, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren,
and in the wonderful spouses their progeny have brought into the family.
He used to tell me that, when he was a kid, his family would get together
to play music, sing and dance together, and have fun. The best way to
celebrate his life is for us to do the same thing. Music, singing, fun.
That way his memory and his legacy will live on in all of us for the
rest of our lives.
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