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This is a memorial for Ben; we remember him, we honor him: but we also grieve for our own loss. Perhaps I can say something about Ben by saying something about the many ways I learned from him in my life.
Ben was a friend of my mother and father from his University of Chicago days in the late thirties. They knew him in that rich world which included Paul Goodman, among others. As a teenager (in high school in New York), I came to know of Ben at Paul's place on 23rd Street: Paul would speak of him from time to time; and I came to know Ben himself at Percy and Naomi Goodman's Christmas parties.
I became very close to Paul when I was in college; when I sought an alternative to Paul's views, another way of seeing things; I turned to Ben. They had respected and fought one another since their City College days in the early thirties: in that City College world which included Paul's wonderful sister Alice, no longer with us; dear departed Mike Liben; Phil Slaner—departed too!—who taught many of us in the younger generation when we were in high school; and Oscar Schaftel, who is here today. I think I can speak