[Rhodes22-list] Sad news

[Frank Goldsmith]

Dear Cindy,

What a wonderful, beautiful tribute to an extraordinary man.  I am so saddened to hear this news that we know would not be long in coming, but I admire the full and productive life Stan lived with his characteristic humor and grace.  So many of us — the solar system he created — have benefited from his life’s labors, and we all mourn with you his passing.  

May his memory be for a blessing.

Frank

Frank Goldsmith
S/V Mary Bess (Rhodes 22 1985/2001)
Fairview, NC
Lake Keowee, SC


> On Jun 19, 2024, at 4:12 PM, Cindy Spitzer <cindyspitzer at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Stanley Spitzer – the creator and relentless innovator of the Rhodes 22
> sailboat; the inventor of the earlier Picnic 17; the love of Rose Spitzer’s
> life for more than 70 years; father of Cindy, Scott, and Skip Spitzer; dear
> brother of Elton Spitzer (also a legend in his time); the impossibly
> precocious first born of Harold and Gertrude Spitzer; the Purdue University
> trained electrical engineer, self-taught Madison Avenue copywriter,
> management consultant, wire recorder salesman, and builder of mid-century
> homes so unconventional he had to go to court to defend his roof lines; the
> 98-year-old World War II Navy veteran; the perpetually young risk-taker who
> never saw a mountain too tall or a dream too distant; the skinny can-do kid
> from Brooklyn who dragged a sunken sailboat out of Sheepshead Bay and
> thought he would live forever – has died.
> 
> Every person is a universe.  A solar system of friends, relatives, and
> countless people we touch in countless way, often without fully knowing who
> or how much.
> 
> And every death is a universe imploding.  A world and all its stories
> suddenly gone.
> 
> No words can capture a person’s life.  Just know that if you are reading
> this right now, that means you – the full, evolving universe of you –
> intersected with Stan in some way and left your mark.  As he certainly left
> his on us.
> 
> Goodbye, daddy.