Growing up near the shores of Lake Michigan during World War II, Lee Goldstein says he learned to be a mensch from his father, who invited servicemen from the nearby Army and Navy bases to join the family every Friday night for Shabbat services and dinner. Lee became a bar mitzvah just as the war ended, and his life and the future seemed bright.
A year later a playful shove from a friend as he was poised to dive into the lake resulted in a broken neck that left him a quadriplegic. Nearly 70 years later, he believes he is the world’s longest-living quadriplegic.
Though he has limited use of his arms, which he has maximized with intensive gym workouts, he says most doctors consider him a full quadriplegic due to very poor sensation in the arms and limited finger use. “You would not be able to feel my handshake pressure,” he says. Now living in Prescott, the 81-year-old has shared his amazing existence, full life, humor and struggles in the e-book So Far, So Good! (the Saga of a Broken Neck and the Good Life that can Follow).
In phone and email interviews, Lee’s humor is sprinkled throughout his comments: “I was bar mitzvahed just before my accident; 1945 bar mitzvah, 1946 accident. Did the whole thing in Hebrew – the bar mitzvah, not the accident.” He says his father “taught me to cope with life, my injury, my education, friendships and all else.”
Lee was active in Hillel while in college, serving as vice president and leading some major fundraisers for Israel. Though after that he says his active involvement in Judaism took a back seat to surviving his ongoing health challenges. His book chronicles his recovery, college years, 11 years as a systems analyst, his second career as the owner of numerous stores and his two successful marriages. He shares the reality of life for para- and quadriplegics. But talking to the man, though he admits to times of morass, your main sensation is the humor and joy that has filled his life. “After my first career as a systems analyst in the defense industry for 11 years, I opened a gift store, The Smuggler, which carried handmade artifacts from all over the world,” he says.
“By the time I sold the enterprise to retire in 1991, I had developed many such stores, some of which had also morphed into leather, clothing and hat stores. “I’m proud of those stores, and it was one of the happiest and most fulfilling times of my life. The old saying is, do something you love and you will never work a day in your life. After opening my first store, I never worked again.”
Lee and his first wife, Marilyn, were married 26 years and raised five adopted children before she died of breast cancer. For the past 19 years he’s been married to Ellen, whom he met after placing “a very honest personal ad” when he tired of living “a hermit-like existence” in a log cabin in Montana.
Though Ellen grew up in the 1950s in a very Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx, where she felt like “the whole world was Jewish,” she never seriously dated anyone who was Jewish before she met Lee. A single mom who put her daughter through private school, Ellen was working as an administrative assistant at a school of nursing when she saw Lee’s personal ad in a “cowboy magazine.”The two corresponded by mail and phone for two years before meeting.
“Lee’s intelligence, wit and caring nature definitely caught my interest,” says Ellen. “His perseverance on everything he does continues to astound me, as it does those who meet him.”
While not everyone can have the pleasure of meeting Lee in person, anyone can explore his outlook on life in his e-book. So Far, So Good! is available at amazon.com, Barnes and Nobel, the Apple Bookstore and on his website at leedgoldstein.com.
