Leave Something on the Table by Frank Bennack

Author:Frank Bennack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

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Often the relationships that get built before and during a transaction last long after a deal is finalized. John Kluge and I didn’t do any more business after that day at the Waldorf Towers but we remained warm and supportive friends. He would personally call to ensure that I was available on the date he planned for his birthday parties, a practice that continued right up until the day in 2010 he called to be sure that Mary Lake and I could attend his ninety-sixth birthday party. He passed away a few days after the phone call. His wife, Maria Tussi Kuttner Kluge, and the Kluge family decided to go ahead with the party and turn it into a combination funeral, birthday celebration, and memorial tribute to this remarkable man’s life. What a great idea and what a memorable event!

That day started at the Kluges’ Charlottesville farm. The five hundred or so guests moved to Monticello Memorial Gardens for the funeral. After inspiring speeches with an appropriate religious message, we passed by the casket, sprinkling rose petals and handfuls of earth into the open grave. The music in the background, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” seemed perfect for the occasion.

Then we celebrated John’s birthday at the party he had planned. It could not have been more festive. Tussi had requested that a few of us give brief remarks about our lives with John. I shared the favorite story he had told me about a youthful college student named John Kluge:

“Frank, I was paying my living expenses getting through Columbia, where I had a scholarship, by playing poker. At one point, the faculty member supervising me warned that if I continued to play poker on campus, I would risk losing my scholarship. I told him they would never catch me playing poker again.”

John would pause and smile, letting you know he meant they wouldn’t catch him, not that he would stop playing.

He would continue: “One night I had the gang over for the usual game, and I got dealt three 5s in a five card stud game. No sooner had I realized I probably had a winner when there was a knock on the door. The authorities had caught up with us! As we scrambled to get out of there, poker chips went flying in one direction, cards in another, money in another.”

Another Kluge pause. “You know, Frank, I never got three 5s again until I got Channel 5 in New York, Channel 5 in Washington, and Channel 5 in Boston.”

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