Arnold Herbert Goldberg

ARNOLD HERBERT GOLDBERG

Born in nineteen thirty three,

Kid number three in the family,

Arny with a ‘y’ not ‘i-e’,

Full of precocious curiosity.

Growing up in Brooklyn proper,

Bakers’ dozens in the hopper,

Mom and Pop supply the shopper,

those who use bagel boards and copper.

Little Arny grew up smart,

Off to college to get a good start,

Pursuing the passion of his heart,

To learn the skills of creating art.

Yet one degree was not enough,

And though the journey would be tough,

Back to Brooklyn to get tough

Become an architect and build cool stuff.

In a few short years, Arny’s skills grew,

Then came a family, right on cue,

His beautiful daughter all shiny and new,

A bond of love made forever true.

Once one… now a team of three,

A new branch extends the family tree,

They travel the world … sites to see,

But Houston was their destiny.

School and work took first place,

Once in sync now changing pace,

Hard to keep up in this race,

Time came to find a whole new space.

In the Bayou City of Houston-town,

Staring down a small break-down,

Arny discovered he was wearing a crown,

When he met a beautiful woman in a go-go gown.

Seeing life from a whole new angle,

Bonds form as lives entangle,

Two families now to wrangle,

Many more threads left to dangle.

One girl… two girls… three … then four,

One job… then no job… then through the studio door,

Where pure creativity evens the score,

Paint brush in hand forever more.

Throughout these fruitful years,

Exploring color through cubes and spheres,

Most paintings brought him good cheers,

Only once did he resort to using shears.

Artist Arny set the bar high,

Constantly honing his artist’s eye,

Colors of rainbows in the sky,

Flow in paint like fabric and dye.

When the children finally freed the house,

Dee decided ‘time for a douse,’

Time to rinse off and dawn a new blouse.

Arny followed his super smart spouse.

Now on graduate school clocks,

Made of distance-learning building blocks,

Thinking far outside the box,

They called themselves a ‘pair of Docs.’

Onward ho… or so it goes,

Moving forward on his toes,

From student… to teacher… to business clothes,

Ending with Dean of community college woes.

What to do with four degrees,

Being a Dean just a tease,

Muses calling across the seas,

Retire to art and do as you please.

From then on it was smooth sailing,

Time in studio now prevailing,

Devotion to his craft unfailing,

His love of color all availing.

Exceling at image creation,

Hundreds of designs as visual oration,

Save for unexpected inundation,

Alas as all things change,

With hurricanes lives rearrange,

What once was common becomes quite strange,

Certain goals now out of range.

As time lines draw near to end,

The next adventure round the bend,

Our hearts full of love we send,

To our husband, father, uncle and friend.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared below for the Goldberg family.