Here is a photo of Allan and Claire from the winter of 2008-2009. They wanted us to go, of course, to the Hotel del Coronado. I noted that Allan's beach reading was a book on Bayesian mathematics. (Whatever that is!) 

I remember us all going to the zoo, as kids, and being aware that Allan was even more excited than we. He was KIND. I cannot remember him saying anything negative about anyone, unlike most of the other nicest people I know. (People he knew, I mean, politicians and other public figures and Shakespearean villains don't count!)

Much love,
Alex

We learned about Allan with a phone call: short, sad, quiet. We were at Indian Lake. Louis called. We immediately went to the Indian Lake Library to access Internet…we found the email announcing Allan’s passing all sent the day before.

Sitting and reading email in the small hydrangea-filled garden, we were sharing stories about Allan; what to do next, how to be helpful, when to go out. 

With hands cupped, the librarian came out and asked whether we wanted to help liberate one of the newly hatched Monarch butterflies the library had been incubating, and which she was now holding in those cupped hands. Of course we did. She asked me to cup my hands, and then carefully placed this very pretty butterfly in them. The butterfly did not fly away; it stayed on my hand several minutes. Finally, it flew off to new adventures.

Later, the librarian told us that that was unusual since new Monarchs usually fly away immediately.

For me, the Monarch will always represent Allan’s spirit. And now, whenever I see a Monarch, I say to myself, ‘Hi Allan.’



    Allan

    He broke into our family, the first
    With his otherness: hair on his arms, a nose broken in a physical fight, big flat-nailed hands
    He called us Shmoos, Claire’s three little sisters

    Their courtship was storybook
    Included a fistfight over Claire at the Figaro Café

    My mother found us crying loudly one night
    All three In our top floor room in bed
    He was taking Claire away we realized together

    I see the picture of them on their wedding day
    Beautiful Claire
    A new perm- a little too tight
    Dress floor sample but from Lord and Taylor, just needing a cleaning
    Filmy and white on her slim waist
    Her smile
    He looks only at her 
    He cherishes her in that picture
    And forever in his life
    My Love he calls her over all the years



Allan has been so many things to us.   Even though the three of us, who shared a bedroom, once stayed up a good part of the night crying, when we realized Allan was going to take away our admirable older sister, Claire, we soon saw that this was a valuable addition to the family.

Allan was such a good model for us when we were growing up:  he had special tricks to improve his memory, he believed in being able to learn anything at any age:  he learned  about a car engine by putting together the “visible car engine” -- in addition to learning how drive -- before trekking across the country to move to California.  He had an interest in physics, astronomy, the human body.

I was also impressed by all he knew about Shakespeare and his time.  When I met the family in London in the seventies, as we were walking (with Danny in his stroller) through Stratford-upon-Avon,  Allan knew the names of all the streets before we even got to them, as if retrieving them from the map in his head!

After Mama died, he went and got us each a big box of Valentine chocolates.  That was such a touching gesture at a time of devastating loss.

More recently he was always so loving and patient with Ani , answering all her questions and sharing special interests with her like mythology,  animals,  and King Kong.

These are a few of the special memories I have of a great and loving person.
Vivi

We visited California every summer while Lily was growing up. These were wonderful trips. Allan made sure that Lily had the opportunity to experience all that San Diego had to offer. The best part was Allan’s  passion and eagerness to learn something new and his dedication to cultivating similar interests and passions in Lily and Tony. So Allan took us all  to Balboa park to enjoy the Museum of Natural History, the Science Museum, the IMAX theater, the Old Globe theater and, of course, the zoo. His enthusiasm was contagious and we all enjoyed each outing which often ended in a store to buy books, stuffed animals or something else for the children and for us. He shared his love for science, animals, and Shakespeare and enriched our lives and that of the children. 

Alllan was not only passionate but also compassionate. He cared deeply about all living things. He was delighted to spend hours watching the gorillas at the Zoo. He encouraged trips to Wild Animal Park so everyone could feed the lorikeets, watch a cheetah running with a dog, or see the giraffes, rhinos or wildebeests wandering freely in the Park.  Even though a trip might be difficult for him, Allan would make the effort and enjoy the encounter with the animals. This was especially true for trips to the Wolf Refuge.  Allan clearly felt pain when animals or people suffered. 

Allan’s generosity, which was unlimited, was an inspiration to all of us. He was willing to share everything that he had. Thanks to Allan and Claire we have a magnificent, 100 pound slab of fossils that was sent across country. However, more than money or things, Allan shared his time, his knowledge as well as his love and affection. He was not afraid to say “I Love You.”

Allan enriched our lives with his joy, love and passion for life. We miss him terribly but we will be forever inspired by his generosity, compassion and morality. He made the world a better place. WE LOVE YOU ALLAN!

Jennifer and Louis Hsu

I wanted to extend my deepest condolences over the loss of Allan. I am sorry that I did not make the memorial. My father told me that it was very well done (I would expect nothing less from such a creative and thoughtful group of people) and that the friends who traveled such great distances were a testament to how much Allan touched the lives of others through his extraordinary capacity to care.

While I really only saw Allan once a year when visiting California growing up, upon reflection, I have such strong memories of him and everyone else during my time in CA that those weeks seem to expand and dominate my memories of summer and family as a child. I can only imagine what it must have been like to grow up and spend a lifetime with him.  

Allan was so many things, it would be impossible for me to do justice in trying to describe them all. Above all, I will always remember him as being an extraordinarily kind man. I hope this doesn’t sound cliché, but I often find myself thinking about what makes people unique and individual. I think there are many kind people in this world. But there seems to me to be a difference between people who are kind in actions and people who are kind in soul. I cannot really describe it other than by saying that Allan, in addition to being kind in his actions, is quintessentially what I think was when I think of a person who is kind in soul.

His passing has made me reflect on the different values people have and the values I want to have in my life. While Allan was a fiercely intelligent man, the love he had for his family seemed to radiate from him at all times and reminds me that it is the relationships in our lives that form the foundation for our happiness and the happiness of others.

Love,
Lily

Claire, 

Please know that we share your sense of loss. Allan was a unique and special person. 

All that he accomplished in his life was in a large part because of you. 

You took a smoldering volcano and turned it into a majestic mountain. 

Allan with his Passion, Pride, and impatient nature must have been a major challenge for you! 

Your love, patience and calming influence was that hand that led to his full and rewarding life. 

And in addition to this, you accomplished with your writings an honored and respected reputation in your field. 

Please put on paper all the words and thoughts and emotions that can only be expressed by you. 

Allan was my HERO when I was 14 years old and 70 years later he remains the same. 

Love,
Al and Mary Anne 


Christina Accomando
September 9, 2019

     My parents celebrated their 60th anniversary on May 30. A couple days later I was excavating ancient books from their garage, to haul them to Goodwill, and out of a battered old case emerged a beautiful edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, inscribed from my father to my mother on the occasion of their 6th anniversary, 54 years earlier. 
     Whitman famously wrote in that book:  "Do I contradict myself?  Very well then . . . . I contradict myself;  I am large . . . . I contain multitudes." 
My father contained multitudinous contradictions. "Do as I do, not as I say," he always told us, anticipating the inconsistencies we were bound to point out. 
     My father was a mathematician who loved literature; an atheist who read us the bible; a socialist who loved fancy hotel lobbies; a feminist in so many ways but also patriarchal; an animal lover who would've been vegetarian except he hated vegetables. He was a contemplative intellectual, but also rash and impulsive. 
     My father told me a library card saved his life. He grew up in a rough neighborhood, with a rough father, and he was on a rough path. Then his Uncle Joe got him a library card to the New York Public Library. The authors he discovered became his companions – Jack London, Thomas Wolfe, William Shakespeare, Edith Hamilton, Herman Melville, and so many more. The written word ignited his soul and gave him a pathway to something else – he wanted to read and he wanted to write. These passions directed the rest of his life. 
     Jack London made him passionate about socialism in the 1940s, and as a 14-year-old, he made a socialist speech in Union Square. As a young man, he took a factory job a long bus ride from home. On his first day, he knew before noon that he had already learned everything he ever would in that dismal workplace, and he promptly quit. He walked home – across the state of New Jersey – and by the time he arrived, he had hatched his plan to change his life trajectory – he would join the Navy and use the GI Bill to be the first in his family to get a college education. A hater of rules and authority, he didn't enjoy Navy (and as he put it, the Navy didn't enjoy him), but he used it to start the first-ever newspaper on a minesweeper, become a published writer, get into journalism school, and ultimately, to attend New York University, where he met Claire, the love of his life. 
     My dad's life was all about love. He loved his family more than anything. He loved babies and dogs, which is why walks with him took a very long time. He loved literature, movies, music, mathematics. In his last year at NYU, he took a required math class, fell in love with mathematics, and changed his major. He believed in taking prompt action when he cared about something. If you hate your job, quit before noon. If your cousin visits you in New York from her new home in Southern California and talks about going swimming outdoors in January, you buy a van, learn how to drive, and move your family 3000 miles across the country. If you want to buy a house because of the amazing eucalyptus tree in the backyard, even though it has the wrong number of rooms, you buy that house. If you want to take your family to Europe with a toddler and no money, because you want to make a pilgrimage to Stratford, then get on a plane. He didn't always make the best decisions, but he made them with passion and determination. 
     Even though he didn't become a writer, he remained passionate about books. He marked up his books so vigorously they had almost as much of his ink as the publisher's ink. He brought math and mythology books to show his Kaiser doctors. Even the shortest errand necessitated a tote bag of 5 or 6 usually hardcover books, in case he had to wait in line for a couple minutes – he never wanted to waste time that could be spent reading. As children, my sister and I got paid in the summer not to mow the lawn but to memorize Shakespeare speeches from the Old Globe's summer festival. I remember being eight years old and memorizing Shylock's moving speech, "Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?" I didn't really understand words like passion or Jew, but I still understood that this vilified character was saying something about fairness, about discrimination and dehumanization, and about resistance. These speeches – and the discussions we had about them – are still in the muscle memory of my brain. 
     Mostly I remember that books, plays and movies were something to discuss – not objects to be consumed but living creatures to engage with, feel deeply about, apply to our lives. We talked about how Shakespeare could write a play filled with both antisemitism and, at the same time, powerful words of anti-antisemitism. 
     I learned through my father's love of literature not just a love of the written word but also how to grapple with contradiction, the importance of talking about complex things. Even as he became very frail, he still loved the books and movies that meant so much to him--Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Amazing Grace, RBG—and he wanted to read new books. Just a month ago, I showed him a new anthology of immigrant poetry I had just ordered for my class, Ink Knows No Borders, and he immediately asked me to get him a copy. I showed him YouTube videos of writers from the book, and he totally understood what these very contemporary poets were saying, in complicated poems he had never read before, and he also understood that these voices mattered and that it was good that I was going to be teaching them. Every single day as a teacher I breathe my father's influence.
 


I have fond memories of Al Accomando.  The Christmas Eve family gatherings were noisy, funny, and good for the soul.  What an amazing family and life.  

The first day I met Allan was June of this year. As I walked into the Accomando home I was surprised to see so many people. Claire’s sisters were visiting and they were in the middle of preparing dinner. Carlos introduced me to everyone and everything that was going on. This was my introduction to becoming his caregiver and I was welcomed into their home as if I were family immediately. That day and everyday after that that I went to their home I was treated extremely well and was always offered food no matter what. 

My son and husband also got the opportunity to meet Allan, Claire, and Christina at a birthday party. My son, who is 17 months old, had a conversation with them, but we aren’t sure exactly what he was telling them. We all just enjoyed hearing him try to talk. At one point Allan did extend his hand to shake my sons hand, and to my surprise my son shook his hand. Allan was my sons first hand shake, and Chistina managed to catch a picture of it. 

Even though I only spent about three months with Allan, I learned so much about him.  I am a CNA, nurse assistant, but I feel that caregivers get to learn more about their patients than just a CNA would. He had so much love for movies, animals, babies and of course his family. He was one of the first few people that I was assigned to as  a caregiver and my family and I will always remember him. 

I first met Allan in 2006 when he and Claire went to Humboldt State University to listen to Christina's lecture on the occasion of her Outstanding Faculty of the Year award. Throughout the years, Christina shared stories of her parents and about how they instilled in her a strong commitment to working to create a more just world. 

Eleven years later, in 2017, I moved to San Diego to begin my studies in law school. Both Claire and Allan immediately and with an abundantly generous heart opened their home to me. They embraced me into their family and I felt a little bit less lonely and a lot more nourished. Allan, always a teacher, immediately asked me if I would be willing to watch To Kill a Mockingbird with him. He assured me I would LOVE it because he loved it as well. 

Very quickly I realized two things. First, Allan and I are kindred spirits: we share a passion for justice, we love teaching and learning, neither of us can stop telling our loved ones how much we love them, and we both love Christina. Secondly, that video was only the beginning of a long list of movies he had identified for a curriculum on legal issues and historical resistance to oppression. 

In the past two years, I have had the pleasure of watching and discussing videos with Allan, the joy of swimming with Claire, and the honor of sharing many meals with the Accomando family. Every time I left the house Allan held my hand, gingerly kissed it, and told me he loved me. Allan, I love you too.

Although I only met Allan briefly, I know him through the tremendous influence he has had on his daughter Christina and the many captivating stories she has shared about him. He was Fantastic Mr. Fox--adventurous, sometimes rash, charismatic, problem-solving, and above all, fiercely devoted to and loving his family. I treasure him through Christina's stories and know he lives on through them and the loving memories and stories of all his loved ones. 

CHARACTER

When I think of my father, I think of all the characters – both fictional and historical – that he embodied.  Characters who made him.  Characters he made better.  Characters he made legendary, to me.  

KING KONG – the gentle giant, with a capacity for love greater than that of any human.

DON QUIXOTE – the impossible dreamer, always tilting at windmills.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN – the humble leader, defender of what’s right and just.

All three, brilliant minds.  I can see why they resonated with Allan.  And I can name dozens more: idealists, poets, scientists, and superheroes.  Of all the characters, however, my favorite is the one he created himself…that character is DAD.


The Nevers

I will never see my dad again
Never hear him say I love you
Never get a hug
Never hear his voice
Never hear that NY accent say “booteeful”
Never have someone answer when I call Dad 
Never tilt at windmills
Never talk to him about Shakespeare
Never make him blueberry pie and ice cream
Never scold him for sneaking table scraps to my dogs
Never sit with him and watch the gorillas
Never cry with him over King Kong's death or laugh at the Marx Brothers
Never celebrate another birthday or Christmas with him
Never see his joy at being with his grandson 
Never see him and my mom together
Never see myself in his eyes
Never feel inspired to do something just to make him proud
Never fight with him about his pills 
Never see him in the ER
Never hear him scream in pain and wish he was dead
Never forget how much he loved us all
Never forget all the students he taught
Never forget he kept me home from school to watch On the Waterfront
Never forget his passion to fight for free speech and social justice
Never forget to dream the impossible dream and fight for lost causes
Never forget he shared his passion for Shakespeare with me
Never forget he taught to question authority and resist conformity
Never forget he loved me
Never forget I am who I am because of him
Never forget, ever

I met Mr. Allan Accomando through his daughter Christina— my professor, mentor, and now  friend—when I was in my early 20s. During breaks, I enjoyed returning to meet the parents. Allan told me about his fond New York memories, and he always affirmed my work as a teacher and scholar. 

Over the years, I’ve admired his determination, whether he was reading with his magnifying glass or insisting on walking independently despite his daughter’s advice. I guess what I admired most, though, was how much he loved his family. When he spoke about Christina and her work, he wore his pride with  a huge smile. 

I remember a conversation Christina and I had about parents. She  explained how her parents would love and support her no matter what. I knew that to be true. As her student, I’ve experienced how that type of love, care, and support  can trickle down.

My mind travels back to the many memories I have of Christina hearing out my frustrations, speaking during teach-ins, advocating for student programs, and supporting initiatives for marginalized students on campus. She carried a mixture of compassion, brilliance and fire. Allan may no longer be with us physically, but the gift of who he was will live on through his children. 

Allan was one of the most loving and generous men  I ever met in my life.    People talk about family first but Allan completely lived it.  I was lucky enough to meet the Accomando’s over 30 years ago when Christina invited me for a family dinner.  Compassion and  books and foods and smiles and flowers and stories and love and generosity -  these things emitted from their home like fireworks.  The Accomando’s, led by Allan and Claire, showed  me a different way.   For that I’ll be forever grateful. 

OBITUARY

Allan Jack Accomando

November 11, 1930 – August 23, 2019

Glen Abbey Memorial Park & Mortuary

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