With tears running down my face, I am writing to tell you that our dear friend Lou Brauner died yesterday. He would have been 96 on July 8.
Lou had been a van driver for Campus Kids-NJ back in the days that we leased and drove our own vans to take kids to offsite activities and to pick up some of the campers who lived off the normal bus routes. A professional school bus driver at that time, Lou filled his summers for about ten years working for Campus Kids. However, he was so much more than just a driver to us.
Lou was the spirit of energy, life and friendship. Camp meant a great deal to Lou and he was a very special friend to each of us. Even after he no longer was able to drive, Lou came up to camp for visits, spoke at announcements to the campers and staff and managed in just a few hours to charm each person and to make yet another group of friends.
Lou had several careers during his long life. Son of an immigrant Hungarian family living in Elizabeth, NJ and raised by his mother, Lou was fortunate that a friend of the family paid for him to go to camp as a youth. He spent many years living in Cranford, during which time he was a butcher and then found a career at the Western Electric division of AT&T. He had a wonderful family, including his daughter and her husband, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Lou’s beloved wife Alice passed away the year before he found Campus Kids and he often reminded me that the joy of camp and his love of the campers and staff filled a huge void in his life.
Lou wrote faithfully for the “Sundial”, our camp newsletter. His articles were poetic, philosophical and complex. Yet they were simple in their expression of love for people and for life and for the appreciation of every moment that is given to us.
Many CK old timers will remember Lou’s powerful “lumberjack handshake” and I recall many times in the dining room when there would be a line of senior campers eager to see if they could hang on to Lou’s hand as he sawed back and forth. Some very old timers will also remember how he got his nickname, “Cannonball Lou”. He had gone to pick up a group on a day trip and they were swimming when he arrived. He looked so eager to join them, that someone loaned him a pair of shorts (which were much too big for the ever-lean Lou) and he gleefully ran like crazy, jumped off the edge and performed a magnificent cannonball dive. Pretty good for a granddad.
Many times at the end of a summer camp season, Lou traveled to Hungary to visit the scores of relatives he had there. He was still fluent in the language and would bring what I would call “care packages” of clothing and other items that were not available in the country at that time. His treasure trove included Campus Kids t-shirts and the summer’s worth of “Sundial” issues! I can imagine him reading those aloud to all the relatives.
I recently spoke to Lou as he was in physical therapy, following open-heart surgery, and we made plans to celebrate his 96th birthday at camp this summer. He was really looking forward to being at camp for that party and, I’m sure, was already working on his speech to the campers and staff. Lou never shied away from the limelight or the microphone.
For those of you who knew Lou, his daughter Carol says that Lou very specifically did not want a memorial service of any kind. She asks, though, that we all raise a glass to “the memory of his wonderful life” on July 8. It’s the least we can do to honor a dear friend and a life lived with a richness beyond any reasonable expectations.
I miss you, Lou.
Tom
P.S. -- Our web photo journalist of the past two years, Matt Lurrie, wrote a very nice piece about one of Lou's birthday visits to camp. I share it here: http://www.campuskids.com/nj06/articles/Lou.htm
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