2007年NPR美国国家公共电台三月-Generous to a Fault: Harry Herz, Pipe Sal（在线收听）

Time again for StoryCorps. This oral history project collects stories from everyday people. Harry Herz sold tabaco pipes as a traveling salesman in the 1950s. For a week each month he would come home to his family in Newport Rhode Island. Here his daughter Catherine Dwyer remembers her dad.

My father grew up in New York and it didn't transit well in Newport Rhode Island, which was really very conservative. He would call any woman that he met "Toots" or "Babe", which was always embarrassing. And he was a bad dresser. He always had on these skinny white socks with suits. And he was old.
When I was ten, he was 62. He was like my grandfather. You know, he could play gerokomy with me and we would drive around at Jazz Festival and look at beatniks. And if he found a beatnik he'd invited them home. Somebody would knock on the door, and he would say, "I met this man and he said to come to this address and may have a little piece of paper." And my mother will be furious as like, "Oh, I didn't know we were having people for dinner!" You know. So he was just incredibly generous. If he saw anybody in need he would give them money. If somebody wanted to start a business he'd give them money.
He got in a car accident with a guy one time and he was furious with the guy who had a terrible temper. And by the end of the argument, and whose fault was it anyway, he had loaned the guy 10,000 dollars to start a restaurant. And a big bone of contention between my mom and him was how money he gave away. So when he came home from working, he'd take all the money -- he always had it in cash -- that he made, and he put it on the table. And he let me count it. But it was more from my mother, so that she could see that he hadn't given any away yet. And I always hear about this money. "Did so and so ever pay you back?" " Well, no yet." And when he died, people started mailing back the money that they owed him. And letters started coming in from everywhere about how my dad had helped them at this time in their lives. You know, I remember reading them when I was still in high school. And you know, I think I learned how important it is to connect with people.

Catherine Wayer remembering her father Harry Herz with her daughter Megan in New York City.

Your conversation will be archieved with all other StoryCorps interviews at the Library of Congress. You can hear more stories at npr.org.
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