I’m on a plane heading out to Chicago to present a class to a small group of fire officers and I’m still thinking about yesterday. Just a short 24 hours ago I attended the funeral for my friend Harvey Eisner. Harvey passed away this past week suddenly and unexpectedly and I have been thinking about him alot since then. Harvey took the short ride up from New Jersey last week to my home in the Catskill Mountains and we sat in my office for over three hours talking about, what else, fire! He was in the midst of gathering information and stories for a book he was working on.
He was interviewing, I believe hundreds of members of the FDNY, about the job and their experiences. We sat there for hours as Harvey asked me the same set of questions he had asked the many others he had alreay talked to. In between questions, he and I would also talk and remenisce about some of the many events and functions that we had been to together. He told me some really funny stories about situations he had found himself in and I did the same. In fact, in response to several of his questions I had to ask him to turn off the recorder so I could tell him a story that I knew would not be fit for his book.
About half way through our discussion Harvey started to talk about how things were going for him. He told me that for a long time he had three jobs, which kept him really busy. He wasn’t complaining, just explaining that he was active in his volunteer fire department in Tenafly N.J., where he rose through the ranks and eventually was chief, a rank he held for 12 years. At the same time, he continued, he was working full-time with the District Attorney’s (DA's) office in The Bronx, and of course he was also the long time editor-in-chief of Firehouse magazine, which also included overseeing Firehouse Expo in Baltimore and Firehouse World in San Diego. Now, he said, he was no longer the chief in Tenafly, he had retired from the DA’s office and his role at Firehouse had recently been modified and he was now the editor-in-chief emertitus with a significantly less busy calendar and schedule. These changes had resulted in Harvey having much more free time and he said he was happy to be able to spend it working on the new book and talking to his many friends in the FDNY.
Harvey asked and I answered many more questions that morning and sometime after noon we were finished. He gathered his recorder and note pads and we walked out to his car in my driveway. After putting his bag in the car he reached in and brought out a thick photo album that he placed on the hood of his car in front of me. I opened it and immediately recognized some of Harveys photographs. As I turned the pages Harvey narrated each photo. His first "published" photo, that of a blind man on the fire escape being led by a firefighter, was right up front. Then several of the many "cover shots" that Harvey had published in Firehouse magazine. He quickly recited the year, the city where it was taken, the fire and many other details of each of the covers. Other pictures were there too, of Harvey at memorable fires in New York City, of some of his honorary fire chief functions, and dozens of others. Harvey was beaming with pride as we turned the pages and I could only think, how does he find the time?
We said our goodbyes and Harvey drove away, neither of us knowing it would be our last moment together. It occurred to me just then that Harvey was not just a fire buff, or an honorary assistant chief, or photographer, or magazine editor or friend. Harvey was a man that didn’t let one thing slip by unnoticed or undone. He was busy because he was driven. Driven by his keen interest in the fire service, in his photography, in his magazine and in the many firehouses and friends he had in the FDNY and around the country. I don’t think Harvey every put off a project until tomorrow, he simply fit it into his already busy schedule.
So what is the lesson here, what is the message?
The lesson is don’t waste a minute of today! None of us knows how many years or months or even days we have in our future. Harvey never wasted a moment and we should all be thankful for that. His busy schedule resulted in fantastic photos of firefighters doing fantastic things, in great new presenters and authors getting out there and teaching firefighters how to stay alive, in deserving foundations raising funds for worthy recipients and much more.
Harvey squeezed a hundred years of service, dedication and humility into his 59 years with us.
So the next time you are presented a challenge, or an opportunity or a task, my advice to you will be, “What would Harvey do?”
