As millions around the world now begin putting away their holiday decorations, I’m reminded of my late friend Walter “Gus” Hansen, who kept a decorated Christmas tree in his living room 12 months a year.
I’d walk into his rowhouse on Collington Avenue in Southeast Baltimore and gently point out, “Gus, you know it’s July, don’t you?”
“So?” he’d answer.
“So,” I’d say, “as a Jew, I know it’s not my holiday, but aren’t you a little late taking the tree down?”
“Late for what?” he’d answer, officially closing all discussion.
The tree reflected his general non-sectarian outlook on life. Every day was a celebration of some kind, and every person he encountered was a chance to extend the gift of friendship.
Gus made his living setting tile. But he made a life out of reaching across any distance between friends, or total strangers, with the most generous heart imaginable, whether your home held a Christmas tree or Chanukah lights or any other decoration.
He’s the one who spent every Thanksgiving handing out food to the needy. He’d give struggling down-and-out types a room at his house until they got back on their feet. He’d stop school kids on his block and ask, “How’d you do on your report card?”
“Good.”
“Here’s $5,” Gus would say.
We’re all given lessons in living from our parents, and some of us actually hold onto them. Gus remembered the important ones. His father, Walter Hansen Sr., was a labor organizer. In the dangerous 1930s, the father gave pro-union speeches while his wife, Helen, stood by with a gun in her purse in case things got out of hand with cops or with corporate head-busters.
“You carry the gun,” Walter explained to his wife. “They never search women.”
In those awful Depression years, the parents were passing on to their only son a simple notion: the dignity of a decent job, at decent pay, for all those who want to work.
Gus was a tall, lanky fellow with wispy blond hair and a goatee. His parents bought the house on Collington Avenue for $800 during the Depression, and never moved from the neighborhood.
Gus went to Patterson High, served in Korea during the heavy fighting there, came home to marry and raise a family — and never left the block.
He was part of a lunch group that used to meet every week at Sabatino’s in Little Italy. Gus was the one who made it a point, after finishing his meal, to stroll back into the kitchen and tell the cook how good the food tasted.
He loved grabbing friends from different parts of town, and different backgrounds, and throwing them together for big meals. The symbolism was intentional: life’s a bounty; we should revel in the different gifts each of us brings to the table.
Gus died back in July of 2007 when he suffered a heart attack, at 76. In life, he kept a list of several dozen names of the dearly departed. Every night he said prayers for them. The world should say a prayer for people like Gus Hansen.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
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