Norman was clearly the leader of The Neighborhood. When I look back on this we were all pretty fortunate. To this day I cannot think of a single mean act on Norman's part. He was inventive, brave, smart, and fun. He led us on treks through the "backwoods" of the Berkeley hills in the Junior Marine Corps, bought the first electric guitar, built all manner of things -- including our first boats, designed forts underneath the house, invented bike-broom polo, and brought hifi into our lives with Heathkit electronics.

Norman was the oldest boy in a family of six kids, and so a natural leader. Why he was, and is, so kind, I do not know. Perhaps these things just come to some people.

The only bad thing Norman ever did was to disappear for a year to Hawaii without telling anyone where he was. That not knowing was really really hard, like a panic that settled into an ache that just never went away. But he was upset at the time and it was a voyage he himself had to take. When he at last came home, and I knew he was safe, I grinned inside so hard that my ears hurt. Being guys, it was a grin that I had to keep private.

Norman is the sort of guy who sets his mind on something he wants to do, and, loathe to ask for help from anyone, figures out a way to get it done. Sometimes this is amusing to watch him in his quiet, but entirely natural, machismo. For example, he will struggle silently trying to read the value of a small electronic resistor. Because he is red-green colorblind this is almost impossible to do. Or -- at the effect of the same affliction he will be bleeding profusely from a munged knuckle all over an engine block, the floor, the cylinder head... but covered with grease, and oil, he cannot find the camouflaged source and he will finally ask, almost apologetically, "Hey am I bleeding?"

Over the years, after moving away, I would check up with Norman to see what the latest was in The Neighborhood. One episode captures the well-why-not-try-it? spirit that Norman taught to all of us. Our conversation:

"Been up to anything lately?" I asked.

"Peter, Larry, and I took a scuba-diving class. We thought we might go on a diving trip," said Norman.

"Wasn't that a little hard for you?" I asked, surprised.

"It was pretty hard for me to keep up. It was all right though," Norman shrugged. Non-chalant.

"Well --- you know!?" I commented.

"Well, yeah..." he said.

"...I kind of wish I had learned how to swim," he continued after a thoughtful pause.

"Hmm. Yes. Not knowing how to swim must have made the scuba lessons a little challenging," I said.

"Ah, it was o.k...." (another shrug) "...I'm teaching myself now."

"That's probably a good idea before you go diving," I commented.

"Yeah... well, probably it is," he concluded.

You have to know Norman to appreciate his subtleties.