'Living Treasure' Recalls Days After Pearl Harbor Attack

"I remember it so well. I was 13 years old," said Milt Goldband as he recalled December 8, 1941 at , one day after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. "I was a freshman. It was the day Roosevelt gave the 'Day of Infamy' speech. They herded us all into the auditorium and we listened to it on the radio. Everybody was talking about it. After that, we had air raid drills where we had to go to the cellar. A number of guys dropped out of high school right away in order to enlist. After graduation, almost all the senior guys went into the Armed Forces, which I probably would have done if I wasn't 13. You think you're invincible." 

Milt Goldband may not be invincible, but now he is, officially, a "Living Treasure." Each year the Morris County Office on Aging, along with the AARP and the St. Francis Residential Community, bestows the title on older citizens who have inspired their communities. Goldband, a 55-year resident of Morris Township, was chosen this year for his decades of volunteer work and community involvement.

Goldband is remembered by many as a baseball and basketball coach, as well as the long-time owner of Gold's convenience store near the Morristown train station. His father and uncle bought the business when he was eight or nine-years old, in the late 1930s.

"I got all the dirty jobs. That was the advantage of being the owner's son," he said with a laugh. "I had to bring the oil up from the cellar. I'd fill up a couple gallons and bring it up to the burner. In the summer, it had to be over 100° in there. I thought it was the lap of luxury when we finally got an exhaust fan."

Goldband says the Morristown business community has changed quite a bit. "There were lots of mom-and-pop stores. There were shoe stores, Thode's Ice Cream. Speedwell had a bunch of stores; a Jewish deli, a kosher butcher.

Goldband says that his family's shop was like the 7-11 of its day. "We had such a variety and we were open from 5:00 a.m. to midnight. It was unheard-of to work seven days a week, but Sunday was our biggest day because nobody else was open." Before Gold's, he said, there was nowhere in Morristown to buy a loaf of bread or quart of milk on Sunday. 

When he was very young, he said, "I remember selling single cigarettes because people didn't have money. The effects of the depression were still lingering. That didn't disappear until World War II. The area seemed much less built-up. There was only one apartment building in town. Because of that and because of the store, we used to feel that we knew everyone in town."

Morristown High School, he said, has seen some changes since he attended.

"One thing that was different was that you spent five years at the high school. It included eighth graders. So, now I tell people it took me five years to get out of Morristown High School. The school is much, much bigger than it was then and kids don't dress like we used to, nor do the teachers. One day a week we had dungaree day, where we could wear jeans to school. Other than that, it was nice pants and a shirt. Girls wore skirts with saddle shoes or penny loafers. Male teachers wore suit jackets or sport jackets and the women wore dresses."

Goldband recalls his favorite teacher. "Mr. Cowan was the greatest teacher I ever had. Percy Cowan taught English and he acted out every Shakespeare play. He just grabbed your interest and imagination. He took something that the average boy might not think he was interested in and made it absolutely fascinating. He was just great."

Goldband said he "never ran into much anti-semitism" growing up in Morristown. "We always accepted people and I think that helped," he said. However, he does recall an incident at the store when someone made an anti-semitic comment to his uncle Phil.

"My uncle was five-foot-two and weighed about 120 pounds soaking wet. He chased the guy out of the store swinging a broom." 

Goldband said that racism, by contrast, was common. "Segregation was pretty well-enforced. I remember my father hired a black girl at the store and he got complaints about it. He was a little ahead of his time, because he told those people that he didn't want their business." 

Even years later, when Goldband had children of his own and was coaching basketball teams at the Neighborhood House, he saw ugly displays of intolerance. Reactions were less-than-welcoming when he walked into some school gyms with his mostly-black or all-black team. In one case, mothers came running out of the stands, grabbed the cheerleaders of the opposing team and moved them to a spot further from his players.

Goldband advised his team to take the high road of good sportsmanship. "We won the best sportsmanship award several times and, in a way, I was more gratified by that than the championships we won." 

By then, Milt and Eve had two children, Dennis and Wendy. Dennis' days in Little League had sparked Milton Goldband's interest in coaching, but he kept at it for 34 years.

His Neighborhood House teams caught the eye of the athletic director at Bayley Ellard High School and he was offered a job coaching baseball and basketball. He was thrilled, but since he and Eve were, by then, running Gold's, he didn't think it could work. "I was so flattered. I didn't think that I had the time, but with the help of Eve, I took the job."

Goldband said it was the right choice. "Even though I'm Jewish–the school was Catholic– I don't know if I've ever had a happier time in my life. I was around sports and it was in a more organized way than rec sports. I stayed there for 12 years."

His love of sports, Goldband said, is part of the reason why he downplays the "Living Treasure" accolades. "I don't do any of these things for the glory of doing them. To me, it's a lot of fun. The most fun I ever had was volunteering, coaching baseball and basketball teams."

"More people should volunteer," he said. "People watch sports on TV and second-guess the manager and the coach, but if you coach, you get a chance to do it yourself."

"We still do volunteering, he said of himself and Eve. I enjoy it. You meet so many people."

So if you spot Milt Goldband at the , ushering or serving drinks; or at a Red Cross blood drive, handling your registration or serving you refreshments, say hello. He'll surely have a good story to tell you.