Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
Friday 9 June 2023
This is the story of Sanford Greenberg, one of the most
amazing men of our time which I imagine most of you have never heard of. This is also the story of Art Garfunkel, yes
that Art Garfunkel who is part of Simon and Garfunkel, one of the most famous
music duos ever.
Sanford Greenberg was born in Buffalo, New York in
1940. He was a very bright young
man. He was so smart, in fact, that he won
a full scholarship to Columbia University where he enrolled in 1958. Columbia University is part of what we Americans
call the Ivy League of colleges.
Cornell, Yale, and Harvard are three other universities which belong to
this exclusive set of universities. It
was there he met Art Garfunkel who was majoring in literature. The two struck up what became a life-long
friendship that still endures today. They
became roommates. They would talk about
books and music, and they talked about the politics of the time.
During his third year at Columbia Sanford began to have
blurred vision. No big deal, he
thought. He would just go to the doctor and
get something corrective done to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the doctor gave Greenberg
devastating news. He had glaucoma which
was destroying his optic nerves. The
bottom line was, he would go completely blind, and it would happen
quickly. Distraught, ashamed, and
depressed, Greenberg dropped out of university and went back to his parents in
Buffalo to live the rest of his life in isolation and uselessness. Being blind at that time was no picnic. It still is no picnic today, but back then (I
would be born three years later) it was much more difficult. His prospects were in ruins. His hopes and dreams were in ruins. His life was over.
As his best friend, Art Garfunkel refused to allow this
to happen. He showed up one day in
Buffalo uninvited and was let in by Greenberg’s parents. He told Sanford (Sandy) Greenberg that he
would not allow him to throw away his life.
He would read for him. He would
walk with him. He would, in short, be
his eyes. He forced his friend to get
off the couch and go out.
One day they were at Grand Central Station. Art suddenly told Greenberg he had to go
somewhere and left his friend in the middle of the train station. By now, Greenberg was completely blind. Frightened and scared, Greenberg stumbled
about, falling a couple of times. He got
up and by asking people, he found the right platform to catch the right subway
to get home. Well, it would have been
more than a single subway. Greenberg
finally made it to his home station and as he walked home, hoping he could make
it, he bumped into yet another person.
He apologized, then discovered the person he bumped into was none other
than Art Garfunkel. Art had been there
the whole time. Art knew that the only
way his friend could pick himself up from the canvas was to become independent. Greenberg realized he could cope after
all. That Grand Central Station episode
was a turning point for his life.
Sanford (Sandy) Greenberg went back to Columbia, made up
the time he had lost, caught up with the rest of his class and graduated with
honors in 1961. Greenberg went on to found a whole set of
companies, married, and became a multi millionaire. In 1968 he founded Electronic Data Processing
(EDP) which was a big deal back in those days.
And while he was doing that, he invented one of the most important
technologies of the 20th century.
He came up with a device which compressed audio without distorting
it. It was his technology, invented when
he was completely blind, that forms the basis of audio compression technology
of today. He sold his device to Sony and
other consumer electronics companies. As
if that wasn’t enough, Greenberg advised Lyndon B. Johnson and became an
important advisor to subsequent administrations. He donated to charity including a $3 million
prize awarded to scientists who do the most to end blindness.
With all this accumulated wealth, Greenberg did something
else. His best friend Art Garfunkel
asked him for a $400 loan so he and another friend of his, Paul Simon, could
make their first album. Greenberg was
more than happy to comply with no questions asked. Greenberg hadn’t quite made all those
millions yet. Simon & Garfunkel
released Wednesday Morning 3 a.m. in October of 1964. It did not do well, but it was the start of
something great. And it never would have
happened without Art Garfunkel’s blind genius friend.
One of the songs on that at first unsuccessful album was The
Sound of Silence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkUOACGtGfA
Today, this song
is one of the most well-known and iconic songs in all of music. When Art Garfunkel was helping his friend
Sandy Greenberg pick himself up off the canvas, Art gave himself the nickname
of Darkness. He
used to say to Sandy “Today Darkness is going to read to you,” or “Darkness
will walk with you to. . .” This
nickname of darkness became a bond between the two best
friends. Eventually, the blind genius
whom the world did not quite know yet, would greet Art Garfunkel with “Hello
darkness my old friend.” And this is
where the opening lyrics to one of the greatest songs in modern music history
came from. When Art Garfunkel wrote the
lyrics to this song, he was thinking of his friend Sandy Greenberg and now you
know the story, you may understand what he was trying to say more clearly. Art Garfunkel needed to show his friend that
true vision is what matters, and true vision comes from within, from within
yourself. It is in the sound of silence
as we look within that we find our true sight and that is what guides us.
Sanford
Greenberg found his inner sight in the sound of silence and went on to achieve
great things. And while he was doing
great things, he allowed one of the greatest music acts of all time to
start. That first album was not a
success and Paul Simon moved to London to make his first solo album. But Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel got back
together to release a reboot album called The Sound of Silence in
January of 1966 and the rest is history.
Greenberg has written a book entitled:
Hello Darkness , My Old
Friend: How Daring Dreams and Unyielding
Friendship Turned One Man’s Blindness into an Extraordinary Vision for Life. The
audio book is read by Art Garfunkel.
Wow, what a
story! I got into computers in the mid
70’s when I was in the 8th grade.
I was part of an experimental program at the University of Hawaii to see
if young teenagers could take to computers.
I loved computers and knew about EDP.
But I did not know about it’s founder Sanford Greenberg at that
time.
For those who
can see, you might not appreciate why the Grand Central Station episode was a
turning point for Greenberg. When you
are in a crowded train station and you cannot see which train is what, and back
then, announcements were often hard to understand, this is really
difficult. Heck, train station
announcements are still hard to understand today.
I know what this
is like even though I have some sight. I
used to work on St. Kilda Road in Melbourne.
To get home, I went to a tram stop with many trams that would stop
there. There were no announcements. I needed to catch either the 6 or 72 tram,
but there was the 3, 5, 8, 16, 63, and 64 that could come by. How could I know which tram is what when I
couldn’t see the numbers? Greenberg at
Grand Central Station would have been a really traumatic event for him. At least I was born with blindness. I’m used to it. This poor guy had to adapt to a brand-new
dark world he knew nothing about.
I’ll end this
with my own Grand Central Station moment, except that it occurred at a bus stop
on Hotel Street in Hawaii way back in 1978.
The following story is absolutely true.
Back then, when
I went home from church, I did so on the city bus. I walked about two miles from the church to
the bus stop then had two choices to get home.
One was longer but involved no bus terminals with lots of buses. The other was shorter but involved a bus stop
hub on Hotel Street (in those days in Honolulu) with a large number of
buses. The choice I faced was whether to
face the very difficult task of catching the right bus at a crowded buss stop
hub in order to save time to get home.
Yes, I could ask
someone for help, and I did this sometimes, but pride got in the way a lot of
the time. This probably sounds stupid
and in one sense it is. Why would I
refuse to get help because of my pride?
It is because I was ashamed of being blind. When Greenberg went blind, he too, felt
shame. To be fair, asking for help is
fraught with risk. For one thing some
people give you a bum steer for kicks.
Yes, there are people like that.
For another thing, the person you ask may get on their bus before the
one you want happens by, meaning you have to ask someone else. On this particular day, I braved the
terminal. The sun was strong though and
try as I might to move up and down to get close enough to the bus to see the
number (this was one of the days my pride got in the way of asking for help) I
really struggled. I had caught the wrong
bus before.
Then a gentleman
asked me if I needed help. Back then I
was about as tall as I am now which is 6’3”.
This guy was taller than I was, at least 6’5” or 6’6” tall. He was much older in his 50’s or 60’s. He was a white guy with tanned wrinkled
skin. He wore sunglasses and was dressed
in a bright red and white aloha shirt and white pants. He was slim and fit. I explained to him that I did not see well,
and I wanted to catch the #12 Salt Lake bus.
It turned out he was waiting for the same bus so he told me we could get
on together. What a relief. My eyes were sore by now because of looking
into the sun to try to see bus numbers that I could not see. His help was great for me. And sure enough, a couple of minutes later,
my bus came. I got on and he got on
right after me.
The bus was
absolutely packed. All the seats were
taken and the rest of us were pressed against one another in the middle. Since this is a weird song column, I’ll put
in a link to Weird Al’s first recorded song that describes what conditions were
like on this crowded bus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79QxturUolo
I always laugh
when I hear this song because I have been on this bus. 😊 My
point is the bus was backed and the gentleman who helped me was pressed up
against me.
The doors closed
and the bus started to move. What
happened next occurred before the bus got to the next bus stop. I thanked the gentleman “No problem,” he
said. I turned to look out the window
not really looking at anything in particular.
I wondered whether I was being rude by not introducing myself. Did it matter? Would he care to know my name. I decided to go ahead anyway. When I turned back, the guy was gone. He literally disappeared into thin air. The bus was still moving. He had not sat down anywhere because there
were no seats. He hadn’t moved to
another standing position because there was no way for him to do so. I was kind of freaking out by now and I
looked around. Nothing. As I said, this guy was taller than I was so
even I could have spotted him.
I was so
perplexed I actually tapped the shoulder of the guy who was sitting on the seat
next to where I stood. I said: “Excuse
me, I know this will sound weird, but did you see what happened to the guy I
was talking to just now?” I’ll never
forget what he said to me. He said: “No,
I haven’t seen anyone. In fact, I was
wondering who you were talking to.”
That is a true
story. I have always believed that
gentleman was an angel. But why would an
angel help an insignificant blind person catch the right bus when he could have
been solving world hunger? The lesson I
took from this, and the lesson that has helped shape my life is this. The extraordinary is right here in the midst
of the ordinary. Normal vision allows
you to see the ordinary, but true vision allows you to see the extraordinary
others cannot see. Meditation is a part
of my life and when I meditate, I enter the realm of silence. It is the sound of silence that helps us see
what is truly important.
posted by Marc Breault @ 7:08 AM
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