Alex Velto: He would prefer to be an unknown soldier

The rooms were so much colder then, my father was a soldier then, and times were very hard when I was young.

DEC. 20, 2009: What is the right thing to do for someone you know is dying?

I figured I might as well act like we're all going to live forever. And so in October I stepped by Alex Velto's office to give him a copy of the book “Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson.”

After decades of working at St. Lawrence University, Catholic Charities and the Northern New York Community Foundation, Alex had become a part of the north country landscape, much like an Adirondack high peak or river on its way to Lake Ontario.

But before Alex became part mountain and river, he was part manhole cover. He grew up in New York City and I figured his every sinew and fiber would understand what author Wil Haygood was trying to accomplish in his book on Robinson. The book isn't just about boxing. It is about the sound and smell of Harlem and how the jazz and food and poetry and sartorial spender of that era influenced the greatest boxer of all time.

When Sugar Ray was at his apex, Alex was an impressionable kid, a budding athlete himself who in 1958 was named one of the top high school football players in the city.

Alex called me in November to say how much he was enjoying the book. It was just like I figured: you can take the boy out of the city but you can't take the city out of the boy.

He sounded like Alex that day, but the truth was that there were fewer and fewer days like that. For the last half year those who knew him kept hoping that some treatment for his cancer might make a difference, might extend a life that had so much more to give. But weeks ago he was told there would be no cure and his life on this earth would end soon.

Alex in many ways was a walking contradiction. A big man who looked like he could dead lift the back end of your car, he spoke gently — and was easily moved by the needs of others. He read and understood the words of scholars and philosophers but he kept his own vernacular simple.

The sound of his voice and inflection were distinctly New York City and his initial work experiences were in Chicago. Yet he embraced the ruralness of the north county and used the Adirondacks as a personal playground.

And while his work touched the lives of thousands, he wasn't much on working the social circuit, grabbing a microphone or being in the limelight.

He didn't show up at every event and certainly didn't join other organizations. How could he? He wanted to be open equally to all agencies who have asked the NNYCF for funding. To join any would be seen as a conflict of interest by someone somewhere.

But there was another reason for his low-key, behind-the-scenes persona. The history of social justice has given us generations of unknown soldiers. And that's the point. It's about helping others, not building your own empire.

As the community prepares for a memorial service for Alex Velto next month, this is the wrestling match that will be taking place. Every leader in this community knows that the life of Alex Velto should be celebrated and his memory honored. And yet everyone who knew Alex would likely tell you that if he could speak from heaven he would politely suggest that we find some other way to spend our time. Go to a soup kitchen. Help a student who can't afford to go to college. Develop an investment strategy that ensures annual funding for something our community doesn't have but desperately needs.

This is the only good thing I can see in the death of Alex Velto. For only in his wrenching absence can we finally thank him for his caring touch.