Paul Richard Kreider - Second Son

Five years after Evan was born, Paul became the second son of J. Robert and Virginia on a March day, the 6th, in 1947. I had a special advantage that none of the other brothers had because I was born just two years later, obviously a mistake as the ensuing births maintained the stately pace of five years after me, Bruce and five after Bruce, Frank. Being only two years apart meant that I got to experience many things with a brother that the others could only have dreamed about. Paul and I often played together passing a football back and forth in the backyard or burning a softball between us just as hard as we could possibly throw it trying not to show the result of the heat except for the occasional “YEOW!” that could not be helped as the glove flew off and the hand was shaken in the air in an attempt to cool it. We and the other kids our age had a neighborhood softball team that occasionally played other teams and as I recall we usually won… Paul was a long hitter. Sometimes we rode bikes together, and now and then went for long treks bolstered by fried egg sandwiches mom made for us.

The main thing for me was that I had someone immediate to look up to, someone to emulate. He figured out all the neat stuff before I even knew it existed, for instance, buying our first cigarette lighters (his was red, mine green) the excuse being that as newspaper boys we needed a means to burn the paper that surrounded the news bundles that we picked up at Kercher’s Market. This was Paul’s rationale; I wasn’t up to those subtle complexities yet. We’d really gotten them because they were so cool. I remember when we first filled them with lighter fluid, a tricky job, and were surprised when our arms went up in flames on that first click.  Guess we’d been a little sloppy. Just to center things a bit, Paul bought a lot of paperbacks at an early age, Dickens, Eliot and I don’t know who all, and he not only let me read them but encouraged me to. That’s how I came to read the Pickwick Papers and more by the fifth grade.

Paul studied violin with Dr. Lon Sherer. I started a year or so later. I always wanted to become as good as Paul and never quite made it but there were several wonderful experiences that derived from our playing strings together. One was a recital where we played Bach’s Concerto in D minor for Two Violins and piano. Paul, being first violin, played all the hard stuff and I got to do the answering bits, not a bad deal. Later on in college after I’d switched to viola, we, with Lon Sherer and John Ens were a string quartet that traveled to different towns during yuletide to be the “orchestra” for the local church or community choir doing Handel’s Messiah. That was the peak of my string experience and I got to do it with my brother.

Later on we both fulfilled our 1-W requirements during the Viet Nam War in New York City at New York University Medical Center, Paul in Inhalation Therapy and myself as a project assistant for the Department of Biochemistry. During this time we did things together and on occasion with Evan and Janice too (Evan at that time was in NYC with the New York Pro Musica. I particularly recall the Symphony in the Park for which a large thermos of screwdrivers had been prepared).

So, you see, it was my luck that we shared a fair amount of early history. Many years later when the two of us were talking about our youth he kind of mentioned that sometimes I had been a tag-along. All I can say is that Paul was so gentle, I never knew it.
Mark