AL HOOK: AN APPRECIATION

 By:  Paul S. Marchand

There was a memorial service last Saturday for Alfred Hook, who died last month at the age of 91.  Al and his wife Annie, who died in 2003, were paragons of volunteer civic involvement here in Cathedral City.  There was nary a civic function at which Al and Annie, and later Al alone, were not present as volunteers.

When I first entered public office as a city councilmember, my Council predecessor and dear friend Sarah DiGrandi took me aside and advised me that Al and Annie were people I needed to get to know.  She was absolutely right.

For in every community, there are those stalwart citizens who can be relied upon to do much of the unsung, unglamorous work that helps enhance the quality of community life. Like the so-called Greatest Generation that fought in World War II, these stalwart citizens and do what they do without a lot of expectation of recognition; there is a kind of holy humility to the volunteer work undertaken by the Annie and Al Hooks of the world.

For Al himself was a member of that Greatest Generation that fought and won the Second World War, and which is now slipping into eternity at the rate of roughly a thousand a day. This Greatest Generation, which did so much to save the world, came home from war and with surprising humility and modesty resumed civilian life, its exploits largely unheralded and unsung.  In his volunteer work in Cathedral City, Al Hook embodied the Greatest Generation’s self-effacing ethic of service.

The idea of the self-effacing righteous one who serves and saves is not without precedent or parallel. In Jewish mysticism, the so-called Tzadikim Nistarim, or hidden righteous ones, are believed to be 36 special individuals for whose sake the world continues. Similarly, in the Eighteenth Chapter of Genesis, Abraham the patriarch extracts a promise from God that despite its depravities, God would turn his wrath away from Sodom if ten righteous persons could be found there.

We may never know whether Al Hook was among the world-saving 36, or even one of that salvific quorum of ten on whose putative behalf Abraham was willing to stand up even to God. What we do know is that during his time in our community, Al Hook, in his own unspectacular, self-effacing way, reminded us that there is a special, even holy, dignity in the giving of time, toil, and talent in the service of that community.

Yet, in every community, there are those few for whose sake and by whose effort the Commonwealth continues.  Al was one of them, and I shall miss him. 

May he rest in peace, and angels speed him to that rest.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California, where he served eight years as a city Council member. The views contained herein are his own, and are not intended to constitute legal advice, and should not be so construed.