All of us have heard the old phrase, “before my time.” It captures a simple truth.
Witnessing always makes a difference. Living “before” events happened is not the same as being there. Presence during the history of an epoch is the real thing.
Some participated in that history. The Greatest Generation, women and men, did just that before my time. They fought or aided the fighting force in World War II. We boomers are the ones who read about it and view the movies, coming away in tears, and wondering how they did it.
Perhaps you knew some of them, as I did. I spoke to them because they were my uncles, neighbors, and my friends’ parents in our youth. I talked to them as their counselor, past their battles, beyond my early years.
A few were Chicago Symphony musicians, like Fred Spector, whom I heard perform and interviewed later.
My dad served as a soldier in the conflict, as well.
These men and women of substance didn’t read about it or see it in motion pictures; these people lived the experience before your time and mine.
Sometimes, if they shared them, a handful of their memories lingered with the listener. One of those taught me not just about their life, but about life.
Jerome (Jerry) Katz was a psychiatrist in the Chicago area some years back. Jerry died at 72 after a long career practicing in Chicago’s northern suburbs.
The psychiatrist was a man of size and solidity with a gentle soul, despite his days as a high school football player in the Windy City.
Jerome Katz always appeared to be at ease, with an inviting smile on his face and a soothing voice. The twinkle in his eyes carried mystery, though — as if he understood something that the rest of us hadn’t figured out quite yet.
I didn’t know Jerry very well.
Ours was the kind of relationship that maintained cordiality, saying hello, passing a few words, telling a joke, as Jerry often did, but never much more.
From time to time, Jerry would consult me for my diagnostic opinion about a hospitalized patient. Beyond that, I suspect we never talked for more than five minutes.
Except for one day.
More than 30 years ago, we sat alone in the doctors’ cafeteria at Forest Hospital, then a private psychiatric facility in Des Plaines, IL.
To our surprise, no one else was around, and the room remained undisturbed for the entire period of our lunch.
One might say for that hour, it became the kind of place where one could share intimacies, like a therapist’s office.
The discussion turned to Jerry’s youthful service in World War II, “The Good War.” I don’t remember whether Jerry said that he enlisted while underage, but he didn’t hesitate. To young men of the time, patriotism meant joining up.
It was their duty.
Jerry made his way through basic training to the killing fields of France after D-Day, the Allied Invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944.
He could not have been more than 18 when his perspective on life changed because of a single enemy.
Katz and his unit were “dug in” that day. They’d created a foxhole, perhaps behind some rocks, dead trees, hastily shoveled earthworks, and a shallow pit to sink behind. Not the conventional trench of World War I, but something temporary.
A German force attacked: a bayonet and rifle charge. And Jerry, a strapping young man of perhaps 6’2″, did what he had trained to do. All his comrades did, holding their ground and firing into the oncoming assault.
Soldiers fell at a distance, but a few continued their rush ahead. The gap closed. One in particular kept moving — a towering giant of a warrior — bigger than Katz, built like a mobile fortress, a monster machine, indestructible.
Jerry and the Americans kept shooting, and no amount of speeding metal deterred the attacker. He just kept racing toward them.
Jerry remembered the surreal nature of the event. He and his mates had fired enough bullets to kill 20 men. But somehow they must have missed this soldier. He was now almost on top of their position and on top of Jerry.
Time stretched as the man lunged at Jerry with his bayonet — and collapsed, close enough for Jerry to touch the dead enemy and the blade intended for his flesh. If the giant German possessed only one more second of life, the future psychiatrist would have lost his own.
In a meaningful sense, Katz was touched by this combatant because he thought this soldier would be his executioner. The man who wanted to end Jerry’s life instead transformed it.
“Since that day, everything in my life — every day of my life — has been a ‘lagniappe.'”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a French expression. It means ‘something extra.’ Like when you go into a bakery, and they give you an extra roll because you bought a dozen. A kind of gift.”
The conversation ended not long after Jerome Katz told me that story.
Like most of us, Jerry had his ups and downs in life. Heart disease was one of his challenges; a loving wife and family were one of his boons.
Dr. Katz helped his fellow women and men by treating his patients, but also by donating his psychiatric expertise to Russian immigrants at the Ark, a charitable organization offering social services.
All of that matters, of course, but when I think of Dr. Jerome Katz, I always think of his combat story, his bravery, and the narrow escape.
I recall how every day of his life became “something extra.”
And I remember how the twinkle in his eyes got there.
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The three photos are the superb photographic art of Laura Hedien: Laura Hedien Official Website.
The first is Chile, Patagonia, at Torres del Paine Mountain, April, 2025. The second is a Kenyan Leopard, in the Masai Mara, Kenya, November 2024. Finally, Otter in the Wilds of Kodiak, 2025.
