A Tribute to Steve Hilbert- one day late

When I first saw Steve, I felt I should be sitting on his lap, telling him I wanted a stereo and a cell phone and a new computer for Christmas, please. Even at seventy he had a full head of white hair, a fluffy white beard and a paunch like none I’d ever seen. With rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes, he could have been Santa’s stunt double.

I wasn’t the only person who noticed his uncanny resemblance to the old elf. “I’m Santa’s older brother,” he told a young boy who asked him once. And I wasn’t about to argue - not with a man who could disarm me in less than a second and who was the only certified fencing master in western New York.

“Well, that’s an interesting sport,” people say when I tell them I fence. “How did you begin doing something like that?” It’s an easy formula in my opinion. Give a girl a book with a sword-wielding heroine and she’ll be hooked. I certainly was. When I found a fencing club in Buffalo, I convinced a friend to come with me and check it out. She wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, but she came anyway, and one lesson was enough to convince her that fencing was just too cool to dismiss.

The beginner’s class was supposed to last only eight weeks, but it wasn’t designed for three eager eighth grade girls and one tolerant eighth grade boy who never practiced at home. Class was always fun, but the best times were when Steve took time off from scolding the advanced fencers and taught us. He was funny and sarcastic, but never mean. “God gave you knees to fence, so bend them,” he’d admonish us. And, “Look at your front foot; it’s pointing to Jersey City!”

When we at last began to fence each other, everyone struggled. We couldn’t see clearly through our protective masks and we were still clumsy with our weapons. “Your foil is not a windshield wiper,” was the phrase we heard most, with “If you were fencing any closer you’d be engaged,” coming in as a close second. It was enough to make us laugh and scandalize us at the same time.

Steve was our idol. He’d been fencing for most of his life, starting before the earth was made, the way he told it. Not only was Santa Claus his younger brother, but he’d gone to school with God.
But even Steve wasn’t immortal. He died on a Monday, the day before our weekly fencing lesson, three years after we’d started taking lessons from the club. The headline of his obituary read, “Stephen J. Hilbert, computer programmer.” But it wasn’t right. He was much more than that. He fenced, he sang on Broadway, and he fought in Korea. He was a member of MENSA, he loved gardening and his stained glass windows can be found in buildings around Buffalo. He was a teacher, role model and caring grandfather. Fencing will never be the same without him.