Shelter Island Reporter Editorial: In memoriam, Herb Sherman

There are a couple of old sayings, as we’ve noted before, that sum up our feelings when important people in our community pass away. The ranks are thinning, you will hear. And the cemeteries are filled with irreplaceable people.

Both statements are true and untrue, since every day people pick up a fallen standard. Even though we’re diminished by the deaths of those who have lived unique lives and made a positive impression on everyone they’ve met, there are always others who are ready to replace them.

A family mourns loved ones who are gone, but a community can also mourn the loss of people who thin the ranks with their deaths.

So it is that we mourn the passing of lifelong Islander Herbert (Herb) B. Sherman Jr.  Herb’s life, until his death last month, was one of trials and obstacles, like all of our lives, but he overcame them and moved forward with grace, perseverance and good humor.

He contracted polio as a youth in the 1950s that put him in the hospital for almost a year recovering, and always had a reminder of that cruel disease by a weakness in his right leg. But talk about perseverance — he played baseball and basketball at Shelter Island High School, graduating in 1954. After high school he went to Fort Schuyler and Wagner College, and then enlisted in the Air Force for four years of service.

Weather, as in extreme, followed Herb throughout his life. The month of his birth, January 1936, was brutal, so cold that his mother, Melva, had to be taken across the frozen bay on a sled to reach Eastern Long Island Hospital for his birth. As a ferry captain, he recalled for the Reporter the 1991 “No Name” storm, a nor’easter that struck the Atlantic coastline and is the basis for “The Perfect Storm” book and movie.

“That was a nasty two days” to be a ferry captain, Mr. Sherman said, in his typically understated way.

And, there was Superstorm Sandy, which closed down the ferry for a time, not because the boats couldn’t make it through the water, but it was impossible to get cars on board with the high surf. Herb also told us about a  winter in the 1960s when one round trip between Shelter Island and Greenport took eight hours — four hours each way — because boats were small and ice was thick.

Take the pun — Herb always weathered the storm.

Herb worked on tugboats out of New York City and the Great Lakes, but never wanted to live anywhere but Shelter Island. He showed his love for his hometown by serving as a volunteer with the Shelter Island Fire Department for almost 60 years.

Our condolences go out to his family.

Thinking about this irreplaceable person and his love for Shelter Island, as well as his love of travel, we’re reminded of a saying by Eleanor Roosevelt: “The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer horizons.”