[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 87 (Thursday, June 10, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H4373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO BILL HANDLEMAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, award-winning journalist Bill 
Handleman, 62, of the Asbury Park Press, tragically passed away 
yesterday after a long bout with cancer.
  A family man and a humanitarian with a great big heart and incisive 
wit, Bill is survived by his dear wife Judy, his three children, his 
mom, extended family, and a boatload of friends.
  And allow me to extend our deepest condolences to the family and to 
let them know that our prayers are with them during this very, very 
difficult time.
  Mr. Speaker, to know Bill Handleman in person or through his prolific 
pen is to respect and admire his innate goodness, his generosity, and 
good humor. For years, Bill's news beat was sports, and he especially 
liked the ponies. He was a four-time sportswriter of the year, in 1992, 
2002, 2003, and 2005.
  Asbury Park Press staff writer Shannon Mullen writes in today's 
edition, however, that ``Bill soon discovered that he much preferred 
writing about everyday struggles of ordinary people rather than the 
coddled multimillionaire athletes he dealt with on the sports beat.''
  Bill had an extraordinary penchant for a compelling subject matter 
and consistently turned the seemingly mundane, especially those who 
were left out and left behind, into compelling human interest stories.
  The Press's Shannon Mullen again summed it up well: ``Bill Handleman 
was a gifted storyteller. His writing style was direct, witty, and 
spare. A lifelong student of Hemingway, he used periods like an 
Impressionist painter uses a brush, preferring short, incisive 
sentences that packed a punch. And as a columnist, Handleman relished 
championing the underdog.'' Mr. Speaker, thank God he did.
  Even as he battled cancer, Bill turned out one great story after 
another with intriguing titles like, ``A Man With a Hole in His Heart: 
A Coach's Story''; ``No Longer Homeless: A Former Mogul Envisions the 
Future''; ``A Different Midlife Crisis: A Man Learns that He Is 
Adopted''; ``During the Depression, the Poor Scramble for Work and 
Cash''; ``A Father Leaves Behind a Secret''--it was a World War II 
veteran story.
  His stories made us laugh and touched our hearts, and they moved us 
to action, like the case of David Goldman. To a large extent, David 
Goldman ceased being invisible in his heroic battle to reclaim his son, 
Sean, from a child abductor in Brazil because Bill Handleman made it 
his passion to effectively inform, inspire, and challenge the 
community, including and especially lawmakers, to join David's struggle 
for justice.

                              {time}  1600

  ``For 4 years, no one could hear him. He was shouting in the dark,'' 
David's father, Barry, told Mr. Handleman in one column. In the 16 
months since Mr. Handleman began telling this story, David's seemingly 
intractable plight went from near total obscurity to huge prominence. 
Public officials at every level responded to the call.
  Each of Bill Handleman's approximately 24 columns not only conveyed 
to readers timely and critically important information about the 
Goldman case, but Mr. Handleman went deep behind the scenes to flesh 
out details of uncommon courage, sacrifice and compassion. Bill 
Handleman gave the community rare insights into the raw emotion and the 
fleeting successes, followed by frustrating setbacks, the agony and 
ultimately the ecstasy of David and Sean's permanent reunion.
  In a candor and depth of reporting found nowhere else in the print 
media, we got to know David in his own words as he was thinking it. 
Readers of the column were there with David on countless trips to Rio, 
to Brasilia, to Washington, and at home with him in Monmouth County. 
For more than a year, Bill Handleman allowed us to see it all as David 
did and to walk, to some extent, in left-behind-parents' shoes. Through 
Bill Handleman's incisive pen, we also got to know much of David 
Goldman's family and close friends.
  We will miss Bill Handleman. I, along with tens and thousands of 
others, read each and every column, often with tears and empathy and 
resolve to do more about David Goldman's case. David Goldman was, 
indeed, lucky that the columnist who embraced his quest turned out to 
be a consummate storyteller and the Handleman column a true game-
changer. Bill Handleman did an exceptional job. We will miss him 
dearly.
  Again, our prayers and our condolences go out to Judy and to the 
family.

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