Gary Huddles Led a Charmed and Productive Life

In Northwest Baltimore in the middle of the 20th century, Gary Huddles seemed to bestride the world like some kind of sun god.

“Almost larger than life,” Beth El’s Rabbi Steven Schwartz called him in his eulogy for Huddles on Sunday. “If you wanted to be cool, you wanted to be like Gary Huddles.”

There was high-scoring Hud in the ’50s, dropping in jump shots for Forest Park High School’s varsity basketball team. There he was in the ’60s, heading from the University of Maryland Law School to a seat on the Baltimore County Council in the ’70s. There he was across a whole lifetime, handsome as Dorian Gray.

He was the barometer by which all postwar males of his era measured each other’s looks. Who among that generation doesn’t remember the following little colloquy?

“You’re Hud.”

“No, you are.”

Translation in the Baltimore parlance: “You’ve got the same movie star looks as Huddles.” “No, you do.” The lines were wrapped in sarcasm as surely as the Hilltop Diner’s hot dogs were wrapped in bologna or its mashed potatoes swam in gravy.

Huddles died last week, at 78, following a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease. But he had, in most respects, a marvelous lifetime run.

He was a Baltimore County prosecutor. He was a four-term County Councilman. He was chairman of the council. He helped the legendary Bea Gaddy feed Baltimore’s poor. He married well and produced successful children.

He had a whole life full of marvelous times, of laughter, of political success, of countless friendships, and of popularity that transcended even a few high-profile legal troubles.

And his funeral service reflected all of it – eulogies filled with stories warm and funny.

“We were all Huddles wannabes,” eulogized TV personality Richard Sher. When Huddles moved into a local senior living facility near the end, Sher said, “There were lines in the dining room to see who’d get to eat with him.”

As Huddles’ son, Kirk, told it, even at the end of his father’s life, a hospice nurse declared, “That’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.”

“You should have seen him 40 years ago,” Kirk Huddles told her.

He led a charmed life, and a productive one. Also, one with loose ends.

“He had more parking tickets than anybody in the state of Maryland,” recalled Dr. Sylvan Feldman. “And I still remember seeing him reading the newspaper – while driving.”

“If you went out to eat with him,” Rabbi Schwartz quoted a family member, “you’d sit down, you’d order, and you’d eat before he made his way to the table.”

“He didn’t care how long someone spoke,” said Kirk Huddles, laughing aloud, “as long as they were talking about him.”

And when things went wrong for Gary Huddles? “When you’re going through hell,” he’d say, “put your head down and keep going.”

He kept it going across a productive and charmed lifetime.

Michael OleskerA former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” has just been re-issued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

 

 

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