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Vol. LXIII, No. 22
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Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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Vol. LXIII, No. 22
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Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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Andy Prokopetz, a 93-year-young resident of Elm Court, is a can-do kind of guy. He’s not inclined to strut his stuff, so it takes a while to find out just how many pies he’s got a finger in.
Like nature, he abhors a vacuum, though “abhor” is really too strong a word for this soft-spoken, good-natured gentleman. When no one stepped up to play the piano at the sing-alongs he helped to start at Elm Court in 1998, he found records for participants to sing to. The late piano-player Sandy Maxwell eventually came to the rescue, and Mr. Prokopetz ended up producing a 400-song compilation of old favorites.
No bingo at Elm Court? Think again. Mr. Prokopetz, who has been in residence at the 88-unit apartment house for low-income elderly and disabled people for over twenty years, started bingo games. Ditto for dance classes (which only lasted “three or four weeks,” he sadly reported), and maintaining the facility’s flower garden.
“He is always making a contribution to the community,” observed Social Worker Rhona Porter. “He is a very self-contained man, but he also reaches out and gets involved.” Getting involved has included two terms as the Elm Court Association’s treasurer.
One of Mr. Prokopetz’s most important contributions may be the scrapbooks he maintains, documenting Elm Court activities since 1989. He also keeps a book “of everyone who’s lived here and moved,” he says, including their obituaries.
Mr. Prokopetz, who plans to live to 100, grew up on a farm, finished the first year of high school, and went to work for Congoleum floors, where he advanced from clerk to foreman. “Pushed” out at 55, he got a job at Mercedes-Benz, where he worked for another ten years.
Some of Mr. Prokopetz’s activities are more solitary, like his stamp-collecting hobby, which began as a shared activity with his then eight-year-old son. Now the son is an attorney in North Carolina and Andy has, not surprisingly, taken the collection to new levels. He recently displayed his collection of First Day Cover issues celebrating African Americans at the Arts Council’s Black History month festivities. He also collects other U.S., Germany, Canada, and Poland issues.
Ceramics
Youngsters in Princeton know Mr. Prokopetz for his ceramics. About twenty years ago he was part of the effort to acquire a kiln at Elm Court. Donations of molds, brushes and paints helped get things started, and for a while the Association actually saw a profit on the sale of pieces. “Then things slowed down,” recalled Mr. Prokopetz.
Undeterred, he and his fellow artists began to make Christmas trees and Easter eggs. When everyone else lost interest, he continued, establishing a schedule for giving out snowmen, swans, Liberty Bells, and other gifts to elementary school students. Sometimes he brought unpainted eggs for Kindergarteners to color themselves. Younger siblings recognized similar pieces that older brother and sisters had brought home years before. “‘Oh, my sister got that when she came to visit Elm Court two years ago,’” Ms. Porter reports children saying. “He really is quite well-known with the Johnson Park and Littlebrook set.” He also read with the children, until deafness made it too difficult.
Now Mr. Prokopetz is giving up his kiln. “He feels he’s just too old for it,” said Ms. Porter. Ever the archivist, Mr. Prokopetz wrote a history of the kiln and its output. After enumerating the quantities of components needed for various pieces (“200 unpainted eggs to make small snow men”), he described how several local ceramic stores have closed in recent years, leaving “the nearest store at Toms River. This was too expensive to drive to.”
“My brushes were old, my molds were old, and I grew older,” wrote Mr. Prokopetz, explaining why he decided to stop making ceramic pieces in 2009. Bidding adieu to his kiln, he wrote, “Good-bye, old pal.”