David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

raised him. What was her name? He
stopped short—a rare pause for him. “I
don’t know,” he said. “It will pop into
my head, I’m sure.” He sat still for a
moment and concentrated. “My sister
would remember, my mother would
remember. But they are no longer alive. I
have no living relatives—just two
cousins.” He paused again. “I want to
call her Mary. And that may actually be
her name. But my mother’s name was
Mary. So I may be confusing it...”
Freireich was eighty-four years old
when we talked. But it would be a
mistake to call this an age-related
memory lapse. Jay Freireich does not
have memory lapses. I interviewed him
for the first time one spring and then