The historic Breakfast Club at the equally historic Roll ‘n’ Rye deli — convening seven days every week —has developed a large cavity since one of its founders, Bob Lench, died on Nov. 7. But at this afternoon’s memorial service on the campus of his beloved West Los Angeles College, dear friends said the 84-year-old trustee left them with such a reservoir of stories, they can spin ‘em for years without ever repeating.
In a casual ceremony in the Fine Arts Theatre that President Dr. Mark Rocha said was abbreviated because they didn’t want the modest Mr. Lench to get mad at them for making a fuss, friends outlined a broad profile, and filled in the open spaces with their stories.
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One of the last of the old-fashioned entrepreneurs, he was memorialized as a philanthropist of uncommon dimensions, partially because he came exactly from where he found the thousands of people he helped. He did not start out on top. A widower who was childless, Mr. Lench was a self-made man.
Singularly impatient with the labyrinthine ways of institutional process, he always did things his way.
After a few years, people got used to that habit. Never did he accept the crucial necessity of process. He did it directly. Why couldn’t others? Patience was for others, not for Bob Lench.
He was a golfer, he was a pilot, he sailed the ocean, but what every commentator mentioned was Mr. Lench’s generosity, especially to students with a need.
No Payback Desired
“And for all that he did for the college,” said Dr. Rocha, “he never asked for anything in return.”
Fellow Foundation member Paul Jacobs and friend Michael Bauer chuckled over how deadlines were made out of paper for Mr. Lench.
One of his favorite pastimes was interviewing prospective scholarship students at West. Interviews were to run no longer than 15 minutes. Everybody agreed. Well, almosty everybody. —
He dearly loved interacting with all people, but especially the student population.
Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Lench would interview students as a team. A lawyer, to Mr. Jacobs a 15-minute deadline is to be understood literally. It does not mean an hour longer, as it sometimes did to Mr. Lench.
He genuinely engaged students. These were no arm’s-length exchanges, either. “By the time he was through,” Mr. Bauer laughed, “he knew more about you than you knew about yourself.”
How is this to be explained?
“I am sure,” Mr. Jacobs said, “he overcame many of the same obstacles faced by our students.”
Why the Club Lasted
Besides binding good friends, inextricably, the Roll ‘n Rye Breakfast Club hung together longer than a well-maintained car, longer even than some well-maintained marriages. One explanation was that the script for the Clubbers was different every morning of the week.
Art Schwartz, a co-founder of the Breakfast Club, said the 7:30 to 9:30 sessions date back 40 years, maybe more.
“I met Bob many years ago,” he said, “when I was going to build a building on La Cienega. He owned the lot in back. So he said to me, ‘What are you going to do here?’ I told him I was building a building. He says, ‘You gotta go broke.’ That was 40 years ago. I still own the building. But anyway…
“One of the greatest things about Bob, which was not brought out today, was that he was a man of his word. Whenever he told you something, he did it. You could always depend on Bob. He was a great friend to a lot of people in this hall.”
Who Is on Which Side?
Bob Lench’s love for arguing will be missed. “He would love to bring up something that he knew you were for,” one pal said. “Then he would take the opposite view. He would just grind away at you. Used to make me mad, too, until I saw what he was doing.”
Judy Bauer has been a Breakfast Clubber for 20-plus years. “Politics and finance were Bob’s favorite subjects,” she said.
Mrs. Bauer and her husband Michael shared breakfast with their friend on the last day of his life. “Bob looked good,” both Bauers remembered.
They knew how ill he had been with cancer, how, the last time he left the Mayor Clinic, doctors said they would see him in three months. That jolted Mr. Lench. He wanted them to tell him “See you in a year.”
Neither of the Bauers nor Mr. Lench had any inkling at their breakfast of Nov. 7 that the sands of time were mere hours from being finished..
“Bob was a joy,” said Mr. Bauer. “He was benevolent, and he was generous. People would talk about the way Bob would meet a new person. Immediately upon meeting, he would try to figure out how he could help them.”
He Was Not One Person
Board member Cy Pierce described Mr. Lench’s main assets: “Hard worker. Diligent. Generous. Never said ‘no’ to anything that was required of him. Bob had a great sense of humor, too.”
It was left for a Buddhist speaker to affix the final ribbon to the Special Delivery package that was Bob Lench. “Bob was so generous,” he said, “that he lived the life of five or 10 people. I do not see how just one man could have done so much for so many.”
