A seat in the front row was always filled by a man with perfect teeth and a passion for knowledge.
He shuffled into class every day with his wispy hair smoothed back, notebook tucked under the crook of his arm and a wrinkled smile.
Eighty-two-year-old anthropology major Edward Salkin could outrun and out-talk the atypical student at Cal State Long Beach.
“He was always so positive about life and had a can-do attitude,” CSULB alumna Jessica Ivey said, who was one of Salkin’s classmates. “He helped me see that there was nothing I could not accomplish if I set my mind to it.”
Salkin died on Thursday, June 12 after being hit by a truck while jogging in a bike lane along Pacific Coast Highway.
In a prior interview with the Daily 49er, Salkin said that before his studies at CSULB, he earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Los Angeles and later a master’s degree in orthodontia from Loyola University in Chicago.
He served as a dentist for the U.S. Army and later taught pediatric dentistry at USC for six years. Salkin was most recently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in anthropology at CSULB, and planned to graduate in 2016.
Salkin’s first cousin, Julian Pollok remembers Salkin as a man who studied a wide range of subjects intently and passionately.
“He was in some ways a renaissance man,” Pollok said. “He had so many interests in not really one single thing defined in life … he was amazing in that regard.”
Pollok said that Salkin was an avid runner, a pastime that Salkin adopted around 20 years ago. Since, he has run over 43 marathons and half marathons, Pollok said.
“He spent more time running than with family,” Pollok said.
Although Salkin never married nor had children, Pollok said that he was a teacher in every aspect of the word. As a lifelong student, he was always brimming with knowledge to share.
He also worked as a tour guide at Los Angeles’ La Brea tar pits, and collected fossils and early human artifacts that he used to bring to his classes at CSULB.
Pollok said that because Salkin suffered from prostate cancer several years ago, Salkin’s family requests that those wishing condolences send them in the form of donations to a number of charities such as The Chao Center for Cancer Research, the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center rather than as flowers.
Funeral services were held Friday, June 20, at the Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar.