A Great Soul Serves Everyone All The Time

 

A few months back, many of us gathered to celebrate the life of my uncle, John Wesley Stephens.
I was fortunate enough to get up and make a few remarks at that gathering.
Mainly I shared stories that a lot of you provided to me.
I believe we laughed and cried together a little bit that night.

Immediately after that ceremony John’s sister, my Aunt Mary Ellen hugged me, kissed my cheek, and whispered in my ear,
“I want one JUST LIKE THAT.”

We laughed, and I told her I’d be honored to do so, but I mentioned that I hoped it’d be MANY YEARS down the road until I’d need to do it.

This is my attempt, sadly sooner than I’d hoped, to fulfill that wish for her.

My Aunt Mary Ellen was born on September 25th, 1940.
She passed away on May 1st, 2023.
Those dates are just figures to be etched on the tombstone that she’ll now share with her long departed husband Eddy Dumas.

Between those dates on the headstone the monumental mason will invariably carve a dash, to signify the period between the dates listed.

Many of you have probably heard the dash perspective before.
Maybe it’s a bit cliched, overused, or lacking originality, but the thing is that each of our dashes is different from anyone else’s.
You may recall that anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Always remember that you are absolutely unique.

Just like everyone else.”

So today with friends and family alike, with laughs and tears, with hugs and shared affection, with anecdotes and fondly recalled stories, we'll celebrate the remarkable dash of Mary Ellen Dumas.

 I recently saw a quote attributed to Marc Middleton, a journalist and activist who specializes in aging issues. It resonated with me and may be applicable here either with or without my suggested edit.

Middleton said,
“The key to AGING is to not mourn what’s lost but to celebrate what remains.”
The edit I suggest is to insert the word “grieving” in place of “aging”.
“The key to GRIEVING is to not mourn what’s lost but to celebrate what remains.”
What remains are the fond memories, the shared stories, and a lot of laughs.
So, thanks to a handful of Mary Ellen’s family, here are a few of the memories that they wanted to share this morning.

My mom, Bonnie, recalls walking to school through the first frost of 1940.
Typically such an event would not register on her radar, but that year it did because upon arriving home to the farm in Greenwood Wisconsin, after school that day, seven year old Bonnie first met her new sister, Mary Ellen.

The newborn was swaddled and placed in a basket that was tipped up against the cream separator. Evidently Mary Ellen arrived into this world with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.
Perhaps an incubator would have been used with a hospital birth, but since she was the only one of Eric and Helen’s children born at home, keeping her upright as much as possible early on was the only therapy employed.

 Most of the family members who I spoke with mentioned how deeply Mary Ellen loved children.

A young Mary Ellen developed a great fondness for children younger than herself.
She would make regular rounds through the neighborhood visiting and spending time with each and every young kid that lived nearby.

How about a quick show of hands?
Did any of you ever have an imaginary friend?
Or know of someone who did?

I had one.
A young Mary Ellen had TWO.

As the story goes, at one point while making her rounds, visiting neighborhood children, she began telling people  that her mom was pregnant.
With TWINS.
Exciting?
Right?

The excitement wore off real fast however after neighbors stopped by to offer Helen well wishes and warm regards on a pregnancy she knew absolutely nothing about.
Mary Ellen, like Lucy Ricardo, had some ‘splainin’ to do.

Many family members mentioned that Mary Ellen was like a sister to them, even though she actually wasn’t their sister.

Mary Ellen’s actual brother Dale mentioned to me when he was 4, 5, or 6 years old that their mom and dad signed him up for swimming lessons. Mary Ellen was tasked with getting him to and from those lessons. So, several times a week, one summer, she would sit him on the family bike (since they could only afford one, for all of the kids to share) and pedal Dale to Loring Park, a good five miles from home, and back home again afterwards. Dale is quite certain that Mary Ellen didn’t want to do that, but she never let him know that it was an inconvenience, nor too much to do for her “favorite” brother. 

Her love of kids eventually did lead Mary Ellen into social work with an emphasis on child protective services.

All I know is that being born into any generation younger than Mary Ellen’s was a pretty sweet deal, because you were viewed, in her eyes, as a kid, forevermore. 

Many shared with me that Mary Ellen ALWAYS made you feel important. 

Our daughter Laura remembers riding with her cousin Kamie, and Grandma Bonnie, with Mary Ellen behind the wheel, heading to Ely for the Blueberry Festival in search of good deals and
So.
Much.
Shopping.
But a lot of laughs and fun along the way.

Typically while in Ely there will be a jigsaw puzzle being worked at, on a table somewhere in the lake home mom and dad built on Shagawa. A visitor may think that a woodpecker or two has found their way inside, but that tap-tap-tap you hear means that the tapper has just placed a piece in the puzzle. Mary Ellen started that. It continues to this day. And probably will forever.

My sister Lisa reminded me to mention the Christmas stockings Mary Ellen filled for each of us every year. Mom tells me that the tradition was started by Grandma Helen but I think we’d all agree that it was mastered by Mary Ellen. At this writing, I’m told that there is still about 40 years’ worth of stocking stuffer items stored at an undisclosed location on Colfax Avenue South in Minneapolis.

The beauty of the Christmas stockings at our house is that once the gifts have all been opened and the anticipation and excitement has started to subside someone will say,
“HOW ABOUT THE STOCKINGS?”
And suddenly things get exciting again.

And who can forget about the Christmas chocolates Mary Ellen gave us all each year? 

All made by hand.
Peanut clusters, coconut balls, chocolate haystacks, and everyone’s favorites, milk chocolate covered rippled potato chips.
Oh my goodness, THOSE were a little bit of heaven on earth.

Mary Ellen LOVED holidays. Lisa has been gifted, by Mary Ellen, an impossibly large collection of turkey themed items. Thanks to Mary Ellen, Thanksgiving at Lisa’s place seems more like the event is being held in the Butterball Turkey gift shop rather than in a private residence.
God only knows how many more ceramic turkey gear Lisa will inherit now.

So many mentioned that Mary Ellen was ALWAYS so generous with her time, her talents, and her resources.
 

Uncle Dale told me that evidently my grandparents had signed Uncle John and Aunt Mary Ellen up for confirmation classes at a church in St. Paul even though they lived in Minneapolis.
This meant that Mary Ellen and John needed to ride a city bus to and from their weekly class.
The story goes that after class, Mary Ellen would fall asleep on the bus back across the river EVERY week.
MORE amazingly, she would somehow mysteriously wake up at the Lyndale Avenue stop just prior to the Colfax Avenue stop where they got off of the bus.
John always wondered how she did that EVERY week.

Until the week she didn’t.

That week John left her sleeping as he scurried off the bus at Colfax Avenue and then stood and watched until Mary Ellen disembarked, THREE BLOCKS LATER!

As Uncle Dale tells the story, more times than not, up until recently, whenever John and Mary Ellen were together, the debate would rage, whether Mary Ellen got off the bus at Colfax that day or not. Mary Ellen says she did, Uncle John always begged to differ.
Dale imagines that they’re together somewhere renewing that argument as we sit here this morning.

My sister Lisa mentioned that by being a young single professional woman out on her own, Aunt Mary Ellen was an actual Mary Richards WELL BEFORE Mary Tyler Moore threw her hat in the air on Nicollet Mall and became the TV version of that character.

Many people mentioned different road trips that Mary Ellen made. She liked to get out and see the world. And loved to WHOOP every time a Dairy Queen was spotted.

Selected family, “WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!”

See? It still happens now. 

My sister Libby and Mary Ellen had a shtick that they’d perform on occasion.
When introducing themselves to someone that knew only one of them, Libby would say,“I’ve been a disappointment to Mary Ellen from the very first day.”
Mary Ellen would nod and smile, so Libby would continue,“I was born the day after her 13th birthday and she had been so excited about the possibility of sharing a birthday with a niece or nephew.”
Then Libby would add,
“But I redeemed myself by giving birth to my son on her husband’s birthday.”

I’ll always recall a particular recent time, watching Aunt Mary Ellen enter the restaurant, lock her eyes on me then cross past the bar, make a beeline to our table, still looking directly at me, and upon arriving within two feet of me, licking her thumb and fixing my typically rogue left eyebrow. Ever helpful, she just wanted her nephew to look as good as possible. But look at what she had to work with,
Soooo, it is what it is I guess.

My mom, Bonnie, has told me that everyone is born with a hole in their heart. I used the Google machine to find out that during pregnancy, this hole allows blood to bypass the fetal lungs - which aren’t yet working - and deliver oxygen to the unborn baby’s heart and brain. The small opening, located between the left and right chambers, usually closes on its own within a few months after birth. But in about 1 in 4 babies, it never does. Most of those babies will be fine and will live their lives not even knowing it. But for some, the defect can prove dangerous.

Mary Ellen found out late in life that she still had a hole in her heart.

Every time I’ve heard this fact mentioned about her, prior to Googling about it, my mind has jumped to;
well, yeah, her husband, Uncle Eddy, passed away on December 4th of 1982 so OF COURSE SHE HAS HAD A HOLE IN HER HEART since then.

In asking family members for stories and memories of Mary Ellen, to prepare for today, multiple people mentioned a hole that Mary Ellen’s passing has now left in THEIR hearts.

I’ll always recall Mary Ellen’s excitement when I was able to gift her with the Limited Edition Elvis Presley Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Candy. I wasn’t sure if she was more excited because they were Elvis related, or because they were a candy she had never tried before. I suppose it really didn’t matter as long as she was happy.
She may or may not have said, (in my best Elvis impersonation) “Thank you, thank you very much.”  

Aunt Vicki mentions the time, many years ago, that she, her husband (our Uncle John) and Mary Ellen went to the Criterion restaurant for their crab leg special. This was so long ago that the three of them were still drinking, and they’d had a few that night too.
As the night wore on, at some point, Vicki and Mary Ellen went to the lady’s restroom when suddenly Mary Ellen, standing in the sink area, started yelling,

“I’M GOING BLIND! I’M GOING BLIND!”

Was it some sort of rare shellfish allergy?
A stroke perhaps? Maybe a torn retina?
Vicki joined her in the freak out until somehow, a few minutes later they realized that the “blindness” was merely an accumulation of salty water that sprayed on Mary Ellen’s glasses with every crab leg she cracked open.

With that medical crisis now averted the uncontrollable laughing jags over Mary Ellen’s “blindness” became the biggest issue for the rest of the evening. 

Uncle Dale previously shared with us his vision, from later, on the day of his mother’s funeral, of his mom and dad reunited, in the afterlife, walking hand in hand, enjoying a sun-lit spring day on Colfax Avenue.
I’m seeing a similar scene now with Uncle Eddy and Aunt Mary Ellen, at long last, enjoying each other’s company again. I’m just not sure whether I see them in Fon Du Lac, or in Minneapolis. I believe they enjoyed many happy years together in both of those cities.

I’d never heard that Mary Ellen had any training nor a particular interest in compiling genealogies like Louis Gates Jr. does on the PBS show, Finding Your Roots.
She did, however, have a genealogical way of thinking. (is genealogical even a word?)

Aunt Vicki relates that you could ask Mary Ellen, for instance,
“How old is Brian?”

And then it would start,

“Let me think,
Mom and dad were married in 19 whatever, and were living in wherever.
Bonnie was this old, so that meant Jeanne and Curt were born this year and that year.
So then Libby, Mark, Stacy, Lisa and Todd were born in this year, that year, this year, that year, and this year.
It WAS raining that Tuesday…NO, wait…Wednesday because the tulips were up by then…”
It would take a 10+ minute history for her to come up with the answer, but, by God she did it!”

 I recall Mary Ellen challenging herself to be able to ride a bike around Bde Maka Ska (the lake formerly known as Calhoun) within a year of getting her knee replaced.
When the scheduled date arrived we surprised her with quite a few family members showing up in custom printed “TOUR DUMAS” t-shirts to run, skate, and/or bike the route with her.
She made it around the lake and we later celebrated her accomplishment at J.D. Hoyt’s.
Such a great memory of a very fun day with Mary Ellen.

A family member added that Mary Ellen was definitely the queen of her realm. She waved as royals do. Is it a coincidence that a grand coronation occurred so shortly after Mary Ellen passed?
Though we gather here today to bid her farewell, Mary Ellen will remain in our hearts and minds forever.
LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

Jack Stroessner “HIP HIP!”
Some family and friends “HOORAY!”
Jack Stroessner “HIP HIP!”
More family and friends “HOORAY!”
Jack Stroessner “HIP HIP!”
EVEN MORE family and friends “HOORAY!”

Aunt Vicki shared with me that when she first started seeing Uncle John that John, Uncle Earle, Aunt Mary Ellen, and their mother (my grandmother) Helen spent every Saturday morning picking a different place to go to for breakfast. The original four hardly ever missed a Saturday morning with each other.
First Helen passed away; Earle was next. John left us in late 2021. And now Mary Ellen is gone too. Multiple family members have suggested that the original four are back together now and deciding where to go for breakfast next Saturday.

I just found out today, and will shoehorn in here, that Mary Ellen is the type of relative that you’d ask to get a matching tattoo with, and she’d say ‘yes’, and then actually go through with it.
She’s also the type that you wouldn’t mind it when she’d pinch your cheek and tell you that you’re C-U-T-E.

 I’m not certain if it was providence, happenstance, or mere coincidence, but on the day that Mary Ellen passed away a friend of mine posted a quote on Facebook that I believe we’ll all agree applies to Mary Ellen.

The quote is from Maya Angelou, who said; 

“A great soul serves everyone all the time.
A great soul never dies.
It brings us together again and again.”

Mary Ellen was always there to listen, to care, and to serve in whatever way she could.
Mary Ellen will live on in the dash she authored with so many fond memories of the stories she created. 

You probably have your own favorite memories of Mary Ellen’s dash.

In my view she will bring us together any time we notice the first frost of the year, when we tap on a puzzle piece, when we whoop at a Dairy Queen, when Christmas stockings kick the excitement level back up a notch, when kitschy holiday gear is displayed, when the joy of time spent with children is felt, and when a good meal is shared with those you love.

Thanks for being a great soul, Mary Ellen Dumas.
We love and miss you every day.


 

Love, Respect, and a Whole Lotta Laughs Along The Way

 

Hello, my name is Todd.

My Aunt Vicki asked if I’d be willing to stand up here, in front of you all today, to talk about her husband, my uncle, John Wesley Stephens.

I’m honored to be asked, and hope to do both John and Vicki proud.

I’ve been told that John HATED funerals, but here we are, so let’s celebrate him as best we can.

Shortly after John passed away I heard a television character, commenting on mortality by saying, “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.” That struck a chord with me. I think it may describe John’s life, or parts of it anyway, so I’m going to use that as a guiding principle here.

John was a very athletic guy and a bit of a sports fan too, so I believe he may have, at some point while viewing ESPN, seen the speech that North Carolina State University basketball coach Jim Valvano, delivered less than two months before he died from a form of cancer called adenocarcinoma.

Coach Valvano said, and I quote;

“To me there are three things everyone should do every day.

Number one is laugh.

Number two is think - spend some time in thought.

Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears.

If you laugh, think and cry, that’s a heck of a day.”

I hope that using Coach Valvano’s yardstick we’ll all have a heck of a day here together on what would have been John’s 80th birthday.

 

I’ve always believed that when a person passes away all that remains for the survivors are the stories and the memories, so I’ve reached out to John’s family to gather some of their favorite memories and stories to share with you here.

Uncle John LOVED to tell stories. Most of those stories were, in my opinion, pretty damn funny, so I anticipate that we’ll share a few laughs here tonight. I have checked with the pastors of this church and we have received special dispensation, for one night only, that laughter in church will not only be allowed, tonight it will be encouraged.

So please feel free to laugh, think, and cry, as you see fit. You’re here amongst friends, so it’s all good. 

As a young man John worked in a local Minneapolis butcher shop. One of the regular customers was a small, older lady with a temper who was never satisfied regardless of what the employees of the shop did in the vain attempt to satisfy her. One day while working with a couple of other guys, John, with his back to the counter, heard the bell on the counter ring. He looked up and noticed that both of his coworkers, who just minutes ago were both facing the counter while they worked, had now disappeared. Oh, Oh. John pretty much knew what was happening. His buddies had hung him out to dry. He slowly turned and there she was. The customer from hell. Reaching up to slam her purse on the elevated counter she fairly shouted,

“I’d like a pound of ground beef, two pork chops, a round steak, and two sausage links. And put them in my bag!” John began putting the order together placing each item he gathered in her purse. It was only after John had crammed the last of the items into her purse that she produced a net shopping bag from out of her coat pocket.

As John told the story, after a moment of staring at each other, in frozen silence, John slowly took the meat products out of her purse as the lady erupted in anger. Her explosion, however, was nowhere near as loud or long lasting as the laughter from John and the coworkers, who had abandoned him, after she was out of the shop and safely down the street.

I always loved that John was able to laugh at himself. I also loved that John was willing to help with chores and projects that needed to be done. My sister Lisa recalls that John helped her move a mattress, with his truck, on what turned out to be the coldest day of 2016. Perhaps John developed this work ethic as a young man when he worked on a farm outside of Fairmont Minnesota. My brother Mark reminded me of that fact.

Or, perhaps John was just a really good guy.

 Years ago my wife, Liz, noticed at family gatherings that John would often wait until someone would walk past him, headed to the kitchen, when they’d invariably ask him, “John, can I get you a cup of coffee? slice of pie? piece of cake? or whatever else was being served. John would ALWAYS answer, “Well, as long as you’re up…”

After Liz pointed it out to me, and I shared it with other family members, they noticed it too. It became another family joke and John would laugh about it along with us. So if you’d like to honor John tonight, when we gather in the fellowship hall after this service to enjoy some pie, cake, and coffee, please allow someone else to bring it to you, “as long as they’re up”.

And since we’re talking about desserts, John and Vicki had a good story on that topic too. You may or may not know that John received years of excellent care from the doctors and nurses at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. With his complex medical history John felt most comfortable relying on the folks at Mayo for most of his medical care.

 

One Monday John and Vicki drove to Rochester so John could get some tests done that morning. The custom was that after the tests they’d then go to Perkins, have lunch, and partake in the FREE PIE MONDAY promotion while they waited for the test results.

 

On this particular day they sat down, ordered their lunches, and mentioned which variety of pie they were considering as their freebie. Unfortunately, the waitress informed them, that particular Perkins restaurant no longer offered free pie on Mondays. Well that sucks, but John and Vicki figured they’d be okay anyway, so it was no big deal.

About then John received a text indicating that his test results were in and they were good! Now the fun begins as a lady is seated at the booth next to theirs, she mentions to the hostess that sat her that she is excited for her free pie. The hostess broke the news to her that they no longer offered free pie. Moments later another lady joined her and mentioned her excitement about the free pie only to ALSO be told there was no more free pie. The same scenario played out when the third lady in their party AND the fourth lady were seated too. We’ll never know what those ladies were meeting to talk about, but the only thing they could discuss NOW was the lack of free pie!

They were OUTRAGED!

By now, John and Vicki had finished their meal and as John went up to pay the bill Vicki went to the booth next door, placed a twenty dollar bill on the table, and explained to the outraged ladies,

“We were just over at the Mayo Clinic Hospital and we received some really good news. So I would like to pay for your pie today.” John, returning to leave a cash tip at he and Vicki’s table, overheard what Vicki had told those ladies and then added,

“Yeah, the good news is that she has been in the psych ward for quite some time, and today I finally get to take her home!”

I think of that story EVERY time I drive past a Perkins restaurant. The one near us still has FREE PIE MONDAY painted on the front windows in bright colorful letters. And I’m sure those four ladies will NEVER forget the time that a “very nice crazy lady” bought them pie.

John shared so many memorable stories. I believe that this next one was one he merely heard at an AA meeting. He wasn’t actually involved in it, but I do recall John having to remove his glasses to wipe away tears from laughing so hard as he retold it.

It seems there was a fellow whose wife was going out of town for the weekend so she told him, in no uncertain terms, that there was to be NO SMOKING OR DRINKING in the house while she was gone.

Well, sure enough, on the first day she was gone he got drunk, and passed out on the living room couch with a lit cigarette in his hand. The smell of burning foam cushioning and upholstery finally woke him.

He rushed to the kitchen, got a pitcher of water to douse the flames, and then called one of his buddies to help him figure out what to do. Somehow, in the state they were in it made sense to them to remove the evidence of the crime, as if the wife wouldn’t notice a missing living room couch or the smell of a smoldering sofa.

Well, our two heroes somehow wrangled the couch on top of the car of the sofa owner so they could drive it across town to the city dump. They decided that taking the freeway would be the faster route so that’s the way they went. About a mile down the road a person in the car next to them was pointing at the top of their car. Our heroes nodded and waved back, mouthing the words, WE’RE TAKING IT TO THE DUMP!” ANOTHER car passed and also pointed at the couch on top of their car.

Then another, and ANOTHER. Just then our heroes pulled even, on the freeway, with one of those shiny metallic semi-trailer trucks and they saw for themselves what others were pointing at; a fully involved, flaming sofa on top of the car they were driving!

Who knew that a still smoldering couch fire super-oxygenated with a 55 mile per hour breeze would flare up like that?

Who knows if the city dump accepts flaming refuse?

Did the wife ever believe whatever story they concocted to explain what happened?

Did their insurance guy believe any of it?

Is the wife still his wife?

We may never know the answers to ANY of those questions, I just know that John got us all laughing really hard every time he told that one too.

The last few years I recall Uncle John, after telling some of his stories about drinking, concluding them with, “...but you’re smarter than that. You'd never do anything like that.”

It seemed that he wanted to make sure we were easily learning some of the lessons he learned the hard way.

John fought for his sobriety.

He worked at it and was proud of it. He said that it was the most important thing in his life because without it, he would have nothing.

Had he lived John would have celebrated 40 years of sobriety this past April 1st. That is one hell of an accomplishment.

I think he deserves applause for that.

Belief in, and reliance on, a HIGHER POWER is a part of many 12 Step Programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. John was a true believer and participant in AA. For that reason I’ve always assumed he believed in a Higher Power or perhaps the Great Creator that our Native American heritage might indicate. I just don’t know the specifics of his faith. He and I never discussed religious matters and neither of us have regularly attended church.

 

I have heard that John did not fear dying, for himself. He was more concerned about how his absence would affect Vicki.

Perhaps John’s religious beliefs were like his brother Dale who thinks we all go through three distinctly different dimensions.

An in utero dimension before we are born,

a dimension here on earth,

and a third dimension in the after-life.

Uncle Dale wrote this down and shared it with me. And I quote;

“...I believe when we die it is like being born again into another dimension. My mind can’t imagine what that new dimension will be but I think it is a good thing or place or whatever it is. I don’t know if we’ll remember our previous dimension, this life, but I have a sense that we do remember.

Later, on the day of my mother’s funeral I was driving somewhere and passed some blooming lilac bushes that were very fragrant. Lilacs played a big part in my childhood memory from my mom’s love of them to my dad every time we drove by a farm where you could smell the manure saying, ‘Ahhh lilacs’.

I had a brief, calming vision of my mother and father walking down our old street, Colfax Avenue in Minneapolis, hand in hand, and together again after 47 years of being apart. I feel they were sending me a message from that next dimension saying, ‘we are together and happy’”

Uncle Dale continues;

“I believe we will all go to that new dimension and we will surely live on in our children and in the hearts and minds of those who were a part of our life. So to all who have departed I say, ‘So long, you will be remembered, and you are loved.’”

 Thanks for sharing that Dale. I sure hope you’re right and that John is now in that place and that we will all join him in time.

But how do we know when our time is up? Coach Valvano, who I mentioned earlier, also during that speech on ESPN famously said, “Don’t give up… Don’t EVER give up!”

My Uncle John didn’t give up. He didn’t EVER give up.

John remained sober for damn near 40 years. He proudly didn’t give his sobriety up.

A failing liver imperiled John 25 years ago, but Tim C. his generous liver donor allowed John to not give up.

John attended pre-dawn spin classes, five days a week, as a 79 year old, into September of last year. He didn’t give up on his workouts.

John’s early prognosis after his Covid19 diagnosis at the Mayo was not good, but John wouldn’t give up. He fought Covid for 6 long weeks. He even had one of those Cubii (pedaling while you sit up) devices brought into the ICU so he could keep working out!

In the end though, Covid19 took John like it has taken more than a million other Americans.

But he never gave up. He bravely fought to the end.

And now we are left with the stories and the memories.

In a note Aunt Vicki sent us recently she mentioned that John had told her that,

 “...if he could leave this world and be remembered for being a ‘Good Person’ he would be satisfied.”

To which Vicki added, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”.

And I wholeheartedly agree.

My sister, Libby, remembers John as a peace-maker in the family. John’s sisters Bonnie and MaryEllen knew he could be counted on to give them a ride if and when needed.

I myself know that John always made people feel better about themselves after spending time with him. He always treated people with love and respect.

Again, he was just a really good guy. The type of guy so comfortable in his own skin that he would chat with random strangers. This may have led to one of John’s most amazing stories. As the story goes, John was driving truck locally for Border States, delivering electric supplies to different construction sites and businesses.

One day he showed up at the loading dock of a local business near lunchtime. The dock manager told John that his crew was at lunch and not available to help unload. Rather than sitting and waiting for the crew to return, the two decided to unload the truck themselves. They talked as they worked. John mentioned his liver transplant. The dock manager mentioned that he lost a son and his organs were donated.

Then they compared dates. As they continued talking it became obvious.

They shared a connection unlike any that most of us will ever experience.

The dock manager’s son Tim’s liver was the gift of life that John needed and received. Regardless of whether you call this chance meeting happenstance, providence, or just dumb luck, there were tears that day on the loading dock and even more shed and shared when the two families met a few months later. This connection was discovered only because two strangers were willing to go above and beyond, doing work not assigned to them, and happily chatting while doing so.

I recall John telling me, the last few years, about his memories of sitting drunk at the bar and looking at the top shelf behind the bartender, you know, where the most expensive, really good stuff is kept. John told me his thoughts always were,

“If I could drink that stuff way up there my life would be so much better.”

In my view John WAS a top shelf guy. Helpful, kind, open-minded, non-judgemental, able to laugh at himself, loving, respectful, just a REALLY good person.

He’s the kind of person we need more of these days. So I’m going to try to be more like him. I think maybe we should ALL try to be a bit more like him. To emulate and honor John we can;

Stay physically active,

Heed your doctor’s advice,

Help others when we can,

Become an organ donor,

And ALWAYS treat people with love and respect.

Now and forever, we love and miss you Uncle John!

THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE

In the world of high stakes athletics nothing seems more important than statistics.

The numbers an athlete posts can provide a quantifiable answer to the pertinent question,

“What have you done for me lately?

It may seem cruel and a bit callous, but spots on teams are often earned and lost primarily based on the stats an athlete produces. Countless hours on sports talk radio and cable tv are dedicated to endlessly rehashing the statistics athletes put up. The obsession with the sports stars and the numbers they produce can be mind boggling to the point that I rarely, if ever, even follow those radio and tv shows anymore. There’s just too much over-analyzing and rampant speculation to hold my interest.

What is the point?

A mock draft?

Who cares?

Trade speculation?

Why not wait until an actual trade is made?

Second guessing the manager of your favorite baseball team?

Sure, that’s pretty easy Jethro, from the comfort of your Barcalounger, armed with very little of the experience and information the manager had at hand.

I guess maybe I just believe that different numbers should be looked at to make more valid analysis of athletes.

I’m not referring to the new analytics that are taking over baseball with sabermetrics, and PECOTA, as described in the book, MONEYBALL, by Michael Lewis, and depicted in the movie of the same name, starring Brad Pitt.

Many proponents swear by those methods.

I prefer looking at the figures in a different way of my own.

Perhaps mine might be a better way of taking the measure of the man.

As a kid growing up in Minnesota in the 60’s and 70’s I skated on our backyard rink and rooted for Gopher hockey, the NHL’s North Stars, and the Fighting Saints in the WHA.

The guys who played on those teams were my heroes, and what I aspired to become.

Unfortunately I never made it there.

Far from it.

But some of those guys still remain heroes to me.

One of those heroes is a fellow named Ted Hampson.

Late in his career Hampson played two seasons for the North Stars and then 4 with the Fighting Saints. As a fan I really liked Ted because, like me he is a smaller guy, standing 5 foot 8 inches tall (just a little bit taller than me).

Ted could score goals, provide assists, and do whatever the team needed.

In 1969, as a North Star, he won the Masterton Trophy, which is awarded to the National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. In 1973, while playing for the Fighting Saints, he won the Paul Deneau Trophy as the WHA’s most gentlemanly player.

Winning those awards was quite an accomplishment for Ted. More impressive though may be the fact that at the end of Ted’s career the United States Hockey League (a midwestern junior hockey league) named their award for perseverance and sportsmanship the Ted Hampson Award.

A good friend of mine named Tom won that award the year he played juniors.

If memory serves me correctly the award came with a plaque and a small scholarship check since junior hockey players primarily play to catch the attention of college hockey scouts and coaches in hopes of earning scholarships and a spot on a college hockey roster. Tom earned a college scholarship, had a successful college hockey career, graduated, and went into coaching for many years, at a lot of different levels and locations.

A big part of coaching in juniors and college is scouting and recruiting players.

At any high school game there is invariable a cadre of scouts and coaches in the upper rows of the stands evaluating the talents and potential of the kids giving it their all on the ice down below. The coaches could rely solely on the players’ statistics to evaluate talent, but there’s really no substitute for watching an athlete do their thing in person.

Spending so much time in rinks evaluating the same pools of kids means that many of these scouts and coaches get to know each other fairly well. Conversations are struck up, old tales are retold, and friendships are formed.

A couple of years ago, attending a high school hockey game with Tom, my friend who had won the Ted Hampson Award, we ran into the actual Ted Hampson, who now scouts for the Vancouver Canucks. Tom and Ted had become friends over years of scouting in a myriad of rinks across North America.

There is a school of thought that says you shouldn’t meet your heroes.

You’ll only be disappointed.

I've never believed that.

I was honored to meet Ted. He was a pretty nice guy but we only had the opportunity to chat for a short while. You see Hampson was at the game with his wife and he was going to get something to eat and needed to get back to his seat beside her before the next period began.

We saw Ted’s son Gordie sitting in the stands with his mom, so Tom pointed out Gail Hampson, Ted’s wife, to me. He then explained to me that Gail suffered from dementia so Ted pretty much cares for her full time except when he has a game to attend. Occasionally Ted could bring her along, but increasingly more often he now needs to arrange to have a nurse come care for her while he is busy evaluating hockey players.

Tom also told me that early on in his friendship with Ted Hampson, decades after Tom won the Ted Hampson Award, he told Ted about how honored he had been to win the award, and that the fact that Hampson’s name, one of the hockey players Tom admired the most, was attached to it, made it so much more meaningful.

Tom Hanks, as manager Jimmy Dugan, in the movie A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, famously said,

“THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!”

Well there’s none in hockey either, except on occasion the combination of Zamboni fumes and fluorescent lighting can cloud up your contact lenses and make the eyes of some in the stands to water a bit.

I’m told that that night, when Tom shared that story with Ted, it was one of those eye-watering occasions.

Even though neither of them wear contact lenses.

That’s their story though, and they’re stickin’ to it.

Sadly, on January 14th of this year, Ted’s wife, Gail Hampson passed away.

I heard about it a few days later through social media.

The next Saturday Tom and I went to watch a high school game.

I asked if he had heard that Mrs. Hampson had passed.

He hadn’t, but he knew that another friend, Frank, who scouts with Ted, and meets him for coffee every Wednesday, would probably have first-hand information.

After that period we sought Frank out.

He filled us in on the details and shared a touching story with us.

Gail died peacefully on a Tuesday.

The final arrangements were made and the funeral was planned for a Monday two weeks later.

Ted had done all he could do for Gail, for the time being, so when Frank offered to take Ted to watch a high school game the Saturday after Gail passed, Ted agreed to go.

As Frank told the story he was glad to get Ted back in an arena and doing something he really enjoyed. After a time though Ted developed a bit of a preoccupied expression, a thousand mile stare. Finally Ted told Frank that he had been wracking his brain, he had a nagging feeling he had forgotten to do something. It finally occurred to Ted, he had forgotten to arrange a nurse to stay with Gail.

But then he remembered that Gail was gone.

There’d be no more nurses for Ted to arrange.

After 61 years of marriage Gail is now gone.

61 years of marriage.

61 years as a devoted husband.

In my view THAT is the most important stat, and the greatest accomplishment, that Ted has yet achieved.

It’s also why he remains one of my heroes and I’m glad I was fortunate enough to meet him. .

The numbers don’t lie.