Surrounded By Friends And Family

At a recent gathering with friends I heard the unfortunate news that a longtime mutual friend had recently passed away.
Nobody had many details. All that was known was that a friend, younger than us, was gone.

In time, I went online to find his obituary published in a suburban Boston newspaper.
He left behind three children and an ex-wife.
He is survived by both of his parents, his two brothers and his only sister.

The notice mentioned that he, “died unexpectedly in his home”.
There was no mention of being, “surrounded by family and friends”.
I always look for that in the announcement when someone passes away.

Being surrounded by loved ones is, in my view, a great way to live, and just seems, particularly at the time of last departure, like the way, if given a choice, that I’d like to go.

At that same gathering of friends where I heard of our friend passing away we discussed our high school and college days.

One friend mentioned all the hard work he put in during his high school years.
We graduated together and I mentioned to him that I always thought high school was a breeze and that I didn’t recall studying at all. I seemed to remember it more as a ‘just having to show up to pass’ kind of thing.

Afterwards I felt bad about contradicting him, and perhaps appearing to belittle his efforts.
It bugged me a bit, but I didn’t have time to address it with him before we headed out of town to visit our granddaughters.

When in Boston we were excited to see the progress the 5 year-old is making towards learning to read. Her moms have made it fun by using letters on tag-board that fit in a pocket to form words for her to read.
S “sss”
I “i”
T “tah”

S-I-T.
“Sssitah”
“Sit”

She seems to be learning quite a few words rapidly with this system.

We also noticed though that her not quite 2 year-old little sister likes to play the game too and may be learning her letters along with older sister.

We laughed at the thought of a child as young as two learning the roots of reading, but then the lightbulb flickered on over my head.

Family Social Science was a major emphasis of my studies at the UofM.
The courses I took placed very little credence in the stereotypes typically listed for birth order placing higher priority on the relationships formed within family units instead.
But I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps there may be some benefits gained by when and where one is born.

In the movie, A FEW GOOD MEN, in the courtroom scene where the prosecutor, Captain Ross (played by Kevin Bacon), in an effort to dispel the notion that Code Reds - when Marines punish members of their own unit - occur, questions witness Corporal Barnes (played by Noah Wylie). Ross asks Barnes to show him, in the Standard Operating Procedure Manual for Rifle Security Company Guantanamo Bay, where the section on Code Reds is.

Barnes says there is no section in that book on Code Reds.
That is true, Code Reds are not in the manual since they are not an official Marine activity.

Representing the defendants in the court martial trial, and attempting to show that not all things that the Marines do in Guantanamo Bay appear in their Standard Operating Procedure Manual, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) then asks Barnes to show him the part of the manual that outlines where the mess hall is.
Barnes explains that that is not in their either.
At meals times you just followed the crowd.
You just learned from the others that lived there and knew where the mess hall was.

You may have seen this logic question that NatGeo published a few years back.
Which way is this bus heading?
Left? Or right?
Researchers at NatGeo have found that very few adults can answer this question correctly and most that do get it correct admit that they only guessed the correct answer.
Yet 80% of 10 year-olds know the answer and can tell you why they answered correctly.

Kids can answer it because they are more inclined to ride buses or at least interact with them far more often as a routine part of their day.
Can you answer the question?

Perhaps you have seen this other logic question.

If not, it can be difficult to figure out.
Once you’ve been exposed to the answer though, it becomes very simple.

You need to connect the 9 dots with 4 straight lines without lifting your hand from the paper once you start until all 9 are connected.

What does any of this mean?

Well, I think it helps explain why high school was so much easier for me, the youngest child from a family of five, than it was for my friend, the oldest child in his family.
By the time I set foot in Lincoln High School I had been exposed, second-hand, to so many of the experiences that were new to many of my friends. I’d learned so many of the lessons by osmosis from my brother and three sisters that preceded me.

Plus, the added bonus of being the fifth of five was that my parents applied very little pressure by the time I came along. They’d pretty much seen and done it all with my older siblings and while I shouldn’t say they didn’t care, they definitely didn’t sweat the small stuff, so neither did I.
So, things were pretty much a breeze for me.

We gain so much from friends and family. More than many realize.
Trivial facts.
Academic knowledge.
Life lessons.
Friendships, and enduring love.

It all works out for the best as long as we stay surrounded by friends and family.

****************************

In North America 80% of children will correctly tell you that the bus is travelling to the left since there is no door visible from the side we are viewing. The door to enter the bus is on the back side away from our view and would be on the left which is the front of the bus.

In Australia, where the driver sits on the other side of the bus so the door is on the opposite side, most children will tell you correctly that the bus is heading to the right.

Here is the solution to the other puzzle.

  

Godspeed Jeff Svendsen! You are missed, and I'm honored to have called you my friend.

AT LONG LAST SIR...

One of the more famous lines of American political rhetoric was uttered back in 1954.
The United States was in the middle of the Red Scare at the time and Senator Joseph McCarthy
was making a name for himself claiming, with little if any proof, that he had the names of
“hundreds of communists” that had infiltrated the US Government.

McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, was gaining political traction with some American citizens.
The US Senate held the Army-McCarthy hearings to investigate McCarthy’s claims.

Joseph Welch, the chief counsel for the Army for the hearings quickly became
exasperated at Senator McCarthy’s unrelenting attacks upon the character of Fred Fischer, a
young associate lawyer at Welch’s Boston law firm, Hale and Doerr.

Fischer was not even involved in the hearings, but had, at one time, been a member of the
National Lawyers Guild, which McCarthy believed to be a Communist organization.
McCarthy attempted to besmirch the reputation and ruin the career of Mr. Fischer anyway just to
score points against Mr. Welch.

McCarthy’s attack on Fred Fischer was excessive and uncalled for.
In response to his spurious accusations Mr. Welch, on June 5th, 1954, finally stated,

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.
Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

Many who have examined public affairs feel THAT was the point at which the McCarthy
hearings, and the Red Scare, took a crucial turn. The hearings petered out in a week. That
December McCarthy was condemned by the US Senate. He became an alcoholic and died in
1957 at age 48.

His legacy, the term ‘McCarthyism’, is understood to mean making reckless and
unsubstantiated accusations and/or leveling audacious attacks on a person’s character.
Hardly the way one would want to be remembered, nor the actions most would like their name
attached to.

In 1954, when Mr. Welch posed that important question to Senator McCarthy in Washington
DC, half a world away, in Southeast Asia, the newly independent country of Laos was
enmeshed in a civil war that would rage on for 22 years (1953 to 1975).

On August 18th of 1956, a kid named Joe was born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. He grew to
become a very skilled athlete playing both basketball and football in college and later playing in
the National Football League despite the fact that he was raised, from age 11, in an orphanage
after his father died when Joe was only 9 years old.

Near the end of the war in Laos, 1973 to be exact, a boy named Anousone was born in a
Laotian village. He too was separated from his family of origin, but was raised by his extended
family. His grandfather taught him how to cook. In time, Anousone reunited with his family in
Minnesota. Like many people from war-torn areas of the world the United States represented
their best chance at a better life.

In 1980 Joe began his professional football career. Near the end of that season a kid named
Phillip was born in Duluth, Minnesota. Phillip would go on to become a football player too, but
he’d gain more acclaim coaching rather than playing the sport.

Joe Senser was an all-pro tight end for the Minnesota Vikings. He is also part owner of the
popular Joe Senser’s Kitchen Bar sports bars. The Roseville restaurant often hosts radio shows
that feature coaches from the University of Minnesota like the fellow named Phillip John (PJ)
Fleck. Anousone Phanthavong was the unfortunate victim that Joe Senser’s second wife Amy
struck and killed as he re-filled his car’s gas tank on a freeway exit ramp.

I mention these people, and their sad tale, to tell you another rather sad story.

I first became aware of Amy Senser when a worker at the Hopkins Public Library pointed her
out to me one evening. The worker knew that I used to work with the UofM’s football team for
some time and thought I’d be interested to know that the quiet, pleasant lady in the corner was
married to the famous ex-Viking Joe Senser. I hate to intrude on people, and fame doesn’t really
impress me all that much so I didn’t introduce myself preferring to let Amy have her privacy.

The next time I saw Amy Senser, in October of 2014, was on a city bus heading from Hopkins
(where I board) through Edina, the upscale suburb (where Amy boarded) to the Hennepin
County Government Center where I catch the light rail train to the UofM. On that day Amy
departed the bus at the same stop as me, but she walked to the Government Center. She had
completed her prison time from her conviction for killing Anousone Phanthavong and I assumed
there was legal paperwork and governmental administrative hurdles for her to clear so she
could move on with her life.

I get that the crime she was convicted of was terrible, and that the loss to the Phanthavong
family is horrible. It’s a tragic tale. But our system of jurisprudence is designed to dispense
justice.
She was convicted, sentenced, and did her time.
According to the laws presently in place justice has been served.

Seeing Amy on that bus, fidgeting, shifting in her seat, looking miserable and not being able to
relax at all, I began to wish that I had introduced myself to her years earlier in the library if only
so that I could reintroduce myself that morning on our commute and hopefully appear as a
calming force for her. That bothered me for a while since I truly believe that we’re all in this thing
together and that where we can we owe it to our fellow man (or woman) to lighten their load as
much as possible.

Time moved on however, and so did I. Since Amy was out of my sight she was pretty much out of my mind after that day.

Fast forward to April 2019. It was one of those early spring days so beautiful that you can’t resist
getting outside even if it’s just to take a walk around the neighborhood.
That’s what my wife and I did.
At one point we were amazed to see a couple of wild turkeys perched up in the trees.
We stopped to watch them for a few minutes.

As we proceeded down the path a lady approached from the other direction walking her two
dogs. She seemed to be so at peace with the world. I mentioned to her the turkeys she was
about to encounter hoping that her dogs wouldn’t spook and bolt out of her control.
She smiled, said thanks, and told us that we were in for a special treat.
She explained that as we turned the corner just behind her, but a few yards ahead of us, there
was the most beautiful sunset going on and we were about to be amazed.
She was right.

It was an amazing sunset that Amy Senser pointed out to us, but I was more amazed at the
sense of calm she exuded. She seemed to be in such a better place than the last time I saw
her.
It made me so happy.

Have you ever noticed that you can go months, even years, without thinking about a person,
place, or thing, and then they appear twice in rapid succession?

Returning home a few moments after seeing Amy Senser I checked my Facebook feed and saw
that Gopher football coach PJ Fleck would be broadcasting a radio show later that week from
Joe Senser’s restaurant as a prelude to the 2019 Spring Football Game.

Now I’m not a fan of PJ Fleck, I think his all flash with very little substance act is tiresome.
Evidently, with season ticket sales dropping faster than the watermelons David Letterman used
to throw off of the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, many “fans” seem to agree with me. I didn’t
renew my season tickets this year either. I try not to be overly vocal about my dislike of Fleck
though those that really know me know I long for the day that he moves along to another
coaching position elsewhere.

Evidently not everyone is able to show such restraint.

One of the comments on the Facebook post about the Spring Game radio broadcast asked,

“Fleck at Joe Senser’s? Are we all supposed to get drunk and kill a guy while driving home
afterwards?”

I had to reread it to make sure I saw what I saw.
I was stunned. And saddened.
It seemed to be an obvious, ham-handed and inappropriate, attack on Amy Senser in the guise of a shot at PJ Fleck.

The only thought that occurred to me was,
“At long last sir, have you no sense of decency?”

Now I’ve said inappropriate things before. I’ve even posted dumb things on social media.
I’ve posted stupid remarks, and I’ve posted smart remarks in a stupid way.
But the unwarranted cruelty of that comment still stuns me.

In researching the Sensers, after seeing Amy on the walking path, and reading that harsh Facebook comment, I found out that in addition to Joe being raised in an orphanage, Amy serving time in prison, Joe is now struggling to walk and is barely able to speak anymore as a result of two strokes he has suffered recently.
Additionally their 13 year old granddaughter recently committed suicide.
Amy and Joe are leaning on each other though, working together on their marriage and Joe's rehab.

To be sure, we all have successes in life, and we all suffer hardships, and karma can rear its
ugly head at times too. All I know is that the best we can do is rejoice with our loved ones, and
offer support when we’re able.

I just wish more of us would come to appreciate that, and show a lot less cruelty and much more
decency to those around us, whether we personally know them or not.

I know that’s my newest goal at long last.