(NOTE:  My dad, Bill Muir, died on Oct. 13, 2004.  At the time of his death I was working at the Southern Illinoisan as a reporter/columnist.  This is the first column I wrote two weeks after his death.  I have been accused, and not always at pleasant times of writing from my heart and not my head.  I think this column proves those critics correct.  I hope you enjoy as I recall a man that had a huge impact on my life.)

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Each week when I sit down to conjure up something for this space I have a good idea of the audience I’m trying to reach. However, on rare occasions what I write is more for me than anybody else and in those instances I simply invite you along for the ride.

Today is one of those days.

For nearly four years I have met with you, the readers, every Tuesday morning in this space. During that time I’ve joined you at your breakfast table as you enjoy a morning cup of coffee, on your way to work, during lunch and in some instances at night when you finally get a chance to sit down for the first time that day and rest your aching feet. In many instances you are nameless and faceless and many of you I’ll probably never meet. Yet, for some reason I still feel like I know you and that there’s a connection between us.

And it’s that kinship that I feel that prompts me to open up a window to my life occasionally and share the amusing, the sad, the good and the sometimes bad things that happen.

As many of you are probably aware, my dad Bill Muir passed away on Oct. 13. He was a good moral man, a good father, a family man, a man with a tremendous sense of pride, a man with a keen sense of humor, a great storyteller, a devoutly religious man and a pillar of strength to his family. He will be missed.

When faced with writing a column – the first since my dad died – I was a little torn about how to handle it. Should I go a totally different direction and not mention it? Or, should I share with readers my thoughts about a man that had a huge influence on me and a man that sometimes seemed larger than life? After posing that question to myself it took me about five seconds to come up with the answer.

Mark Twain once wrote: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in only seven years.”

I thought of that quote by Twain shortly after my dad died and even used it in a eulogy I gave at his funeral. I think it summed up our relationship quite well, except I could plug in other ages because my opinion of my dad changed dramatically for the better the older I got.

When I was a teenager I thought my dad was perhaps the meanest man I’d ever met and I also thought his sole purpose in life was to make me work. I imagined back then that he woke up every morning looking for ways to prevent me from having fun. Of course looking back I can now see that he was just trying to keep me alive and out of jail, while teaching me that there is no such thing as a free ride in life.

The one item that my dad and I fought about regularly was mowing the yard. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to mow it, it was the fact that he was nearly impossible to please. He would have me mow it one way and then mow it crossways to scatter the grass. We butted heads on numerous occasions and since my dad was a firm believer in the old adage of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ many of those confrontations ended with me on the receiving end.

To show that life really does go full circle sometimes, the past three years as my dad’s health declined I started mowing his yard for him each week. And just like those days 35 years ago I mowed it both ways, however this time it wasn’t at my dad’s suggestion it was my own doing.

Following those mowing sessions – always on Thursdays — my dad and I would sit at his kitchen table and visit and talk sometimes for more than an hour. And it was during on of those visits, less than a month before he died, that he volunteered a comment that really surprised me.

“If I had it to do over again I wouldn’t be so hard on you,” he said. “I didn’t cut you any slack at all and I was pretty tough on you.”

Remembering well those days and I how at times I couldn’t stand him, my answer back to him surprised me also.

“I don’t think you hurt me by being tough on me,” I said. “And in fact I think in the long run you helped me.”

To add to the tongue-in-cheek quote made by Twain, I can say with certainty that my dad not only got smarter when I turned 21 but he also got smarter when I turned 31 and 41. And next week I’ll have birthday number 51 and I can say – despite the times we butted heads through the years – that Bill Muir stands alone as the smartest man I’ve ever met.

Thanks for spending some time with me this morning as I try to come to terms with the death of my dad – a man that had a huge impact on my life.

 

 

 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Rend Lake is hosting the annual Rend Lake Beach Blast on Saturday, June 8, at the South Sandusky Beach.

Rend Lake Park Rangers will be hosting this event, which will focus on playing games, listening to some great music, and learning how to stay safe while in or near the water. The popular event full of family fun will kick off at high noon on Saturday and run until 4:00 p.m. There will be something for everyone, including competitive games, a sand sculpture contest, a scavenger hunt, a live DJ with karaoke, and much more. Participation prizes will be awarded.

Gather your friends and family and get on down to Rend Lake’s South Sandusky beach on Saturday, June 8^th for some fun in the summer sun. For more information call the Rend Lake Project Office at 618-724-2493.

 

 

 

Benton, IL – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Rend Lake will be hosting a backyard campout program at the Rend Lake Project Office/Visitor Center on June 1, 2013. Join us as we have our very own backyard campout – well sort of. This program is a part of the on-going Environmental Science Series programs.

The Backyard Campout program will begin at 8:00 p.m. and end at 10:00 p.m. The fun begins at 8:00 p.m. when Rend Lake Park Rangers will show the correct way to build a campfire. Once the fire is built we will enjoy some friendly competition to see who can set their tent up the quickest and then try your hand at glow in the dark bowling.

Wrap up the evening with some traditional campfire favorites – eat some s’mores, tell us your favorite ghost story, or bring your musical instrument and we’ll sing some songs. Gather your friends and family and join us around the fire at the Rend Lake Project Office/Visitor Center on Saturday, June 1^st. Remember this one is a night program that begins at 8:00 p.m.

Saturday, June 8 the Environmental Science Series continues as we move the action to the South Sandusky Beach. The Rend Lake Beach Blast will be held from noon till 4:00 p.m. Back by popular demand is Fast Eddie the DJ and he will once again be playing some of your favorite beach songs. Throughout the day Park Rangers will be playing games and handing out giveaways. For more information feel free to call the Rend Lake Project Office at 618-724-2493 or like us on Facebook at the Rend Lake Project Office and Visitor Center.

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(Editor’s Note:  I noticed today on Facebook that Angie Cushman, of Benton, is celebrating her 90th birthday.  More than 20 years ago I made my biggest blunder as a writer when I erroneously wrote in a story that her husband as “the late Lewis Cushman.”  The Cushman’s were understanding and kind about the mistake and even joked about it. I wrote a column about the mistake and then when Lewis actually did die I wrote this column that appeared in the Southern Illinoisan back in 2004.  When I saw it was Angie’s birthday I dug through my archives and found this.  I hope you enjoy!)

Lewis Cushman died last week and even though I read the obituary in the newspaper I still attended the wake just to make sure.

I’m certainly not making light of the matter, but I have every reason to be a little bit apprehensive about the death of Lewis Cushman. Medically speaking Cushman has only expired once, but journalistically speaking he’s died twice and the first time I was responsible.

The 84-year-old Cushman and his wife Angie ran Benton Baking Company for more than three decades, an old fashioned bakery that made great homemade bread and an assortment of other fine pastries.

Several years ago when I was working at another newspaper I wrote a story about the Cushman’s daughter Connie (Peterson) who is married and lives in central Illinois. The story revolved around a prestigious award that Peterson and her husband had won on their farm/ranch and a news article that had appeared in a national magazine.

I conducted the interview over the phone and still recall that it was a story that was easy to write, a feel-good feature that are frequently in newspapers about a small town girl making good. The only problem I experienced with the story was that I forgot to ask Connie Peterson if both her parents were still alive.

After several unsuccessful attempts to reach the Petersons and the Cushmans and with a deadline bearing down on me I had a brief conversation with others in the newsroom and it was decided that Angie was alive but that Lewis had passed away a couple of years earlier. So, the story ended by saying: “Connie Peterson is the daughter of Angie and the late Lewis Cushman.”

The day the story ran I was out of the office in the early afternoon and returned around 3 p.m., about an hour after the paper hit the street. The first thing I noticed was a note on my desk written in bold letters that were underlined: ‘CALL LEWIS CUSHMAN!” The phone number was listed, also in large print.

I can still recall the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the cold sweat on my forehead as I dialed Cushman’s number to take the scolding and the heat that I knew was forthcoming.

To my amazement though, Lewis and Angie Cushman proved to be good-natured and took my mistake quite well, even making a few jokes about it. They did ask me to correct the mistake the next day, though.

Using a lead I’m certain has been used many times by other harried newspaper writers the following day’s paper had a correction that began: “Much like Mark Twain, news of the death of Lewis Cushman is greatly exaggerated…”

Perhaps one of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard came a few days later when Angie Cushman called to tell me about the reception Lewis received from the elderly gentlemen that he drank coffee with every morning at a local restaurant.

She said the second Lewis walked in one gentleman commented about the speed at which he’d returned to life after his demise was reported a day earlier in the local newspaper.

“You know Lewis, it took Jesus three days to resurrect,” he said. “But you made it back for coffee the next morning.”

Since that forgettable day 10 years ago I’ve seen the Cushmans on countless occasions and we always shared a laugh about the glaring mistake that I made. And in the event that I would see Angie without Lewis I would always inquire, with somewhat of an exaggerated worried tone, how her husband was feeling.

“Lewis is ALIVE and doing quite well,” Angie would always reply with a wide smile.

While I’ll readily admit that I’ve made an occasional mistake with dates, places, and times during my tenure as a writer, reporting the erroneous death and subsequent resurrection of Lewis Cushman remains my biggest blunder.

And while it might be a small token, I hope it’s some source of comfort to readers to know that in the event that I mistakenly kill you on the front page one day … I can bring you back to life within 24 hours.

I stood at Lewis Cushman’s casket last week only a few minutes before the start of his funeral and talked with Angie and her children and we once again recalled and shared a laugh about that infamous day more than a decade ago when I reported his very premature death.

After I exited the church that day the thought crossed my mind that all those laughs and smiles through the years that I enjoyed with the Cushmans happened solely because they had a forgiving nature and a keen sense of humor. If they had blasted me, all those smiles and friendly greetings and even this column would never have happened. We should all be so fortunate when we pass on that people would remember us for those two qualities.

As an epitaph to this story I feel that I should say thanks, Lewis, for taking it easy on me after I erroneously reported your death on the front page of the local newspaper. But more importantly thanks for a classic story and the warm memories and the many smiles we shared.