The Beastie Boys Adam Yauch And All-Pro LB Junior Seau Leave Us Feeling Quite Human This Week, But It's the Passing of An Old Boss of Ours That Is the Saddest..
More evidence that we're getting closer and closer to that age. It sometimes seems like a million miles away for us sometimes, especially when your Dad's odometer is on it's way to hitting 88... However, this week snapped us back into mortality again, and two people you kind of grew up with died - joining one who you ACTUALLY grew up with...
We noted the Beastie Boys impact on a lot of people in my generation. They were virtually the only Rap group that gets played on Alternative Rock stations now. Adam 'MCA' Yauch was the deep one of the group: he directed films, and was very involved in helping Tibetian Monks as well, in addition to the slighty raspy vocals he did with the Beasties.. His three year battle with cancer that started in his left salivary gland was well publicized, but he stayed in the public eye a lot...
On the other end, we're still wondering what happened with Junior Seau, but these things happen when you spending 25 years running full speed head-first into 300 pound athletes... Traumatic brain injury is starting to really come to the forefront as more examples like his occur.. You might have never heard this, but 9 members of Seau's 1994 Chargers team that went to the Super Bowl have died - with none of them seeing their 45th birthday. Strange indeed. Whether brain injury had anything to do with this is still speculative, but hopefully we'll find out.
As big as these might seem, it's always the people closer to you that affect you more. Last month, I found out that one of my bosses from my old college job at Robert Moses State Park on Long Island, Howard Leffhalm, was suffering from throat cancer, and wasn't expected to live. He moved to High Point, NC after retiring, and unfortunately, he passed away this week. I didn't think it so much at the time, but I had a lot of fun working at the beach. Being in the sun all day, working alongside fellow hot college girls was great. I couldn't say that all of my bosses were the best. For a place where 'Life's a Beach' was the motto, some of them took the gig much too seriously. Howard was the Anti-Boss... He was easygoing, never overstressing, and gave us all a person to learn from in dealing with the public. State Park employees get yelled at a lot, because everyone thinks they can do what they want, since they pay taxes. Howard taught us to take it all in stride, and just enjoy the job and the friends we made there. Dozens of us still keep in touch - 25 years after working there - including Howard's kids.
He will be laid to rest back in New York, and I hope they drive him past his Superintendent's residence one last time. It would be fitting for him to cross over that span from the mainland, go around the water tower circle and go through the place where he spent his career, and where he influenced hundreds of lives of young people at just the right time... We love you, 602!
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