I received this e-mail photo from my old pal Lester. Lester was the son of the late Tanczo and Muriel Mukinfuch and lived in the apartments above Wise's Five and Dime on 79th Street between Marshfield and Paulina.
Lester used to push the phalanx of unoccupied swing seats at Clara Barton School as hard as he could, close his eyes and try to duck them, like Napoleon Solo did with swirling razor sharp bladed on Man From Uncle,* well into his late teens. Lester would loudly gum out the base riff from MFU theme music (Dun,Dun,Dunt,Dunt -Dun, Dun, Dunt, Dunt,Dunt . . .) -Duck, pop up, and take the the quarter inch pine in the teeth.
Lester was a lovely guy. He recently retired from the faculty of University of Chicago where he had been a Distinguished Professor of Social Work and had been consultant for AFSCME and the SEIU, as well as Organizing for America.
Unmarried and childless, Lester had gone to Alaska on holiday and having become a great fan of the Bear Whisperer on the Animal Planet Channel, wanted to get close to Ursus arctos horribilis .
When I received this photo attached to the following e-mail from his Cingular camera phone at 7:55PM last night posted below, I notified Bob Sheehy, President of Sheehy & Sons Funeral Homes to expect a delivery from •Ketchikan, Alaska -
Hick!
Alaska is assume! The Woods Streets guys ud love it! Beers alot, but there'sbears out here. Look I foun on my table! Back on . . .
Ubi Sunt, the lads of my youth!
HT to Max Weismann of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas -Lester never met Max, nor a Great Idea.
