I don't think I knew Brian Dana Akers in the 1970s, but since I was working closely with his brother and knew his parents socially it's pretty likely I met him once or twice. Anyway, he's grown up to write science fiction and has a lengthy online autobiography on his personal website. About a quarter of the way down the page is a word portrait of his father, Owen, which includes Action Now in a long list of organizations Owen participated in. Brian's father was as remarkable as the portrait suggests. What I think the portrait misses is that Owen's heavy workload was fairly seamless; I had contacts with him in several of his roles and he was always the same person, working on the same causes, and finding reinforcement from his friends and colleagues as he moved from meeting to meeting. A strenuous life, yes, and not everyone loved Owen Akers, but many did.

Brian's summation is all too true:

When someone like this dies, it's like standing on the rim of a huge crater. Only as the crater recedes into the past do the survivors comprehend the size of the hole in their lives, appreciate the death's force of impact, and realize all that was vaporized.

More, though. Owen was an inspiration to his friends, and to some of his opponents. That did not end when he perished.

I spent years doing political organizing. Brians' brother, David, was one of my colleagues in those efforts--he was the key voter registration and get out the vote organizer whose activities complemented our voter contact efforts in the early 1970s. That I had his respect was always a source of satisfaction, for Dave's commitment to the work was far greater than mine. David Akers was a formidable organizer, bringing talent and passion to everything he touched. David was quite different from his father, but equally committed to his father's causes.

We lost contact when I moved to Lansing. I'm saddened to learn that he died fairly young.

Postscript: While I was working on this essay, iTunes delivered Rhonda Vincent's performance of Carl Story's If You Don't Love God:

If you say you love Him while you hate your neighbor then you don't have religion. You just told a lie.

Fitting.

Robert Teeter, quite likely the most influential political pollster of all time, passed away over the weekend.  Although Teeter worked the Republican side of the street, he devised methods which have influenced political analysts of all stripes.  His primary legacy, poll-driven political strategy, is unlikely to vanish soon.  While his methods are one of the foundations of modern Republicanism, Democratic campaigns have been built on similar bases.

My sympathies to his friends and family.

A good man.  We'll miss him.

Doug at Coors Field on July 11, 2003.

I learned this from Gongwer's daily Michigan Report...
...but Google reveals obits all 'round the nation...

Cancer got Tug McGraw yesterday.  Mom, who admired Tugger as a pitcher, would have mourned with me.