How other lives, deaths touch your own life

Every day, I peruse the obituaries of the major daily newspaper delivered to my home, as well as online publications in other American cities. My sister in California thinks I’m crazy to do so, believing there is something morbid about such activity, but I have my reasons.
Much of the day’s news is often contained on who has left our earthly existence and it IS interesting to see the various contributions they made to our society. For the record, the obituary section of the Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com) is superior to any paper in the land.
I also see if there is anyone I know, knew or, in the rare cases, with whom I had personal contact. Recently, I had three such passings that touched my life in small ways. Yet you recoil at some measure of shock to read that these people are gone.
Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine was known in Detroit, Mich. as “the Atheist Rabbi” having founded a movement known as Humanistic Judaism, celebrating Jewish history and culture but invoking the name of God. He was 79 at the time of his death from a car accident in Morocco.
Like me, he was a graduate of the University of Michigan and in 1965, he formed the first Humanistic Jewish congregation in Detroit (own mutual hometown). But before that, he was the associate rabbi (pastor) of Temple Beth-El, which was our family’s congregation. He taught little tykes like me in our Sunday school classes and presided over traditional Jewish worship services.
In 1965, he formed The Birmingham Temple in Farmington, Mich., which turned Judaism on its ear, following more of a Unitarian Universalist theme than what others knew before.
According to his obit in the Los Angeles Times, “Wine rewrote rituals to reflect a people-centric viewpoint. Thus, at Friday night services, ‘You shall love the Lord your God’ became ‘We revere the best in man.’ Poems were recited instead of prayers, and presentations on Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt replaced Torah readings at bar and bat mitzvahs.”
The small congregation expanded from eight families to 140 in two years’ time. It now claims 40,000 members worldwide through 50 “temples.”
But his passing reminded me of days very long ago. As did the death of songwriter Ron Miller at the age of 77 of cardiac arrest after battling emphysema and cancer.
If you are a fan of ‘60s music and especially, my favorite genre, Motown (the soundtrack of my youth), you might remember some of Miller’s biggest hits. He wrote “For Once in My Life,” first recorded by Stevie Wonder and subsequently, 269 times more, including a 2007 Grammy for a duet with Wonder and Tony Bennett.
He also wrote another Stevie Wonder hit, “Yester-me, Yester-you, Yesterday,” the Diana Ross hit, “Touch Me in the Morning” Celine Dion’s “If I Could,” and “Heaven Help Us All.”
Miller was a native of Chicago, who served in the Marines before migrating to Detroit to seek his fame and fortune. Eventually Motown founder Berry Gordy spotted him at a piano bar and asked him to write and produce for Motown Records.
But before that breakthrough happened, Ron Miller made a few scheckles by teaching people to play the piano. One of those groups was the Bloom family, at the insistence of my mother, who bought a baby grand piano but didn’t know how to properly use it. She wanted to be able to play “Moon River” for party guests and after seeing Miller play at a private club, she hired him.
Working with Mom was easier than trying to instruct her musically-dense son. I was a hopeless case because, within my DNA, there is no capacity to read music. I have the same problem with foreign languages – the ability to instantly translate words and sounds in my mind within that spectrum. I mull it over in English and the thought process just takes too long.
Still, every time I heard “For Once in My Life,” I thought of my failed attempts to become Billy Joel.
And then there was Bill Flemming, a name many of you might recognize. Actually, it would be the face and voice that would stand out. He left us July 20 at the age of 80 from prostate cancer.
If you ever watched “ABC’s Wide World of Sports,” or college football or any major athletic event on ABC, chances are you heard the dulcet tones of Flemming. He called the famed 1969 Michigan-Ohio State “upset of the century” game and was totally objective despite being a native of Ann Arbor and, yes, a graduate of the University of Michigan.
He also did cliff diving from Acapulco, hurling from Ireland and more than 600 events for “Wide World of Sports.” He was also a member of 11 Olympic coverage teams for ABC and was the announcer for the 1972 chess showdown between chess divas Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Back then, THAT was a major sporting event – as big as David Beckham coming to America.
When I worked as a student assistant in the Michigan sports information department, I often came into contact with Bill Flemming and always found him to be cordial, nice and never pushy (unlike some others wearing the same insignia). He took pride in his work but never took himself too seriously.
He made everyone feel at ease – from grizzled old coaches to nervous young assistants trying to make good impressions. It wasn’t necessary because Bill Flemming liked everyone, and everyone liked him.
I will continue to check the obituaries today and tomorrow – to make sure I’m not there, but also to see who is. Sadly, the older I get, the more names I know.