Bloggin’ on the Edge

Posted by Scott Spielman at 3:00 AM | Comments

When I first met Cliff Johnson he was giving me a piece of his mind.

It was at a Wayne City Council meeting about four or five years ago, and my hand was encircled by his gnarled knuckles as he told me the kinds of things I needed to do in town, how generally incompetent the council was and how he was “the only one that did anything in this town.”

I was new to the beat then, and the community, and I looked down at this raspy-voiced man and immediately wondered what I had gotten myself into.

He and I had plenty of run-ins during my first year here; most of them involved me snatching my hand away and stomping off, grumbling under my breath. Sometimes I saw him coming and invented some urgent errand that took me in the other direction.

Needless to say I didn’t like him very much.

Then I got to know him a little bit.

I gradually learned that, as cantankerous as he usually was, his heart was in the right place. I saw how he nearly visibly broke down whenever he mentioned the name of his deceased wife, Marie, and learned of a soul with two great loves—her and politics.

I’ve spoken to many people since he died last week and was again surprised at how many described him as generous. I never had a need for that generosity but, after talking to all these people, I know it would have been there for me if I needed it. Sure, it might’ve come at the expense of some lecture about a column he disagreed with, but that came with the territory with Cliff.

Cliff came from a different era. He was always one to put his family and friends first. He worked hard for what he had and appreciated it all the more for it. He was, I’m told, always willing to help out someone who for one reason or another couldn’t work so hard or hadn’t had even the modest amount of success he had enjoyed through his life.

I think that’s why he would come across as so gruff and cranky. He was impatient for the rest of us because he saw the potential for good there and how little attention most of us give it. He pushed everyone to do more because he wanted to do more himself.

I write this now before I head to his viewing and funeral and I wonder what I will find. One of his friends talked about that very uncertainty on the part of his family: they didn’t know how many people to plan for at the services.

“Wouldn’t it be great,” he said, “If a thousand people showed up?”

Yeah, it would be.

Comments