EDITORIAL

Saying goodbye to an old friend
By Jeff Hovind
They say you can learn a lot about a man’s character by playing a few rounds of golf with him. That certainly was true of my friend, John.
John Otto was running the pressroom at the Waukesha Freeman when I came in as publisher. John had been slapping ink on newsprint literally since the day I was born. He started at the Freeman on October 22, 1956, the same day I said “hello world” at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Milwaukee.
Soon after I started, John tried to get me into the company golf league. The truth was the job and family concerns were taking up most of my time, and at that point, I was getting sick of golf and the band of cutthroats that I played with.
But John persisted, and eventually I joined the group. We later settled into a regular group, which we jokingly named the Fearsome Foursome. I don’t know if we were ever fearsome, but there were four of us. There was John, his best friend and Freeman retiree Chet Laughhunn, longtime Freeman sports editor Lee Fensin and myself.
The golf scores weren’t always great, but the camaraderie was. These guys made the game enjoyable again.
I could tell John was a pretty good golfer back in the day, but age was starting to make his game a little inconsistent. That’s when his character started to shine through.
John played golf just taking it as it comes – good shots, bad shots and everything in between. When John cracked a drive deep down the middle of the fairway, he’d turn back to us with a wry smile and say something simple like, “that’ll play.” Occasionally, he would dribble one off the tee, and would throw his head back and let out a hearty laugh that could be heard two fairways over.
It was a perspective that John lived by in life, even to the end of life.
My friend died last Saturday night, after a brave battle against pancreatic cancer. He passed with the same grace, dignity and sense of humor that he showed in life.
On Sunday morning, somewhere in that great golf course in the sky, the new guy was putting together an outing with old friends.
Some years back, a pastor taught me that God works through the people He puts around us. It was an epiphany.
Since then, I’ve tried to pay a little more attention to the people in my life. Sometimes, they’re there to help us. Other times, we’re there to help them. Many times we simply learn from each other.
I learned a lot about being a man from John and Chet. When my dad died, I looked to them as fatherly role models, admiring their strength, resolve, experience and good humor.
In fact, I looked at John as half father figure, half good friend, half big brother and half trusted co-worker. I know that adds up to four halves, but John was a big man, who cast a big shadow.
The thing I will remember most about this experience is that when I came to Waukesha, I joined a family – the Freeman family – and John was its patriarch. He personified the talent, hard work and feisty attitude that made the Freeman a great newspaper, against tall odds.
Rest in peace, my friend, you will be missed. I’ll have to be content just hearing that easy, hearty laugh of yours echoing through my memories.

---

Are them really fightin’ words?
By Jeff Hovind
In the Dog Days of August it’s hard to get fired up about the race for governor, so sometimes the little things draw undue attention.
The latest is an ad for Republican candidate Scott Walker in which he dons boxing gloves and vows to “go the distance” against the likely Democratic nominee Tom Barrett, who was viciously beaten outside the state fairgrounds last year and left with serious injuries. Barrett was struck with a tire iron as he tried to help a screaming woman struggling to protect her 1-year-old granddaughter from being taken by her drunk, belligerent father.
Like a lot of things in this campaign, this is much ado about nothing. Barrett said he will leave it to others to judge whether the ad is in bad taste, but other Democrats are crying foul.
“I think he looks ridiculous and I think it really is tasteless,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate. “Walker does seem to be mocking the fact that the mayor, frankly, almost gave his life to intervene in a domestic violence situation.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think the ad was bad strategy. There’s really no need to remind folks of Barrett’s heroic deed.
Besides, if it came to fist-to-cuffs, my money would be on the guy that took on the drunk, not the skinny fella in a suit..