I found this article about working with Sid Hartman to be both amusing and inspiring.
Another time I thought Sid was dead was when I got a phone call saying he had fallen and broken his hip.
I was unaware how dire a situation that was for an elderly person — and Sid was 96 at the time — but based on the tone of the conversations, I began to think Sid would never work again. I got hold of his son, Chad, to see if I could come visit.
Sid was in a recovery room at Fairview Southdale, lying in a hospital gown with an array of machines connected to him and doctors and nurses and family coming in and out of the room. I had never seen him in a vulnerable position. I went to his bedside and asked him, as quietly and kindly as I could, how he was doing.
He rose up slightly, “You tell them not to touch my column.”
He was back to work three weeks later, writing about the Gophers hiring P.J. Fleck as the football coach.
He would publish 612 more columns.
To put that in perspective, I wrote a grand total of 535 columns for WND, enough to fill three fat hardcovers. Sid Hartman wrote more than that… after the age of 96. You’re not done until you’re well and truly done.
And on a sadder note, RIP Matt Blair. I met the great Minnesota linebacker twice as a child, and I still have the cards from his photography studio he started after retiring from the Vikings.