I know people.

Some people.

Like Alan Minsky.

I know him, but not well enough.

I wish I knew him more so I could tell him how much I admire him and how important he is, to me, to the world.

He may even remember me.

Or not.

But back in the day, when Shirley and I were KPFK so much and nearly all the time, we were often at the station, served on the Community Advisory Board, made a promo for the station, went to the Lectures with all those Big Names and Big Voices, like Amy Goodman (we always brought her flowers, bought her books, ate the dinners Papa Cristo catered), Greg Palast (for whom I wore my hat in honor of him wearing his), Sonali Kolhatkar (we bought her handcrafts at her house), Thom Hartmann (at the Sportsman’s Lodge), Yannis Varoufakis (we traded Greek jokes), Richard Wolff (I gave him candy and a lead to an employee-owned business in Monrovia), Margaret Prescod (who introduced us to Blaise Bonpane so we could discuss our religious upbringing), Lila Garrett who connected the dots (we had a good discussion when I carried her stuff to her car from Grand Central Station after Bach in the Subway), Uncle Ruthie (we danced to her crank organ in the side garden), Ed Asner (at the premiere of Up, where we traded stories about the Jesuit order and he made original dirty jokes), Roy of Hollywood (Shirley and he discussed anthropology at length)…People who came from on the air to be with us in person.

Sometime I’ll probably say more about all that, but right now I just want to stick with Alan Minsky.

He was so often there at the KPFK station, knew everybody, was the longest serving Program Director, kept his smile serene and was the kind of leader who was always with and for the people.

He was very good to unworthy me, and when he saw me, we did the fist bump.

That’s what guys do, and athletes and broadcasters who follow sports. Alan was half sports and wrote books about baseball and such.

His other half was politics and democracy and progressive and economics. His father was economics big time, so it ran in the family.

At one of Richard Wolff’s talks, maybe the one at Occidental College with a two room overflow, as Alan had arranged it and oversaw everything, I had brought a full box of torrones to share with everyone, a dozen little boxed nougats from Italy.

I gave Alan one, and he said, delighted, “I love torrone. I used to eat them all the time when I was in Italy.”

I gave one to Richard Wolff at the podium, and, because I had given one to Alan, he accepted it without too much hesitant suspicion.

I’m always wanting to give people whatever I can, and share whatever I have, like democracy.

Alan understood perfectly, and we were buddy friends without knowing each other very well, though he’s able to see through people and he saw right through me.

KPFK politics from my perspective experience was a lot of factions and in-fighting, struggles for power and dominance, the constant attempts to raise money, the endless recurring membership drives, and the juggling of programs to reach and satisfy every type of listener constituent.

Alan was, and I realize it even more now, a guiding force, an engine of progressiveness, a calming influence, keeping the ship afloat and on course, guarding the strongest broadcast signal west of the Rockies that others were always trying to buy.

When Shirley stayed up late to hear Roy of Hollywood, Roy filled the time slot nobody wanted, weathered an attempted replacement, and returned to his faithful audience of loyal listeners, of whom Shirley was among the strongest and called in and talked for hours.

Alan saw past Ralph Nader the spoiler, and when Nader didn’t heed my advice, Alan still helps find ways to keep him actively progressive by producing The Ralph Nader Hour. I thank them both.

A treasured memory is the time when KPFK was promoting the film of Alan’s famous progressive economist father, Boom Bust Boom, a kind of Econ for Dummies with explicit cartoons. The film was showing in one of the wings of a local art theater, probably a Laemmle, and Shirley and I went eagerly.

We were almost the only ones in the audience, except for Alan and his girl friend or colleague who sat several rows back in the empty theater with maybe one old woman down front.

We were there to show support and because we were intensely interested, did as much progressiveness as we could, and because we loved Alan and knew he loved us. That was KPFK at its best.

The film deserves a wider audience. We came in answer to the KPFK call and Alan was pleased and grateful that we swelled the head count by two.

There’s a special closeness when friends share a common experience of common convictions deeply felt.

After the film, we invited Alan and his companion to dinner, our treat.

He said, “Sorry, we’re just going to grab a quick bite and get back for the next showing.”

He wanted to up the numbers every single time. I think he was attending every showing. After all, it was his father and his own life’s work.

How can you admire someone more when you think you’ve admired them as much as you can?

And then you do.

I still owe Alan Minsky a dinner.

After I lost Shirley two years ago, after earlier years of her decline when we slipped away from the world, I just today read an article by Alan Minsky on the internet and the past came back in full force.

LA Progressive – April 8 – A Love Letter to the People – and a Call to Build the Movement We Deserve.

“Can Progressives Transform Dems to Save Democracy?”

“Either we act now to position progressive politics as the viable alternative to Trump or we’re complicit in the end of our democratic society.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

And Alan Minsky is now the Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America, with greater influence in the greater world, exercising his leadership when we need it and him now more than ever.

We are still fired up from the Rally in Berkeley on April 6.

I want to do more. I say yes and yes to Alan now that I’ve re-discovered him.

My blog is daily reaching people in 60 countries.

Alan is reaching out and I’m reaching back.

I want to say, “Alan, though I’m much older than you, and you may not remember me, I’m with you and here to be counted as I was counted in the audience for your father’s film. I’m one more. I have some life left, and reading your article has re-connected me to a world I haven’t lost touch with.

“So, Alan, thank you. I’m here. I’m back. I just wanted to let you know.

“Where would you like to go for dinner?”