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Sadness comes in 3s

WE'VE lost some good ones these past few days.

A friend and mentor died this week. The funeral is today. It was an unexpected thing. He died on the golf course, on his wife's birthday. He left a present for her, then went out -- it's a happy bonus to be able to swing a club in Nebraska in March. He was 57. Too soon.

I just saw him the other day.

He'd gathered his grown-up family here for the Pro Bowl, one more vacation together.

I saw him on a Tuesday, a long lunch at one of those hotel restaurants on Waikiki Beach. We talked about books and politics and his adventures on the JV football team, some 40-something years ago.

He told me how his father taught him to sing the national anthem at high school football games. He became emotional when he talked about it.

He was going to make his first trip to Pearl Harbor the next day. He knew that would be emotional, too.

I'm glad they had one last time together as a family, in the sun.

And then, Mr. Outside, Glenn Davis, died Wednesday. He was the great Army Heisman Trophy winner, always paired with Mr. Inside, Doc Blanchard, in the greatest backfield of all time.

I spoke to him on the phone a couple of years ago, when Army came to play Hawaii. A very nice man. One of the all-time greats.

But the thing he really wanted to be made clear was how proud he was of his coach and how hard he had to study to make it through West Point, all those years ago.

And, last month, there was Max Schmeling. A reader noted that he'd once sent Schmeling a box of Hawaii chocolates and Schmeling had written back thankfully. They struck up a correspondence. I have copies of the autographed pictures and the letters in German in front of me now.

The reader, Curtis, opined that Schmeling had spent the rest of his life trying to make up for his sins. And Schmeling had had them -- he'd allowed himself to be linked with Hitler, ignored evil around him, gone along.

It's true, Schmeling not only regretted all this, he never denied it, either. He always admitted his sins. But he also risked his life when he hid two boys, family friends, during the terror of Kristallnacht. He refused to fire his Jewish-American manager. He was drafted into WWII combat -- as a paratrooper -- at age 34 because the Nazis were so disgusted with him.

In later years he came back to America, met Joe Louis, talked all night. When Louis died, Schmeling paid for the funeral.

Schmeling's was March 1, and 1,000 people came. He was 99. Another good one gone.