On Monday we misplaced Albert Dickens, the loyal rock of the Chicago Sun-Times sports activities division, and it hurts to contemplate that.
Albert used to be 82 and were in a rehabilitation facility for some time with headaches from quite a lot of diseases, and he died of kidney failure.
Our heartfelt condolences cross out to his circle of relatives. But our sympathy additionally is going to those that ever labored or nonetheless paintings within the Sun-Times sports activities division and feature introduced our readers the inside track and reviews they deserve for years and years.
Every editor, author, reporter, supply guy, janitor — anyone who had anything else to do with the long-gone Daily News or present Sun-Times sports activities division within the remaining half-century owes such a lot to Albert.
His identify, I suppose, used to be assistant to the sports activities division. But his position actually used to be that of the glue and oil that stored the entire shebang working in combination and easily, with out fanfare, with out drama.
I will be able to’t emphasize sufficient how a lot he did for all folks. You don’t realize a person like Albert from the out of doors. On the interior, you wonder, you smile in gratitude each day.
Can I simply let you know how dapper Albert used to be?
He used to be sartorially impeccable.
He all the time wore a coat and tie, whilst such a lot of folks dressed like slobs. He introduced dignity to a chaotic barnyard of feather-rufflers.
One day I needed to have my picture taken to move with my column heading. But I didn’t have a tie.
“Here, take mine,’’ Albert stated.
I did. A phenomenal silk tie. Thank you, sir.
His overdue spouse used to be a grasp tailor, and he sewed issues for Albert that may have break the bank at a high-quality males’s retailer.
To glance excellent made him proud. And when Albert used to be proud, all of us felt excellent, protected in our paintings.
Albert Dickens enjoys himself on the remaining Sun-Times Christmas birthday party. Provided
I had deliberate to consult with him as soon as once more at his rehab position again in mid-March — as former sportswriter Toni Ginnetti and sports activities editor Chris De Luca and plenty of different Sun-Times employees, present and retired, had executed. But the COVID-19 hit, so we simply talked for a very long time at the telephone.
I complained about there actually being no one to exchange him on the newspaper, and my activity and everyone else’s used to be tougher and no more a laugh. So why didn’t he get out of there and are available again?
He shrugged it off along with his same old excellent humor and gave me as a substitute a verbatim recitation of 19th century editor and poet William Cullen Bryant’s transcendentally influenced poem on demise, “Thanatopsis.’’
“I gave that at Lacy Banks’ funeral,’’ Albert stated proudly.
Banks, after all, used to be the veteran sportswriter for the Sun-Times who died in 2012.
Albert implied that he used to be no longer remotely petrified of demise, which he appeared to know used to be coming rapid. In reality, he stored messing with the 89-year-old Irish priest who visited his room every so often for somber talks.
“ ‘Oh, the Potato Famine was a terrible thing!’ he’d inform me,’’ Albert would say, imitating him in a great Irish brogue.
He informed the priest he wasn’t positive what he may do about that famine.
Albert may do nearly any accessory you sought after. He even spoke to Sun-Times administrative center cleansing women in actual Polish. How did he be told Polish? By staring at Polish TV, he stated.
A black guy raised Catholic in small-town, all-white Iowa, Albert used to be filled with mild quirks and incongruity. His circle of relatives ended up out of doors Des Moines after a relative got here up from South Carolina to paintings at the railroad, he stated. He owned a deep sense of the absurdity about his upbringing and the sector basically, along side a playful cynicism for the twists of status quo mythology.
“I imply, we don’t know a lot about Jesus as an adolescent, will we?’’ he requested, chuckling along with his personal speculation: “Maybe he broke into chariots.’’
Oh, we laughed.
Albert’s diction used to be exact and with out inflection. He used to be from the middle of the rustic, after all.
“The Southern whites within the Army…