Thursday, January 15, 2009

Intensive care

Bad news. Outpost columnist and longtime newsman Roger Clawson had a severe heart attack and apparent stroke last night. He is in the hospital (I stupidly forgot to ask which one) but apparently cannot receive visitors. The prognosis is uncertain.

In unrelated bad news, Bev Gray, a colleague of mine from the Academic Support Center at MSU Billings, died yesterday. We heard on Tuesday that she was out this semester because of ill health. We didn't realize how ill her health was. She was a superb writing tutor, meticulous, thoughtful and kind, and a pleasure to work with.

Rotten day all around.

UPDATE: Not much new to report. As of Friday afternoon, Roger was still in intensive care, somewhat responsive. Still don't know much about the long-term outlook.

UPDATE 2: Better news. Roger is out of intensive care at Billings Clinic. Gary Svee says: "He has a hard time talking. Apparently he has a sore throat from all the tubes they put there in ICU. But he can talk, and he can hear, and he can even tell jokes." No surgery is planned, but considerable rehab may be required.

Perhaps he will be back to annoying Eric sooner than we imagined.

UPDATE 3: Roger is supposed to get out of the hospital today (Saturday, Jan. 24).

12 comments:

Chuck Rightmire said...

I understand Roger is in ICU at Billings Clinic.

Anonymous said...

This is bad news. Love Roger's column.

Anonymous said...

Some 1,600 years ago the Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus wrote: 'The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.'

Anonymous said...

Very bad news. Excellent witty wry writer. All the best.

Anonymous said...

I used to read Clawson, but lately (the last decade) his columns haven't been all that inspiring -

tell you what David - when the day comes that it's time to write the last words on Clawson I'll get in touch with Pete Hansen and see if we can't write it for you -

I'll pattern it after the one Clawson wrote about my friend Michael Dietz -

David said...

Eric,
I assume you mean Michael Deisz. Roger (and I) caught a lot of heat about the column he wrote after Mr. Deisz's death, but I have never had serious qualms about it. If Mr. Deisz and I should meet in the afterlife, then I would have no problem looking him straight in the eye and saying, "Michael, if our situations had been reversed, I would have expected you to do exactly the same thing to me." I think he would have agreed. I think Roger would, too, so have at it.

Anonymous said...

My spelling was off -
thanks for the correction -

It seems like a long time ago when I last visited with Michael - up at his Jewelery shop in the Heights - I was thinking about that the other day when I noticed that it was empty again - must not be the best location -

That being said - it still hasn't been long enough ago for me to forget that column -

Anonymous said...

Heck David - his column doesn't annoy me - I just don't read it anymore -

And it's too bad, because he is a gifted writer -

I am going to rescind my offer though - when the day comes to write the last column about Clawson (assuming either of us outlive him) I'll read whatever you write -

Because Rob Natelson said it best - that Clawsons column about Michael Diesz said little about Michael, but volumes about the author(Roger Clawson)

I'm willing to leave it there -

Anonymous said...

Eric's right. Clawson should have been more considerate, as Mencken was when William Jennings Bryan died:

http://purple.niagara.edu/chambers/mencken.html

Randy said...

Is Roger's column about Michael Deisz online?

If so, would you put the link up?

David said...

Randy, It is not. I believe it predates the website, or it may have been lost in our ongoing legal dispute with a previous web host.

Anonymous said...

Some of us can remember when Michael Deisz's Mother Leona was the Joseph Goebels of the local right wing crack pots. I think she even had her own radio show for a while where she spewed propaganda and hate. In the early 1970's 3 teenagers burned cross on their lawn on Sunnyside lane. It caused quite a stir in Billings. Most people backed the kids...