TUPATALK: Warrior's passing tweaks memories

Len Dawson died last week.

It’s odd the connections we make with total strangers and how those connections can leave such an indelible impact.

In the movie, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” the angel Clarence comments to George Bailey that: “Strange isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

It was January 1970. My newly-adopted favorite team, the Minnesota Vikings, prepared to battle in Super Bowl IV against the underdog Kansas City Chiefs, led by a workmanlike and gritty quarterback named Len Dawson.

Dawson and the Chiefs beat my Vikings that day, 23-7.

I sobbed.

But, I developed a great respect during the years for Dawson’s work as an analyst and commentator. He displayed great knowledge of both the give-and-take and the spirit of football.

More than that, he was one of my links to childhood, keeping alive in a special way the fantasy, the wonder, the enthusiasm, the hopes, the optimism of 13-year-old Mike Tupa.

His passing has severed one of those links.

Time’s relentless breeze carries away the seconds, weeks and years of our lives, stripping away and shaping the pulsating potential of our lives until all that hopefully remains is the chiseled and polished reality of who we are.

I can’t help it. My memories slip back to scant moments that have chipped away some of my rough spots and taught me new ideals.

It early 1977. I am 20 years old and am in an Italian hospital in Torino (Turin) awaiting a major knee operation. I’m in the land known as “Bel Paese” due to my service as a church missionary.

I’m the lone American on my hospital floor and sleep in an open ward with five or seven other beds, all filled with men awaiting operations or recovering from them.

In a room down the hall is a middle-aged-to-older man, his hair white, his skin and lines in his face those of a blue collar worker.

He had had both of his lower legs wrenched off in an industrial accident. One of the friends I had made stayed in the same room, which had only two people.

One day I rolled in my wheelchair into the room to see my friend. He wasn’t there.

But, in the other men, the man who had lost his leg lie sleeping. A huge and contented smile painted his lips.

It’s 1983. I’m stationed in Beaufort, S.C., during part of my Marine Corps tour.

One night, my barracks roommate and I work a late shift and decide to drive in his car — a sleek black Torino — to a convenience store off base to buy some snacks.

As soon as he takes a left out of the base onto the highway his car runs out of gas. It’s about 1 a.m. We decide to push the car about 1.5 miles along the highway to the pumps at the store.

I push from the back, he props open the driver’s door and pushes while handling the steering wheel.

Several hundred yards later, I look behind and see pair of weaving headlights headed straight for me, like I was target and it was an arrow.

“Smith!,” I yell to my friend. He sees the oncoming vehicle, slams the door and walks away, while I hurry down the embankment alongside the road.

The sound of the collision was thunderous. The van — whose driver happened to be stone drunk — caromed wildly across the oncoming lanes and into a roadside cemetery, where it knocked over a couple of tombstones.

My Marine Corps buddy got a new car out of the deal.

Me, I shuddered with the knowledge that had I waited another five seconds to look around and check the traffic I wouldn’t be here to type this.

The Guy Upstairs took extra care of me that night.

I am in my 20’s. I recall sitting next to my developmentally-challenged uncle in church and, despite a speech handicap, him singing the songs with garbled words, but, more than that, with total sincerity and honesty.

I guess that taught me that it isn’t the sounds that come out of our lips that matter — it’s the words that come from our heart that mean anything.

I relate that to athletics. It isn’t utilizing the smoothness, coordination and power of our physical abilities and assets that make a warrior — it’s the drive from inside that creates true champions — regardless of the result.

Rest in peace, Len Dawson.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TupaTalk column