EDITOR:

In the current age of political bickering, meanness, and altered reality, it becomes important to celebrate the life of a politician who served in a bi-partisan manner with intelligence, compassion and honor. Carl Levin died last week following a long battle with lung cancer. I had the privilege of working for him, serving the Upper Peninsula in the late ’90s. He was a caring, committed, and tireless servant of the people who fought unceasingly for the military, civil rights, and the Great Lakes.

As the U.P. representative for the Senator, my job was to help him help communities and organizations in need. On a non-partisan basis he helped obtain grants to improve water systems, fix bridges, clean waterways and a plethora of other items that are neither sexy or newsworthy, except to the people whose lives they would improve. He saw that as his job.

Among his best friends in the U.S. Senate were John McCain and John Warner, two Republican senators who told me, personally, what I great man I worked for. These were people who knew a thing or two about great men. Senator John Glenn said much the same, as did others who would happen to call Senator Levin as I just happened to be holding his phone.

Never a scandal, never a backtrack. His ethics rules for staff were much more stringent than the Senate rules themselves. We had to be above that, he would say. In traveling around the U.P., I got to see first hand how he communicated with people of differing background and cultures. And there was a respect from people who disagreed. No one ever got in his face to show opposition, and most discussion ended with a handshake.

Before he spoke to a class at LSSU, the college president met us in the parking lot. He asked where our entourage was and the Senator said, “He’s right here!” He pointed at me and asked, jokingly if he needed more than that. The president pointed out that just last week, the then governor showed up with his “six or seven bodyguards.” Carl (and he did ask us to call him Carl, though we always called him Senator) told the administrator “Well, if I need more than Kev here, I’ll just have to talk louder.”

I last spoke to the man back in March, when he welcomed former staff via Zoom to celebrate the release of his new book “Getting to the Heart Of The Matter.” He was obviously frail, yet still sharp as ever. I had mentioned how great it was speeding around the U.P. getting him from meeting to meeting with our constantly unrealistic schedule while stopping for Snackwell cookies and truck stop pizza slices. He said he loved doing that because us Yoopers seemed to be born with a great sense of how to drive our two-lane thoroughfares while innately feeling for deer or other potential hazards along the way. I told him I’m a native Californian. “Hmm, I’m glad I didn’t know that!” he said.

Senator, my friend, you will be missed.

Kevin Morter

Garden