For me, he is unforgettable.
John Helgeson played Casper, one of three wisemen in our small-town Christmas production of “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” I was the African wiseman, done up in blackface by the drama coach, perhaps killing any chance I would ever have at a future political career.Earlier, Helgie had appeared as an out-of-place eighth grader on a local kiddie program. KCMT, boasting the tallest television tower in the Midwest, featured Jim Syrdal as Captain Space who, along with sidekick Monk Mooney, thrilled local kindergarteners and tykes with weekly hijinks and cartoons. John and his grinning buddy, Mark, sat amongst the dozen or so kiddie audience one week, sacrificing their dignity for dollars, and thus collected on a plethora of wagers from classmates, who foolishly bet that they would never dare do it.
A chance meeting years later at a Metrodome preview changed my life. I was struggling to stay in college to keep my student deferment until the Vietnam War would hopefully end. (Never did) I bumped into John, we chatted, and I shared that I needed a better job while I kept a required full load at the U. He steered me to a job he was quitting at the Minneapolis War Memorial Blood Bank. I quickly got the job as night attendant, moved into the basement, got paid, and dispatched emergency blood supplies to the city’s 17 area hospitals. Yeah, there were 17 metro hospitals back then and they included General Hospital, where gun shot victims and car accidents didn’t wait for business hours. My days were free for class.
It was a legacy job. I lived there, got my friends and relatives jobs there. Expanded our roles. Ate all the donor pop and cookies my teenage friends and I could consume, and held fun parties in the absence of authorities. Eventually I graduated, got drafted, but when my service was over, I returned to the blood bank. Little had changed and my friends were still running the place at night. We celebrated. I don’t recall that we toasted John, probably not, but we should have.
John died near his home in Hawaii recently, where he and his wife of 44 years enjoyed restoring and tending six acres of dry-land native forest, not a surprising enterprise for a good man who did so much for others. He joins a growing list of important people in my life who never got a proper thank you from me for their critical impact on it.
God bless you, Helgie.
