The original, 1986 Tribune story about Jack Levering, the subject of today's column in the paper, is posted here.

Letter writer's story went far beyond his book

Johnson "Jack" Levering was my faithful correspondent up until the end, and then a little after.

He wrote short notes several times a year and, always, a Christmas card. This year's arrived the Tuesday before Christmas and contained a warm handwritten greeting along with an invitation to brunch at his senior-citizen high-rise.

I almost never stay in touch with people I've written about unless they become regular sources. But Levering, the subject of a feature story I wrote in 1986, was different--too persistent, presumptuous and charming to let slip away.

That difference in him was apparent in the first letter he wrote to me nearly 20 years ago, an unsolicited suggestion that I publicize a book he had self-published. He'd fought in World War II--went ashore at Normandy--and had a long career as a psychiatric social worker, counseling primarily poor and minority clients.

All along he'd written things, he said. Poems, school essays, letters to the editor, short stories and so on. And since he had no close relatives, these writings, assembled into hard cover at a cost to him of $11,000, would be his lasting legacy. The Tribune should do a story, he said.

His exuberant naivete won me over. I'm a sucker for literary dreamers--for those who believe in the power of the written word to confer at least the smallest hint of immortality. I interviewed him at his Villa Park townhouse and gave him and his book, "Out of the Night, into the Wind," a friendly write-up that did not, alas, vault him onto the bestseller lists or prompt a sequel.

"I had, to me, a very fascinating life," he told me at the time. "The book was not to make money. It was a way of putting things into a bundle that I could hold in my hands. I wanted something before I died that was me."

Death was a subject he visited often in his writings, as was the deep loneliness he felt growing up as a gay man in an era when conformity was particularly valued. Over and over he reminded me to treasure my wife and children, never to take them or the love that drenches my house for granted.

Such advice never cloyed coming from Levering, who offered it buoyantly.

"He was a character," said Lin Miller, director of resident services at Hallmark Retirement Community in Lincoln Park, where Levering moved two years ago. "He was very friendly and very active. Every day he walked to the park to feed the squirrels."

In early December, Levering developed pneumonia, Miller said, and refused doctors' attempts to supply him with supplemental oxygen.

He died in his sleep at age 85 on Dec. 17, the same day his Christmas cards went out in the mail.

The cards were followed two days later by a simple letter--one he had addressed to 86 people in 2004 and stored away for the occasion: "Jack Levering requested that we inform you, his friend, of his recent death," it said, and directed memorial donations to the Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Association.

He had arranged to be cremated and interred at a military cemetery in Elwood and had requested that no memorial service be held, Miller said.

"We had a small service anyway, " she said. "A group of us went out to his favorite big tree in the park with a bag of nuts. Pretty soon, eight squirrels came down the trunk. We're going to feed them all winter in his honor."

There was a certain fatalism to the title, "Out of the Night, into the Wind," as though Levering feared that even his literary effort wouldn't stop all traces of his long and eventful life from disappearing into the vapors of time shortly after he died.

What he didn't seem to realize--what I never told him but should have in my inadequate responses to his overtures--was that the book was just a small part of it. By savoring life so fully, so generously and so carefully, he'd made himself unforgettable.

I admire people like Jack Levering. He is a person who has not lived an unexamined life. Unfortunately, he was a bit early in publishing his book. The vanity press era is a thing of the past. That is, a publisher such as Vantage no longer should be able to gouge 11,000 dollars out of a person who wants to see his or her musings in print. Today, a person can get a book published for as little as 600 dollars. I know a few people who have done so.

About twenty years ago a friend and I met Jack Levering in an Oak Park Park District bridge class. We enjoyed each other so much we arranged to play bridge at each other's houses. Our bridge games were enlivened by Jack's many tales from his life, especially of his work at a World War II prisoner-of-war camp and his fending off the retired ladies who often plied him with home-made goodies at the Oak Park Arms, his home at the time. Once he and I were partners in the most serious form of bridge, duplicate bridge. Seeing grim faces made Jack determined to improve things by outrageous bidding - I don't remember that we made even one contract but we sure had a hilarious time. My life has been richer for having known Jack Levering.

I would love to see a copy of his book ... Today, some scrapbookers do something similar: They journal, write poetry, record their lives ... I am currently doing a book on "The Dogs I've Loved" and have wondered by what wayside it will land when I'm dead and gone. My children? Maybe for a time, but then what? I'm doing this for myself. I am the one that enjoys the process of building the memories through photographs and journaling. It is a way of tiptoeing through the past ... and maybe sharing it with a few people along the way.