MINOT — Longtime columnist, newspaper publisher, author, and raconteur Tony Bender has passed away, per an announcement published by his family.
Tony was a dear friend, which may surprise some of you. We didn’t often agree on things. I’m pretty sure the first time we ever exchanged words was when I wrote something haughty and intemperate about his stint helping former U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan write a book that is now lost somewhere in the internet void.
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He fired back a biting email, and we didn’t talk much for a while. But then I wrote something positive about a book he’d written, and he emailed me a thanks, which turned into a 50,000-word correspondence covering everything from the war in Iraq to Medicare Part D to whether AC/DC was better with Bon Scott or Brian Johnson.
Tony was just that sort of guy. Brash, sure. A troublemaker? You betcha. But underneath it all? He had a kind heart. The book was
by the way, and I stand by my review. It’s a damn good read.
There aren’t many people in the world who get to write for a living. You’d think that truth might be the cause of camaraderie among writers. In particular, those with a political bent. It’s not. Not usually, anyway.
It’s cruel, this business of writing thoughtfully and provocatively about some of the most difficult and confounding problems in our society. If you’re doing it right, and speaking truth to power, and not pandering to the audience, you’re sure to make a lot of enemies. It’s competitive, too, and that can make those of us privileged to do it a little catty with one another. Especially when the other writer has real talent and, my goodness, Tony had buckets of talent.
Tony was open-handed with me, though. At times, he took me under his wing, offering advice that made me a better writer, a better journalist and, at times, a better person.
When Tony was the head of the North Dakota Newspaper Association, and I was a 20-something punk with a blog, he wrote critically of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa’s decision to banish me from their reservation for something I wrote about conditions in tribal communities.
Tony made it clear, in his public remarks to various media outlets, that the tribe’s actions were an inappropriate overreaction. Censorship, basically. But he also made it clear to me, on a personal level, that what I’d written was myopic and ill-informed and some other words, too, that I’m not going to repeat.
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He was right. I was wrong. It was a painful lesson. One I’ve never forgotten.
For a while, Tony and I were weight loss buddies. As our critics have been fond of pointing out, he and I both suffer from dunlap syndrome. Which is to say, our stomachs dun lapped over our belts.
Get it? That’s the sort of thing that would have made Tony laugh, only he would have made the joke better. He was so funny. I was jealous of it, for I am, rather notoriously, about as funny as stepping on a Lego with a bare foot. When I would tell Tony that, he’d chuckle and tell me my conservative scribblings were some of the funniest things he’d ever read. He once told me that I was the best unintentional comedian he knew.
The man had wit like a velvet-wrapped hammer.
For about a year we kept each other in the loop about our efforts to lose weight. The exercise. The dieting. The tortuous cravings.
It didn’t work out as well as we had hoped, but it was nice to have an earnest friend who both failed and succeeded alongside me.
I don’t know the specifics of Tony’s passing. He wrote publicly about
his struggle with esophageal cancer a few years ago.
I know his throat was bothering him again recently. Often, we’d call one another to talk about a topic from one of our columns or a particularly good turn of phrase. Though he often teased me about my electric vocabulary, we had a mutual love of words.
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Lately, though, Tony had been asking to text instead of call because talking hurt.
I don’t know the why of Tony’s passing, but I know he’s leaving behind an unfillable hole in the lives of those who got to know him.
There is so much more about Tony I could write, but this man was so many things to so many people, what I have to offer feels one-dimensional. I mostly knew Tony the writer, newsman, and friend, but he was more than that.
He was a rascal, our Tony, but a lovable one.
I’m glad I got to call myself his friend.
This post was originally published on here
