Sid Bacon

(1955 - 2013)

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Toasts to Sid

Before the memorial service we invited everyone to share a "toast to Sid", which were printed and displayed at the reception. Please enjoy these toasts and feel free to add your own.

Kristin Timm

September 17, 2013

Best Professor

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family and I just had to toast the wonderful Sid Bacon! I am sure I'm not the only one with these sentiments but I would definitely raise my glass to the best professor I had throughout my many years of college! Dr. Bacon was an amazing, funny, and caring individual who, in both life and death, has been a true inspiration teaching us all to live life and enjoy life to the fullest!
Kristin Timm

Tom Wilbur

September 17, 2013

The Moments Lead to a Lifetime

A piece I wrote about Sid on April, 2012, in The Salina Post:

Our 40th high school class reunion of the Salina Central Mustangs and Salina South Cougars is coming up, the Class of 1972, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again.

During our time together, we shared a number of interesting experiences—the splitting of Salina High School into two separate schools and successes in a number of sports endeavors— all at a time where our nation as a whole was trying to deal with the winding down of the Vietnam War. We get together with the gang from South, because we hung out with them, too.

At Central, we were a class of about 250 kids and since graduation, we’ve lost about 10% of our classmates to time, and we will have a memorial service for them when we gather. We certainly had our moments during our school days—pluses and minuses, as all high school classes do.

One of my very good friends from high school and college is Sid Bacon. Sid was an outstanding tennis player, a solid basketball player, and was a year younger than me. We played basketball together at Salina Central for the Mighty Mustangs. Sid came to KU the year after I arrived, and joined my fraternity— Phi Gamma Delta. He was a part of my wedding to Marlis, my wife of nearly 38 years now.

Sid went on to have an outstanding career as a professor of speech and hearing, psychoacoustics, and was Dean of the Natural Sciences at Arizona State University, and is now married with grown kids—one of whom just got married.

A couple of months ago, Sid let me know that he was getting ready to run in a race, and got word from his doctor that the results of some recent tests were in. Sid had felt some pains in his back, and upon follow-up, the tests showed that Sid now has Stage IV pancreatic cancer. It came on suddenly, and now
Sid is fully engaged in battling with this challenge. Sid is communicating with friends and family through a website called CaringBridge. I’m sure that many of you are familiar with this process, if you’ve had someone you know who is ill, or in recovery. It allows folks who are engaged in these challenges to keep everyone posted as to what’s going on in their life, and for us to send notes of encouragement.

I have to tell you—Sid’s writings are very uplifting to all who subscribe to this network, and I look forward to reading them daily. He inspired us enough that while he goes through tests, transfusions, and continued chemotherapy, a group called “Team Bacon” was formed. There are Team Bacon T-shirts, and posters, and the like– to let Sid know that we are on his “recovery team”. As Sid goes for treatment or tests at the hospital, he and the nurses there in Arizona have come up with positive adjectives to described the days . . . ”Marvelous Monday”, “Terrific Tuesday” and the like.

But he needed some ideas to describe Thursday, and so earlier this week, we all sent in our suggestions.Here was his response on Thursday:

I am grateful today, so today is Thankful Thursday. I have so much to be thankful for; I just hope I can stay focused on those things and on the moment of each day. The better I feel, the more focused I need to be, as I tend to slip back into old habits of ignoring the moment and planning the future. A balance of the two is okay and appropriate, but it isn’t okay to miss today completely when planning for tomorrow. I am thankful that I feel well today, am able to work, and that I have such a wonderful group of family and friends, whose unending support gives me the courage and strength to fight.

The message embedded here is that as we work so very hard scurrying around, caught up in “activities” and “planning” for the tomorrows— and while we’re doing so—we sometimes miss this joys of today. Every day is an incredible gift. Today is filled with moments and opportunities to live, and love, and laugh, and share. And these moments strung together, create a lifetime. I’m a big believer in planning for the future, with written goals and objectives, and action plans to get there, but we shouldn’t forget the most important aspect of all…. to live this moment.That is all. . Live this moment. Be thankful. Engage in life.

Sid is demonstrating the value of that-- every day. I hope that your day is filled with the moments that you can enjoy and build upon. Hug someone special today. It all counts.

Blessings,
tw

Kristine Myers Nicholson

September 17, 2013

Carpe Diem

To all who knew and loved Dr Bacon-- my condolences on his passing. Grateful to hear it was peaceful. Thankful for his wisdom on living life. Carpe Diem.

Kristine Myers Nicholson

Debbie Bruggeman

September 17, 2013

In Honor of Sid Bacon

He showed me how to have hope and look at the positive side. Which is something we may all have to do someday.

Debbie Bruggeman

Bryan Appleby

September 17, 2013

My Heart Goes Out

Like many of you, I have been aware of Sid Bacon’s fight with Pancreatic Cancer and for over a year now, I have followed his blog, often with daily postings. In recent weeks, these posts had grown to very few. With his recent move to a Hospice and then, move home, it was evident to many of us the time was drawing to a close. This morning, at 11:22 AM Arizona time, the news we all had expected, Sid had lost his gallant fight, on his terms, the previous evening.

Sid was one those people, in the Class of 1973 at Salina Central High School, which was well known. While I would not call Sid a friend, in the kindest way, but I would like to say that Sid knew who I was, as much as I knew him. I remember Sid from his competitive side, as well as his academic side. There were many times I would be across the net, playing against one of the best tennis players that has ever come from Salina Kansas. While I never played him in singles, I was often pitted against him in doubles with my doubles partner Tony Martin. Sid would be serving and Mark Cooper would be across the net from me, looking right at me, Mark always the intimidator, with the tip of his racket pointing at me with the unspoken knowledge that Mark was telling me I was going to literally eat the next shot from him. Sid was a different tennis player, in that he was not an aggressive player, as in a Will Lynch, or quick and accurate as a Jeff Nelson, but he possessed a fluid movement that exemplified all of the above; a smashing forearm, deadly accurate shots and a basket full of Ace serves that often left a competitor flat footed, walking dejectedly to the next receiving position, once there only to have another Ace served to them, by Sid. Sid was not aggressive in his nature, just deliberate and a joy to watch on the tennis court. I was never jealous, or envious of Sid’s abilities, but in awe.

My heart goes out to his tennis teammates and coaches, which spent so much time with Sid.

Sid excelled on the basketball court during the era Salina Central made several trips to the State Finals. His teammates, at the time were; Nino Samuels, Bob Crowe, Jeff Nelson, Tom Roderick and many others. Those were times that Central Basketball was the Friday night ticket to have, in Salina! To sit on those wooden bleachers that lined the walls of Salina Central Gymnasium, just to catch a glimpse of Sid and his teammates “school” those other teams in the game of high school basketball. The visiting team’s mistake was that they showed up. The utter sound of the roaring crowd could have only been music to Sid and the boys on that Central team. It was easy to see Sid still exhibited that same fluid, graceful movement, as he worked the ball down the court and the arcing of his shots, never exhibiting a grandstanding attitude to his competitors, when his deadly accuracy would swish another point to the scoreboard.

My heart goes out to his basketball teammates and coaches, which spent so much time with Sid.

From Roosevelt Lincoln Junior High School, to Salina Central High School, it was no secret to those that shared the classroom with Sid, that he was a scholar, but not in an arrogant way. It was not unusual for Sid to be one of the first students to raise his hand, in either Math or English classes. There was one time that has stayed in my mind, one particular time when Chuck Coffey and Sid both raised their hands, at what seemed the same time, in an English class. If memory serves me, 2nd Floor of Roosevelt Lincoln Junior High and the teacher, Mrs. Cox, when she played King Soloman and instructed both Chuck and Sid to take turns in answering the question. As if they had planned this ahead of time, Chuck started first and stated 5 or 6 words and then Sid continued another 5 or 6 words and this back and forth continued until the answer was completed. Sid had that kind of mind and sense of humor to share with his peers and not put himself above everyone else.

My heart goes out to his classmates and teachers, which spent so much time with Sid.

While Sid did not write very often about his Salina childhood or the people from his High School Days in his recent blog, he did write often and in depth about the present. Sid did not seem like a person that lived much in the past and his writing reflected that.   There was not a post where he would miss a dedication of his love for his wife, children and the people around him that made him a success in his years as professor. Sid waxed often about his love of teaching and when a student, grad student, past and present, was noted in his writing of them stopping by and sharing how much they supported him in his fight against the disease that slowly claimed his life. “Go Team Bacon!!!”

My heart goes out to his Family and students, which spent so much time with Sid.

We have now entered that period of our lives where more of our friends, classmates and family are reaching an age that we see them passing, unlike the earlier periods where a passing was more of a causal of a traumatic occurrence. If there is something that I have learned, and in recent times put into action, is to reach out to those people that are/were important to me, and others, during my lifetime. No longer am I satisfied with the possible opportunity that our paths might cross, but to take effort to point my path to that person. If this important to you, don’t waste the time and use the opportunities that time, financials and technology now provides you.

My heart goes out to Sid in that he knew this fact and reached out to many of us, through his blog and for this; it makes me happy that Sid spent so much time with me.

Rest now, Sid.

Bryan Appleby

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