By Edwin Cooney
My friend Irwin was born on Wednesday, May 24th, 1967 in Chicago, the son of a woman who, at the time, was working for Chicago's mayor, Richard J. Daley.
He was born totally blind but intellectually both curious and brilliant. His mother moved him and his siblings to Southern California a couple of years later.
As a very young student, Irwin was fascinated by politics, the civil rights movement and religious doctrine. As an early teen, he became a Black Muslim. As a young adult, he actually moved briefly to Saudi Arabia. Fortunately for his American friends, the rigors of the Muslim faith were too much for him so he was allowed to return six months later to Southern California.
Like many young people, Irwin was more interested in both drama and romance than he was in building a strong nuclear family. Irwin, like Henry the Eighth, has had six wives, but the women he has chosen were obviously fascinated with his unpredictability, intelligence, and charm.
Irwin has a wonderful capacity to make anyone he's talking to feel that they are the center of his attention. He always remembers what a person thought, said, worried and wondered about. Throughout almost every conversation, one often senses Irwin's concern for their ultimate well-being! His accent is a little like the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s and it reflects his genuine sincerity for people’s welfare.
Professionally, Irwin would like to have been a news reporter or political commentator, but he came to see that his lack of mobility prevented him from chasing those he needed to interview for a prospective story. Newspaper editors don't hire immobile reporters!
For a student of history like me, there's something amazing about some of the celebrities with whom he's been fascinated over the years. They include Jim Jones of deadly Kool-Aid fame, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Angela Davis, the proud and unapologetic Marxist, his past and revised view of Abraham Lincoln, and his wonderful tolerance for friends of differing political and religious faiths. (Oh, yeah — I’ve promised never to tell anyone whom he, out of romantic love, didn't vote for in 2008 ! He made up for it in 2012, though!)
He is a calm and reflective middle-aged man these days with a wife he loves and admires and a young son toward whom he's almost an apostle! If you're curious as to his religious affiliation today, you'll have to ask him, but it isn't even close to being what it once was.
I met Irwin on a telephone message and chat exchange and we have been friends since the spring of 2001. However, we've never met. It might — might — be best if we never do, because our friendship is almost perfect! I'll be damned if it could ever be better!
Of course, this will sound egotistical (and it is, I suppose), but his greatest ongoing gift to me is his continuously expressed personal appreciation. This degree of regard, I’m sure, goes for others as well!
Happy Birthday, Irwin! You are in the very top ranks of the very best people I regard as friends!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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