One Year Anniversity of Sam's Passing
Today, October 30, 2009 marks one year since Sam suddenly, unexpectedly left his family and friends. We all miss his incredible wit, silly writings, sarcastic humor, remarkable poetry, and most of all his love for life in the face of dealing with a terrible disease that wasted away his muscles but not his mind or soul.
The Memorial for Sam took place a few weeks after his passing at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California where Sam's dad had worked since 1977 and where Sam had spent many hundreds (thousands?) of hours during the summer school breaks so that his dad could work at his job. Sam's mom had worked there also for 20 years until around 1995. Sam and his twin sister, Shayna, attended Geokids, the onsite daycare at the USGS from before they were one-year of age until they began kindergarten. Many of the USGS staff had know Sam since he was a few days old. So, it was only fitting that Sam's Memorial was held where he probably spent more time than any other place other than the family home. Approximately 150 people attended the memorial that was held at noon on a workday in the main conference room at the USGS. Many more of Sam's friends wanted to attend but could not due to living out of state, going to university in another part of California, etc.
The family showed three videos, one that Sam's sister composed just for the memorial "www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8qJLCE-XJA". The other two can be viewed on his Dad's Facebook page. Then the family, friends, classmates came up to share with others about Sam. A number of Sam's poems and writings were displayed on the walls as well of postings and emails received from those who could not attend.
Four of Sam's DeAnza College professors attended the memorial and two shared with us how Sam had touched their lives.
From Dr. Dylan Eret
"I liked the analysis of children as models of creativity. Models in that they have an almost inexhaustible vigor to experience all the world has to offer, exploring and questioning. There are new sources of awe around each corner, joy found in the most 'mundane' of tasks or adventures. '[W]ithout awe life becomes routine… [children's] delight is endless…' While with age we lose that awe and interest in absolutely everything, our interest focuses, but that awe is still needed for life to remain fresh. If we lose the spark of awe then life becomes routine. Inspiration does not come in bottles, neither does awe. We have to find it for ourselves each day."
-Sam Fogleman, December 3, 2007, “Creative Minds” course, De Anza College
Sam was a model of creativity himself: inquisitive, vocal, and ever-curious. While I was a part-time instructor teaching a large morning class on "Creativity Minds” in the Fall Semester of 2007, Sam was one of the first students to attend, centering himself in the back row of an energetic class of nearly 90 students. I always remember his penetrating comments during class discussions and in weekly assignments, where he would take the lead in generating insightful analyses and pose thought-provoking questions about the nature of creativity.
Since this was one of the first times I had ever taught an introductory Humanities class at a community college, I was quite intimidated myself by the prospect of teaching such a large class. Sam, with his keen sense of excitement and wonder, dispelled much of my own fears. He would rock back and forth with glee during games we would play in class; he would get such a kick out of the fact that a large class could be fun, and he could participate in the process. I recall that he especially loved our discussions and activities about “play”
and “games,” for these topics seemed to reveal his constant joy of learning through his own activities of conversing, writing, and using word play with friends.
I am very grateful to have known you, Sam, since YOU taught me the fundamentals of creativity and change. Your sharp intellect kept me on my toes by allowing me to become more playful and dynamic in my courses. In fact, it was your class and your very presence that deeply inspired me to eventually become a full-time faculty member at the College of Alameda in Humanities and Philosophy a year
later. As a model student with a vigor and passion for education, I will never forget our interaction inside and outside the classroom.
Sam, you taught me three key ideas: (1) to transcend one's limitations, (2) to always be open to new possibilities, and (3) to change the world in your own way.
Your prophetic words still nag at me:
“Get out of that damned routine and reexamine, reexamine, reexamine to find the new in the old!”
Thanks, Sam.
I will miss your soulful presence, but will always keep alight the flickering flames of creative awe and wonder with future generations, as you have with many, many others.
With care and affection and deep, deep loss,
Dr. Dylan Eret
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Dr. Mhaire Fraser, DeAnza College Professor of Psychology
One of the Good Ones
I celebrated one of the brightest minds of his generation this afternoon. As a professor I sometimes despair of finding minds with whom a brainstorm session is just that. I don’t get enough of them, or meet enough students who can do this.
Sam rolled into my classroom on sunny April day this past spring. His smile was bright and his blue eyes glinted with amusement and satisfaction as I began to teach. Soon, he started to heckle me and kept it up all quarter. Many times when rolling to the classroom ( I always made sure he was first) he would tell me I was Loki or sometimes, Thor, and that was who he pictured me as.
The papers he turned in were supposed to be 4-7 pages. He turned in friggin’ novels whose page length average was twenty-one. When I griped jokingly about this, he said with a malicious and somewhat gleeful glint in his eye, “what? I had a lot to say.” I couldn’t really complain too much as they were intelligent, well-written and succinct (even at that many pages).
I asked him to work with me on a project because of his writing and thinking skills. I never do that. Students usually come to me. But I wanted to work with this man.
The summer was a rough time for me and he and I exchanged a couple of emails and one or two IM sessions in which he told me about a harrowing experience at camp, and I told him how much moving sucked. We agreed to meet solidly in the fall. We got some good ideas off the ground, and had some good data to work witih. I gave him an assignment of preliminary research, which we were both excited about. The hypotheses were flowing and the data was good.
He died that weekend in his sleep. His father said suspected heart failure.
Sam had Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy and told me that he had another five to ten years to go, or at least that is what they thought. They were wrong. He had made plane to go to Cal in the fall and become a research psychologist. But, they were wrong. His twin sister Shayna had known from the time she was small what she wanted to do. Sam had just found his passion. I know this because the last time we met he swung his pencil up at me and said “ I blame you” before telling me he wanted to major in Psychology. I am so mad that they were wrong. They were wrong.
We lost one of the good ones that day, and I am sorry that he could not go further in his education. The rest of his teachers would have seen what I saw, one of the brightest minds of his generation. Today I said goodbye in room full of people who also saw Sam.
My research team who will be working on Sam’s paper have voted to put Sam’s name second. I vetoed it, in the name of honor and academic integrity. His name will be first.
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We all miss you terribly Sam.