As the longtime obituary writer for the OBSERVER, I have seen many familiar names cross my desk. But upon hearing that Ken Olkowski had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 73, it took awhile for me to regain my composure. He was a fixture in the Dunkirk area - a proud ex-Marine, retired state trooper and freelance photographer
But above all, Kenny was a practical joker. And an exceptionally good one, at that. With Kenny around, you always had to watch your back and expect the unexpected.
Kenny was a part-time photographer for the OBSERVER for several years. And there was never a day when he wasn't "on" and making people laugh. Unfortunately, sometimes the joke was on you. Due mostly to politics, I wasn't getting along with a fellow employee in the newsroom and tensions were running high. At about that time, I found an unsigned card on my desk. The front read, "Jesus loves you!" followed up inside with, "Everyone else thinks you're a jerk!" I immediately dashed into the editor's office waving the card, insisting I wasn't going to put up with such harassment and demanding an apology from the person I was sure had sent it. The following week a company memo was issued that practical jokes will not be tolerated in the workplace. Turns out it was Kenny, not my political foe, who placed that card on my desk feeling confident I would know it was from him and shrug it off.
Kenny's jokes often bordered on the irreverent so when he told me he was a product of Catholic schools, I was stunned. Obviously a fallen away Catholic, he had an unmistakable yearning in his eyes that I picked up on. I urged him to rejoin the fold, but the prospect of confession after so many years left him with cold feet. Luckily, the best of the best was gracing the Dunkirk Polonia with his presence. Father Darius Ras, who I feel will be cardinal of Krakow someday, was spending the summer at St. Hyacinth Church learning English. I pleaded with Kenny to seek him out for confession after morning Mass. And he did. He joked, of course, that he talked fast hoping Father Darius wouldn't pick up on everything he was saying, but from that point on Kenny remained a staunch Catholic.
For a while, we were a team - reporter and photographer - covering church events. When a friend of mine came down with ALS, I asked everyone I knew to sponsor me in a 5k run/walk fundraiser for this man. True, I bent Kenny's ear many times with the disheartening news that the only person to turn me down was then Bishop of Buffalo Henry J. Mansell. Yet I was totally caught off guard at a local church reception when Kenny thrust a $20 bill into Bishop Mansell's hand, then instructed him to give it to me. Kenny then told the bishop, "There, you've just sponsored her in the race so now she'll get off my back and I won't have to hear about it anymore." Not missing a beat, Bishop Mansell replied, "Better she be on your back than the whole diocese be on mine if I were to sponsor her." As for me, I could feel myself turning a mean shade of crimson knowing I just got stung again.
When the day of Kenny's funeral arrived - a brilliant October morning - I reminded people that something off the beaten track would happen at the service. Expect the unexpected. At Communion, I marveled at the beautiful rendition of "On Eagle's Wings," a hymn one expects to hear at a funeral Mass. The funeral was over and nothing unusual had happened. I was wrong, I said to myself. But as I followed the casket out of the church, I noticed the state troopers who had formed an honor guard craning their necks skyward with looks of amazement on their faces. I asked them what they were looking at and one pointed to a bald eagle circling over the church just as the casket had emerged. Soon everyone was looking up to the heavens as the bird seemed to be in a holding pattern. Coincidence? Or was it Kenny letting us know he had been raised up "on eagle's wings." Anyone privileged enough to have known Kenny knows the answer to that mystery.