[Oe List ...] Don Cramer

Wed Aug 29 10:00:31 PDT 2018

Thank you Marshal 

Don was a great person and we will miss him.. 

A story and experience I have with Don during the Summer Research assembly in 1970. That was the summer we wrote the book on the Local Church. 
Not only did we write the book we were to print it also. In order to do that we had to typeset the document. Don had to arrange an inkind from IBM the typeset machines. 
We got behind in the typesetting so Don invited the IBM Salesperson to come and see what we were doing. The IBM Rep had the tour and was amazed at how many people knew how to operate the machines. He said "It takes us 6 months to train people." Don replied 'we have trained them in 3 hours." The Rep was amazed. We got the type setting done in house and the use of a bank's machines downtown after hours. At the final Plenary Don introduced the Sales Rep and tells the story of what he had done for us and the Assembly gave him a standing ovation. 

So we wrote the 36 Tactical books, printed them and then we bought them. A great summer with Don. 
Walter Kargus 

----- Original Message -----

From: "W. J. via OE" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
Cc: "W. J." <synergi at yahoo.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2018 11:26:19 AM 
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Don Cramer 

You're right on target, Sherwood, though I don't know how "wide-eyed" I ever was @ five a.m. More like bleary-eyed in my case. 
Don Cramer was SO "on" all the time that it is as though you couldn't turn him off if you tried. And a perfect match for Claudia. What a "power couple"--literally! (Maybe they ran on caffeine by the gallon.) 
So what did the O:E in its profound wisdom do to best utilize (or exploit) the unique interpersonal gifts of priorship that the always-on Don Cramer had in such abundance? 
Why of course we assigned him to run the always-on, round-the-clock print shop! Forget that he knew diddly-squat about how to keep that monster two-color offset printing press up and running 24-7. He got a lot of on-the-job training and learned it lightning fast. Then after lots of double and triple shifts during the week, we sent him out to teach RS-1 every weekend. Just to cool him down, don'tcha know. 
I had way too much work to do just to keep the print shop fed with camera-ready copy. And after too many bleary-eyed late nights pasting up the i.e. , I utterly failed to catch a HUGE ERROR. Totally my fault, of course, and it was BIG ENOUGH to jump right out at anybody who was half awake (we weren't!). In the headline for the lead article on our work in Hong Kong, I had pasted up the title as "Kong Hong"!! With the 'Kong' above the 'Hong' on the page. 
Well of course the bleary-eyed Don Cramer and his bleary-eyed crew didn't catch it either. They shot the negatives and burned the offset plates at 4 am and proceeded to print up THOUSANDS of copies without even looking at the result. Until somebody caught it by chance next morning. Probably a fresh-faced new intern! 
WHAT???? I mean, WTF is this? 
So of course we had accidentally spent a ton of $$ that we didn't have--we were in debt up to our bleary eyeballs--and Cramer actually proposed that maybe we should send it out that way--maybe nobody would catch it or maybe they would see it as some kinda "cute" intentional typographic design. All rationalizations, of course, for our HUGE corporate blunder. 
Finally Joe Mathews said, No, we're gonna eat that mistake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And fix it fast and reprint the whole thing ASAP and get the print shop back on schedule (remember, we were also printing all those seminar papers that went out the door every weekend and literally TONS of other stuff like IMAGE). I don't know what we did with all that scrap paper. 
This is all about living in the real world of taking corporate responsibility for owning and fixing and paying for our mistakes. And learning that we are all responsible together for every mistake any one of us makes. But somehow we never learned to go easy on ourselves, as well as to pronounce absolution on one another for our major goofs and get some much-needed sleep occasionally. 
We usta call that "discontinuity." 
So in my old age (turning 78 in 3 weeks), I salute the fabulous Don Cramer and all of our other wonderful colleagues who have departed this earthly life. Remember that in the Other World there are no mistakes. 
Grace and Peace, 
Marshall 
I was very grateful for the opportunity to visit Don once in Bellingham WAY more than 2 decades ago. We were older and maybe a little wiser, but he was the same delightful Don Cramer. I'm very sorry that on my one trip through Bellingham about 8 years ago driving a U-Haul packed to the roof with the earthly belongings of a colleague plus his VERY sick cat named Bodhisattva (since departed this earthly life), we were unable to stop to visit Don on our 15-hour journey south from Vancouver to Sacramento. But we did arrive safely and bleary-eyed at some God-forsaken cheap motel late that night. Some time later a major bridge we had crossed on I-5 went into the river below. Another major crack in the system somebody had failed to catch in time. 

On Monday, August 27, 2018, 2:38:47 PM EDT, Sherwood Shankland via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: 

Yes, Joan – Don was a forceful evangelist. Jan Campbell (my ex) and I had just moved into a house with a wooded lot, walking distance from my first engineering job at Nela Park – the GE Lamp Division in East Cleveland. All set for life in the suburbs. However we had taken RS-I (Frank Hilliard and Justin Morrill pedagogues) during our college days at CU Boulder, and had hooked up with the Cleveland Metro Cadre (Rafos’, Gilles’, Talbots, Wasons, Tippetts, Pools, Sean Burke, and many more…) So Don comes to our new place and says something like: “Why would a great young couple like you guys want to get tied down with a big old mortgage on a place in the suburbs?!?! And Sherwood, why would you want to get all tied up with a corporate giant like GE?!?!...A month later we moved into the Cleveland House with Herman and Joy Greene, Don and Claudia + + + . So Don loved to ‘practice’ his spirit lectures for RS-I, RSIIIA the Odyssey etc. on the wide-eyed interns at morning collegiums in the basement dining room…I think the rafters were scorched from his flaming deliveries. Classic chalk-talks long before Power Point. All of which launched me into an 18 year ‘tour of duty’ with OE on Global Assignment. Don’s ability to touch everyday spirit issues through conversations and spins was a powerful gift. Thanks, Don, for the stories, the spirit pushes and laughter all along the way! To Kristen 

and Mark and the Cramer family connections…be well as you celebrate your Dad’s amazing journey and the bending of many journeys. 

Grace and Peace, much love all around. / 

Sherwood and Eunice from Centennial Colorado. 

From: OE <oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> On Behalf Of Joan via OE 
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2018 1:56 PM 
To: oe at lists.wedgeblade.net 
Cc: Joan <jfknutson at aol.com> 
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Don Cramer 

Don Cramer was the one who dragged me kicking and screaming into the Order. He humilated me in front of our area cadre to change my mind, how I was the ONLY hold out to have a family from every metro. As you can see I am almost over it. How I loved Claudia and Don. He will be missed. Joan Knutson 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Dharmalingam Vinasithamby via OE < oe at lists.wedgeblade.net > 
To: oe < oe at lists.wedgeblade.net > 
Cc: Dharmalingam Vinasithamby < dvinasithamby at yahoo.com > 
Sent: Sun, Aug 26, 2018 5:23 am 
Subject: [Oe List ...] Don Cramer 

Dear Colleagues, 

Just learnt that Don passed away on Friday. Kristen Cramer had mentioned it on her Facebook which someone forwarded to me. Another veteran of our community has left - I remember working with him in India, teaching in the ITIs and in the Philippines. I will remember his passion and enthusiasm. 

Dharma 

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