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Requiem for an Old Friend and "Big Brother": Phil Fleming

Posted by: Todd Epp on June 28, 2010 at 4:07PM EST

I lost my oldest brother last week, which is strange because I am an only child.

Phil Fleming, who I have known since 1979, died last week from the cancer that destroyed his body and the treatment that was meant to prolong his life.

Most of you don't know who Phil is. That's ok, I'll tell you about him.

I met Phil at KTWU-TV in Topeka, KS when I was a student reporter there and he was the development director. He was the funniest person I had ever met, quick with a biting and insightful joke about our station or politics. He also did a dead-on impression of our station manager, Dr. Dale N. Anderson, which almost made me pee my pants, it was so funny.

But Phil was far more than a cut-up. Though he spent his career in the rather buttoned down world of public TV and non-profit fundraising and development, he was one of the most free spirited people I have ever met. One summer in college or as a young man, he decided he was going to be a hermit. He went to Greece and actually lived in a cave, by himself. His Thoreau-like experiment turned into drudgery and he gave it up.

But how many people can say they lived in a cave in Greece for any length of time?

Also in college, Phil decided to drop out. This was in the midsts of the protests during the Vietnam war and Phil said he was a self-styled hippie. He went to work at a turkey factory, killing turkeys for your Thanksgiving table.

A rather big man even then, Phil wore white overalls with a big "69" painted on the front, his middle finger to "The Man." To amuse himself during the mind and soul numbing work, he would picture himself as an executioner. As a turkey rolled by on the conveyer, he'd say, "Should you live or should you die? I say you shall live!" Then, he's whap off its head and say, "I'm sorry, I lied."

He said a summer of being a turkey killer was enough to make the burgeouis experience of higher education much more attractive.

And while Phil would ply the boardrooms of corporarations and foundations in Topeka lookiPhing for money for our little PBS station, he was also a sun worshipper. I mean all of his body worshipped the sun. Yes, he like to go swimming naked at what he called "The Pool" in Topeka. There, he and fellow nudists of all genders, shapes, and sizes would swim and sunbathe naked. Even burned his little fundraiser one day. Phil invited me to "The Pool" in Topeka many times and I refused. Now, I wish I had gone, at least once.

Phil even brought this "hippie" sensibility to fund raising on KTWU. We had one who night where we all dressed up as hippies or characters from the 1960s and raged against "The Man" during the fund raising breaks. We had fun. And we made a crap load of money that night, as our audience responded with their wallets. This was in 1981 or so. I've never seen a PBS station do anything like that before or sense.

Phil was able to stradle the two worlds of being himself and working for "The Man" and be true to both.

Surprisingly, Phil was a clothes horse. He probably single handedly kept the Ray Beers mens shop in business. Phil taught me how to dress like a proper gentleman. At the least, I gave up leisure suits and clip on ties. I still have and wear nice silk ties that Phil helped me pick out 30 years ago.

Phil was also my first mentor as a broadcaster. He worked on my "presence." He would gently give his cocky know-it-all advice on how to be a better journalist and performer on TV.

Almost immediately upon meeting me in 1979, he started calling me "Dork." Then I would call him "Dork to Nth Degree" and we'd try to out "Dork" the other in name calling. We were still doing it up until the last time I talked to him a month or two ago. Three decades plus of "Dorkiness."

We'd also try to "rank" the other by coming up with the most disgusting thing they could be. I might say, "You are nothing more than a maggot in a pile of horse manure." He might respond, "Todd, you are nothing more than a boil ready to pop on a hyena's ass on a hot summer day on the Serengeti." He always could "out rank" me.

Yes, juvenile, I know. But I never had a big brother to do this sort of stuff with.

There's so much more I could say about my friend Phil. He taught me a lot about life while having fun doing it. I thought he had another six months the last time I talked to him. But I guess God needed a big brother of his own in heaven to make him laugh.

Thanks Phil for being my friend and "big brother."

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