![\"krueger,](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/krueger-donald-w-7-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150\")
<\/a>Donald entered my office one August afternoon 13 years ago shortly after I had taken the position of editor with the Cazenovia \u201cRepublican.\u201d He tutored me for a couple of hours on everything the paper ought to be doing, and I politely smiled, nodded and said I would take his suggestions under consideration before dismissing them.<\/p>\nHe said if he became bored, he would visit again. I told him if you tell a mother you\u2019re bored, she will put you to work. A week later, he returned and announced he was bored. I told him he had five days to get me 750 words, and a legend was born.<\/p>\n
During that initial visit, Donald related the story of his coming to Cazenovia. The village and the house had been chosen by his youngest daughter and second ex-wife while he was wrapping up his retirement in Seattle, Wash. He had spoken with the realtor on the phone a few times, and the ladies in his life had warned her he was very particular and a force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n
Upon his arrival at his new home, Donald found a brass plaque on the door: \u201cCazenovia Curmudgeon\u201d it read. Visitors walking about the village sometimes stopped to ask about the sign on his door. He enjoyed exploring every corner of his new home \u2013 everything he needed within walking distance.<\/p>\n
We spent many afternoons chatting in the office and our almost weekly lunches. Our birthdays were a day apart, and we spent one or the other \u2013 sometimes both \u2013 together. I would argue with him \u2013 and he with me (and anyone else who might lock horns) \u2013 for sport \u2026 it\u2019s a Scorpio thing.<\/p>\n
Whether you liked the man or agreed with everything he wrote, one has to admit he did his research and stood up for his convictions; he never offered an opinion without having an awful lot of backup documentation. He said he didn\u2019t feel his own opinion was of much value without corroborating information.<\/p>\n
Donald was best known for his crusade to replace the German cannon in Cannon Park in Cazenovia, his war against early release from school for religious instruction \u2013 remaining students left behind, unable to move their studies forward and the ongoing religious debate between he and Pig City Gardener Dan Marvin, whom we lost a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n
He also liked to spear government, was anti-hydraulic fracturing and anti-school football (concussions).<\/p>\n
Despite his antagonism toward religion, Donald gave to numerous causes, Christian-based among them. His generosity was based on good works and their intended outcomes, not an agency\u2019s spiritual philosophy.<\/p>\n
In his spare time, Donald gave freely his advice for improving others\u2019 lives and stations in same. He felt everyone else\u2019s problems were much easier to solve than his own.<\/p>\n
Don did not have an easy upbringing; born Nov. 14, 1928, his early education took place in boarding school. Because a teacher took special interest in him in his teens, he wound up on a college-bound path. Donald worked from a very early age and often reflected that any number of his jobs, including the military, could have been a lifelong career.<\/p>\n
He just fell into teaching.<\/p>\n
Teaching and the Army took him around the world, experiences uncommon for a young southern boy born to a traveling salesman. He recalled those experiences with great detail through the end of his days.<\/p>\n
I watched as he lost one fraction of quality of life at a time over the past several years, and most lately watched his struggle to breathe. I am glad he no longer fights for air, but a piece of my heart dies with him.<\/p>\n
My world will never be the same.<\/p>\n
His teachings live on, his immortality cemented through the lives he touched with his prolific writings over the past 13 years and with the scores of students he taught for the decades before his retirement.<\/p>\n
You can take the professor out of the classroom, but you can\u2019t take the classroom out of the professor. Education was in his blood, and he tried to teach himself and others until just about his last breath.<\/p>\n
He was a great friend, a great writer and a great man; such a loss leaves a hole in the fabric of our community.<\/p>\n
Martha E. Conway is vice president of M3P Media, LLC, and publisher of the Madison County Courier. She can be reached at 315.813.0124 or by emailing martha@m3pmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com\/marthaeconway or Facebook at facebook.com\/meconway.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Human Condition By Martha E. Conway (Cazenovia, NY \u2013 Aug. 3, 2014) A great man left our community and this earth Sunday. Donald W. Krueger, more famously known as the Cazenovia Curmudgeon, died Aug. 3 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Syracuse after struggling with health issues for a prolonged period. He was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[76,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-eUl","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Conway,](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Conway-Martha-092812.jpg\")
<\/a>By Martha E. Conway<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n