Will Penna... Teacher.

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Will Penna, our very affectionately known and constructively original Beat/Hip/Raver, has passed from us.

Of one Will Penna we shall observe at this time that when the cutting edge of our human experience provoked the “Beat” initiative and we all began to suspect that what was offered up by our niggardly culture-du-jour was inefficacious, at best, Will Penna was Beat. 

When, with a little help from friends, humanity began pushing the envelope of our culture into what was intellectually revolutionary and “Hip,” Will Penna was Hip. 

When the pushback from a lumpen establishment thwarted humanity’s exploration into itself creatively, philosophically, and educationally in that culture, so, provoking our rage’s rave, Will Penna was a Raver.

Will Penna, and clearly, was at the incisive edge and forefront of our humanity’s constructive desire to know itself, fully. He “understood,” and he could transfer that understanding. He was this writer's entirely giving teacher.

Generations of young women and men, to include this writer, would come to know the judicious, emboldening, and knowledgeable efficacy of Will Penna’s educational lanterns, and these lives would be enriched and enlivened by them. This writer was.

We would all go forward, then, into the trials and travails of our lives and, to some degree, reproduce that efficacy alluded to, and that Will Penna modeled like a complete and utter gentleman without agenda of any kind... if one was worthy... That was a "worthiness" on the individual and not from Will Penna's judgment. This writer was efficaciously encouraged to that aspiration.

We countless women and uncounted men would be more complete and whole citizen “beings” as a result, if we could hear the music. This person aspired to hear.

We are a better Nation and better humanity for Will Penna’s selfless contribution as a friend and educator to all of us knowing him. It’s a little darker now, unquestionably, for his passing. He was this writer’s “Mr. Chips.”

Additionally, Will Penna was a 21st Century man providing for a more expansive and complete definition for same. Before Will Penna, gender "laws" were written in disingenuous, uninformed, and unsupported stone for this writer. Will Penna was a sensible change agent for all that.

Will Penna was among the first to provide for this writer a model and example for one's manhood, where not womanhood, exemplifying humanity’s existential reality as a dazzling collection of multifaceted, individual, and highly original human beings. Many of these will be persons perhaps charged by Will Penna with an ability to aspire to be something greater, then... greater than they might have otherwise thought themselves to be, otherwise, without the influence of one Will Penna. This writer’s life would have taken a different path, sans Will Penna’s impact on him, decidedly, and he is, therefore, grateful for that impact. This writer would not change a thing.

Will Penna revealed to a listener that most “difference” was to be honestly explored, not avoided or dismissed to placate the unreasoning and unsubstantiated fears of those unfairly canted and hypocritically disingenuous; those with tacit so self-interested agendas to grind. Will Penna typified intelligent courage in the face of unreasoning fear. 

Will Penna presumed earnest responsibility-taking as the ready remedy to toxic cultural indifferences and bigotries. Will Penna practiced, and selflessly by this writer's measure, a higher grade of love to be prosecuted in the place of reasonless hatreds, superstitions, and those lurid bigotries. He was this writer’s “Plato.”

Will Penna was organized and objective. Will Penna was constructive and comprehensive. Will Penna was as flexible as he was acceptable, and he as was as specific as he was thoughtful. These are defining teacher’s qualities taught by this writer in military service academies, and, to high nines, he was every one of them. He was certainly one of this writer’s brighter inspiring lights to aspiration and meaningful self-actualization, an aggregate efficacy spanning 73 years, thus far. Will Penna was one of the brighter sentient lights to an "aggregate human efficacy" one was encouraged to aspire to.

Will Penna is gone from this plane, now, of biological needs and for the unavoidable cause. It remains that he will be living on a long time in the constructive memories of those he had touched but who will never know of his passing, as we have. A sentient seeker and intrepid cosmic explorer, Will Penna was this writer’s personified "Mr. Natural."

Moving, now, far beyond what the rest of us see as far before them… and so now, justifiably, having no time for those he leaves behind, understandably… Will Penna currently dines with Kafka, McKenna, Leary, and Krishna... is plugged into the unguessable and unknowable multiverse beyond all "imagination" and mere causal "understanding"; the one he'd journeyed to, arrived at last. 

It remains here with us that Will Penna lived an efficaciously colorful life, touching too many memories to count, in the best possible and most productive ways conceivable... or not! That's the corporeal existential as that crow flies...That is this writer's assessment. We pause to remember what we can, where we can, and how we can.

Will's was a life well-lived... a life to be admired and feted. We're, all of us, better for him having been here. He was, finally, for almost 60 years, this writer’s friend, and who this writer still wants to be when he grows up.

Adios, Mr. Penna.