No matter how many people we've lost, we never really expect to wake up and hear "Oh. So-and-so died." Or, "by the way, The Big Boss died." And definitely not, "Killed himself."

My encounters with Swenson over the years I worked for DLX were brief but lasting. Everyone has their stories of working for and with him, from fleeting impressions to the long-time partners and friends. It's been said a thousand times he was super private, behind the scenes. Perhaps the machine, the flipside of the public personalities people associated with High Speed and DLX channels.

I'm sure I am one of those who knew him the least. I don't want to speak too much on it. It's a sensitive topic no matter who is taken from us. As it is said, "the dead belong to those who claim them most fiercely," and claims are often a mis-directed but well-meaning sentiment of the larger public that risks being offensive or clueless.

I remember one year we didn't get a Christmas tree, so I made one out of Kraft shipping paper, 6ft tall and decorated with stickers. We needed something for our Secret Santa exchange, right? I opened a couple Spitfire air fresheners in "Pine" scent and stuck them to the paper tree that was now tacked to the wall. Someone snickered, "Eric's gonna be pissed - wasting stickers and air fresheners." I'll never know if he was upset about it, but when he walked in and saw it, he just sort of looked at it, laughed (maybe annoyed, maybe amused) and kept walking down the hall to his office. It was that silent badass-ness that was equally likely to give you a hug, a handshake, or punch you in the face.

I do know some people read him as cold. It felt like something more toward stoic, wary, determined, and uninterested in bullshit. I'll never forget the time he came into my performance review - I was terrified, thought I was getting fired. He knew more about what I did in the office and what I had been doing in addition to the regular duties than I had realized. This important, busy, intimidating man who roams the halls in all-black, recognized that while I may be nuts, I loved my job and never hesistated to channel my crazy energy into it. He told me to handle my shit and move upward, be a part of it, because I'm "too smart not to."

Maybe those of us in younger generations could only read him as cold or intimidating because we  hadn't seen the decades of relentless work and progress that came before us. We were only aware of it in the periphery of this massive cultural institution that we showed up at 8AM every day to carry forth. We can respect its existence, be in awe of the magnitude, but may not ever fully understand. I am deeply honored to have been a part of it.

Thank you for not firing me.

Sincerely,

M