Dennis Flannigan is what some of my friends on the East Coast would call a mensch. He would probably disagree with me.

That, in part, is why he’s a mensch.

Mensch is Yiddish, and it means a kind of stand-up guy. It also means about 50 other things. All of them are good. But for the sake of brevity, it means that Dennis Flannigan is a stand-up guy.

Flannigan landed in the “In Memoriam” section of this thing because he’s chosen not to run for re-election. He’s not dead. He’s not dying. He’s alive. After four terms in Washington’s House of Representatives, a bout with cancer and several years fighting for civil rights in the South, he’s lucky.

“I’ve decided, at 70, that it’s time to take a risk,” he says, munching on a pea pod plucked from the community garden he’s hosting in his front yard. “I’m going to do some open-mic stand-up comedy. I’ve been working on some new material. Last week I went to (Seattle Comedy Club) Giggles, but found out they had closed the month before. I was really ready to be funny.”

Flannigan is really funny. It’s the kind of funny that develops in people who see and understand more of the world than most of us. It’s the kind of funny that helps someone like Flannigan keep his head while fighting for civil rights in Mississippi. It allows someone who is sensitive enough to witness and care about human suffering to spend the bulk of his life trying to fix it.  That’s one of the defining characteristics of a mensch — they don’t despair, no matter how rough it gets. They smile. They laugh. They manage to keep their spirits up, and they help others do the same.

If you need examples of accomplishments, Flannigan helped create Pierce County’s largest drug abuse treatment program. He founded and helped build the Emergency Food Network. That was all before he became a legislator. We don’t have room for his catalog of legislative accomplishments. But trust me, this man has earned his retirement.

Though he wouldn’t ever whine about it (mensches don’t whine) District 27 includes some of the rougher neighborhoods in Tacoma. The people who live in them may not know it, but their lives are probably better because of something Flannigan has done.
Asked what he’s most proud of, Flannigan says he’s most proud of the little changes he manages to manifest. Things like working to expand the scope of the McCarver Park project. Thanks to his counsel and a little help with fundraising, the park is expected to be 10 kinds of magnificent; a destination, rather than a place to stumble across. That, he says, is the kind of thing that changes communities.

“That’s the kind of thing I’m proud of,” says Flannigan. “If you’re going to pin a medal on my chest, do it for something like that.”