He was a close friend for decades, back to Oxford, with a wry, twinkling sense of humor, later a clerk for Justice Scalia. In the area of law, borrowing from “Chariots of Fire,” he “ran them off their feet.” But his real gifts, as the priest noted, were “courage and kindness.” His name was Cam.
Citing Micah 6:8, the priest observed that Cam knew and lived “what is good.” Family, faith, high purpose, patience, and peace. “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” He did that.
But Cam was more than that. He was the embodiment of quiet courage, an example of cheerful persistence, and a can-do person in a world of giving up and excuses. Treated with mass, untargeted radiation at age 20 to defeat aggressive Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, he suffered the effects – some devastating, all his life. You would never know it to talk with him.
Today, we have targeted treatments. In 1980, we did not. The result was mass internal irradiation of all his organs, with cascading, multi-year effects, heart surgeries, and the works. He never spoke about it, because he got “45 years of gravy,” time for love, a wonderful wife, and two great kids.
Incredibly, while his entire torso was being irradiated in 1980, before he got to Oxford, he was at Northwestern. Of thousands, he graduated Number One in his class. Courageous, quiet, and humble.
Years on, he founded scholarships, encouraged others through their adversity, and looked on days with a curious, whimsical, whistling approach. He lived in a T-shirt, believed “life is good,” was perpetually amused, steady as the day is long, calm, and patient by nature. He had to be in 1980; never lost that.
He loved practical jokes, the sort of thing you would not imagine of a guy first in his college class, made serious by near-fatal cancer, tops at Oxford and Harvard Law School, clerking with a serious, conservative Supreme Court Justice, Scalia. But then, Scalia was a man of wit and humor, too.
Sitting now in an airport, returning from Cam’s “celebration of life,” as all those old treatments gradually caught up, calling for new courage, new patience, and foundational faith, he still stands before me as a paragon of courage and kindness, realism, but boundless optimism, despite all.
His family relayed, as months became weeks, weeks days, Cam kept his passion for living fresh, each day worth fully living. He played Scrabble eagerly with his boys, but as the days grew tougher, time precious – down to hours – he said, “Yes, let’s play Scrabble, but now let’s use the timer.” That constant, unbreakable spirit, wit, and joy with life – it never left him.
But now, about the five pennies. An older lady stood watching the slide show yesterday, a seasoned professional, Cam’s former secretary – during the time Cam was General Counsel at a huge firm. Somehow, she said, he was always the same, forever joking, full of that elf dust we call whimsy.
She told stories, as did his family, that just made you laugh. But one made me pause. It was about the five pennies. He never told his kids about it, or from what I can tell, anyone else. She said, “Cam always kept five pennies beside his phone at work …”
“He did, five pennies?” “Yes,” she said. She was talking slowly now. She said his habit was to call people, offer them upliftment, or a compliment. “He would move a penny to the other side of the phone after one of those calls…His goal was to move all five pennies every day.”
I was in shock, had never heard that from him or anyone else, and yet it was so Cam. “Did he get that done every day?” I asked. She looked up. “Yes, he moved each of the five pennies every day.”
Cam’s life was what Micah wrote about: courage and kindness, gratitude and a twinkling smile, constant appreciation for the gift that is life, and the goodness expected of us. “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Cam did that. To have known him, well…I think, I think I am going to find five pennies.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
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