Tom Hayden: 1939-2016

Tom Hayden was a friend of ours. By “ours” I mean of me and my husband, Dick Flacks. He was also a friend of this community’s. I would like to take a page from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who ends his daily show by inviting his three final guests to “Tell me something I don’t know …” As the front-page obituary in the Los Angeles Times attests, Tom was a “famous person” — and not just because he married Jane Fonda. Herewith are some things you may not know about Tom:

He grew up — and was an altar boy — in the parish of Detroit’s notorious anti-Semitic priest Father Coughlin.

His middle name was Emmett, and he later wrote a book about the Irish Famine and Ireland’s continuing struggle for freedom.