Allen Korbel, 82, a Wisconsin member of FFRF since 1991 and later a Lifetime Member, died Dec. 17, 2013.
Born in Milwaukee on April 16, 1931, he was an accomplished race car driver and downhill skier with “a passion for life,” noted his friend Paul Wild. “He was a rare individual, a longtime libertarian, secular humanist and freethinker.”
He is survived by two daughters who have carried on his tradition of independent thought.
Allen most generously included a $5,000 bequest to FFRF in his estate.
His daughter noted that he once told her, “if anything has to be written about me, I’d like it to be this” — “his creed,” which was part of a picture frame hanging on the wall. He felt this exemplifies a moral and cultural attitude not only about entrepreneurship, but about the self determining, fulfilling values in human life”:
My Creed
I do not choose to be a common man
It is my right to be uncommon. . . if I can.
I seek opportunity . . . not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen,
humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk,
to dream and build, to fail and succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole.
I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence;
the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
or my dignity for a handout.
I will try to never cower before any master
nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid;
to think and act for myself;
enjoy the benefits of my creations;
and face the world boldly and say;
“This I have done.”
— Dean Alfange (1897-1989)