Calvin-Anderson-Obituary

Calvin Anderson

Portland, Oregon

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Portland, Oregon

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Calvin CJ "Speed" Anderson, professional musician and entertainer for over 60 years, passed away Aug. 13, 2010. The colon cancer that he had survived in late 1996 returned and this time could not be effectively treated. Speed was born in Berkeley, Calif., and lived in Quincy, Calif., before his...

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During our sophomore year at Lewis and Clark College, I lived in a dorm on campus and Speed and his new bride, lived in a walkup apartment in an old mansion near the campus that had been converted to student housing. There was another couple living on the first floor. Their apartment door opened right at the foot of the stairway. One day the lower apartment door opened just as Speed and I reached the bottom of the stairway and a fellow student walked out. We stopped to talk for a bit. ...

Speed took the gig in Rose City, Ca,. Rose City was a long drive from where he lived. At this time Speed developed "Sleep Apnia"(sp?) which meant that he would uncontrollable fall asleep. This prevented him from driving, so he would take city transit across town to the end of the line, and then walk the rest of the way to the gig. After the job he would reverse this trip. Rosemary, like many other of Speeds fans, followed him to the new gig. When Rosemary found out about this she...

Speed was "Best Man" at my first wedding, and it was his influence that helped me get threw that ordeal. During our freshman year at L&C, speed and I would go to my folks house on a weekend, and my Mother would cook up platters of " home made biscuits" and fried eggs. That boy could really eat Don Snelling

Rosemary, I hope you are doing well. I would love to hear from you.

It has brought great comfort to me reading all of your warm memories of Speed. Thanks to all of you. He is so loved and missed.

One more story because Speed would never tell anyone.
I took my Jr. year at Portland state in order to wipe out a bunch of teaching requirments. One of my classes required me to mentor a youth group. I chose a Gray-Y (YMCA) group made up of 5th-8th grader boys. Part of the program included an overnighter at a YMCA camp on the Sandy River.

I had all of the permitting paper work completed but when it came time to get transportation for a Saturday morning not a single parent...

I used to work two jobs, full time as a chemist for the City, and part time as a med tech at Providence Hospital. One night I fell asleep driving home and crashed my car. The next day Speed went to my house, picked up my wife and 3 kids and took them home to his place for a couple of days while I was in the hospital.

That's just one of the "Speeds" that we know and love.

Speed Doing What He Loved