57 Years (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781518868511)

Jack was an illegitimate child born in a time of no tolerance. He lived with an abusive grandmother and did not receive the usual nurturing upbringing we associate with success in a career. He had a wanderlust that was satisfied by hitchhiking and later by a tour of duty with the U.S. Army. In high school and college, he competed with Olympian swimmers and sang with the Detroit choir. He met the man who would be his mentor early on when he fled the abuses of his grandmother. This gentleman was a copper, as Jack likes to say, who intervened in Jack's life whenever his grandmother became too overwhelming for Jack. He would allow Jack to stay at the police station overnight and feed him and see that he got to school. He basically was the Child Protective Service for that era. Later, Jack modeled this man in his care and discipline of the street kids he encountered. Jack loved his mother, forgiving her for the absence of a father, for her alcoholism, and eventually followed her footsteps into unionism and party support of the Democrats. Because of her influence, he was asked to be the aide to Commissioner George Edwards where he met many important union and political leaders of the day. In 1967, Jensen was involved in the riots of Detroit that lasted almost a week having repercussions still seen today. He attended the 1972 Democratic convention and was later asked to work for Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. on his security detail. He shook hands with Jesse Jackson, Walter Reuther, Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Jimmy Carter. He met Humphrey, McGovern, Bye, Martin Luther King. He drank with Coleman Young and Cavanaugh and a member of the Purple Gang who lived down the street. All the while, his immediate family, with the exception of his mother, wanted nothing to do with him or his Catholic wife and family. The feelings of his childhood have grown with him into his eighty-fifth year and still color his being and to know this man who has done so much good from so much bad is enviable and honorable. Jack still lives at 85 with plans for another book and a wide influence over his community.