On July 25, 1977, the Shanahan Family lost a son, a brother, a husband, a father and an uncle. Mike was 28 years old. It was a sad day, but this is not going to be a sad page. Just the opposite, in fact.

It will be a chance for the many family members who never got the opportunity to know him to learn something about what kind of person he was. I hope that those of us who did know Mike will share some of their favorite memories of him on this page so that the younger family members can learn about him.

If you have a memory or story that you want to tell us about, send it to me and I will post it here for everybody to share. There are no rules here. You can send me as many memories as you want. I will post them all.

I was just thinking about Mike the other day and I remember a story of when he fixed my car. I had a 1962 Chevy II. The clutch went out on it and I couldn't afford to get it fixed. Mike offered to do it. I asked if he had ever put in a clutch, he said no but he didn't see it as a problem. So he just simply took out the engine of my car and installed the clutch. One problem was that when he put the clutch in he put it in upside down. Again, no problem, he just took the engine back out and reinstalled the clutch right side up this time. It worked perfectly. I don't know if he even had the right tools, but he had all the confidence in the world. He could do anything. I must confess that I only paid him $10 for all his trouble, how cheap was I??  

My favorite memory of my brother Mike happened when I was 12 and he was 8. We saw an ad in the South Omaha Sun for Phillips Department Store. They had a rod and reel on sale for $2.99. If you bought it, you got a free tackle box.

We pooled our money and went to South Omaha and bought the rod and reel and the tackle box. The next Saturday morning, we got up at the crack of dawn and walked to Riverview Park to do some serious fishing with our new equipment.

We had some extra money, so we planned to stop at the Dolly Madison store on 13th Street and load up on cakes and cookies and donuts and whatever else we could afford.

It was still dark and we made a wrong turn somewhere and we could not find the store. We tried for a while, but then we decided to forget about it and go and get a good fishing spot.

We used our new equipment for a couple of hours when Mike said he was going for a walk. He was gone for quite a while and I was starting to get worried when suddenly I saw him walking across the bridge they used to have over the lagoon. He was carrying two brown paper bags and he was grinning from ear to ear.

He had walked all over the place until he found the Dolly Madison store and he had spent every dime we had. We spent the rest of the day stuffing ourselves and listening to him tell the story of how he just kept walking and looking until he found the store. He was very proud.

That day we also caught a fish that was so big everyone at the park that day came by to check it out.

That is my favorite memory of Mike. I still have the tackle box. It has been all over the world with me. It is bent and rusted and the lid doesn't shut right, but there is not enough money in the world to buy it from me.

A memory of Mike that stands out in my mind happened around 1971. I was working for the airlines and had a layover in Omaha. Mike was at home--newly out of the service. We were sitting in Mom and Dad's living room discussing the war. The subject of Mohammed Ali came up. For those of you too young to remember Ali - he was the boxing heavyweight champion of the world at the time, but lost his title because he refused to go into the army and fight in Viet Nam. Anyway, I was mouthing off that I felt he shouldn't have to go into the army, etc., etc. Mike, who happened to be drinking a beer -- threw it across the dining room floor, and said, "What about Jerry? " Also, for those of you who didn't know Jerry, he was Mike's best friend who had recently died in Viet Nam. I ran into the kitchen crying. Mike followed me and put his arms around me. I really loved him when he did that. I felt bad for saying what I did under the circumstances and Mike felt bad about making me feel bad. He was such a cool guy and we were all lucky to have him. .

The memory I have of Mike that always makes me smile is when he brought 4 baby chickens home around Easter for Patty, Teri, Mark and me. I'm not sure how old we were but we thought he was so cool. We raised them on the back porch until one day a neighborhood cat got a hold of them. I think one died and another was pretty badly hurt. We decided the back porch was no place to raise chickens so we donated them to the Henry Doorly Zoo, but first we painted their feet green. I have never gone to the zoo since then without telling this story and looking for chickens with green feet

It's early 1971, I'm single living with Joanie and Pat. It's Monday morning about 5 am. I'm sound asleep when out of nowhere there came a banging and loud pounding on our apartment door. All 3 of us woke up not knowing what was happening but sure it wasn't good (boy were we wrong) We all decided to not answer the door and maybe they would go away, we were sure it was some kind of Hell's Angles gang, they kept screaming "let us in", we still kept quiet, finally one in the crowd yelled "come on Licker open the door", well of course at that moment I knew it had to be one of my two brothers (either Mike or Joe as they didn't know my real name) and it was Mike, along with about 10 of his buddies. They were all sitting around Hovorks (sp) bar at closing and it was Sunday night no one wanted to face Monday morning so Mike suggested driving to Denver to see his sister, Licker. They ALL stayed at our apartment for 2 days, most of them losing their jobs. The following week 2 of them returned to Denver to live, one being Ron Dworak, since we were the only ones he knew he and his friend Jim moved down the street and next time sister Nancy came to town she and Ron were introduced. So Matt and Andy you can thank your Uncle Mike for even being here. I am thankful that Mike was here, even if it wasn't nearly long enough. By the way I loved it (don't ask me why) when they called me Licker.

My favorite memory of my big brother Mike is almost impossible to narrow down to one, but I'll try. Even though I was only 14 when Mike left, there are so many great memories. It could be the time when I was about 6 and he let me come out to the garage and roll dice (my first YO), or the time he let me sit on his lap and drive his vet down L Street to Sutherland Lumber on a Sunday morning. Or the time he had me sit in the back of that old pickup truck so the linolium for the Shanahan Shack wouldn't fall out. But I guess the best memory is how he would take me to his job sites and have me work picking up lumber and nails. He would write me out a regular payroll check from Shanahan Construction. I was his little brother, but he treated me like I was his son. I still think of Mike and cry but I cry with a huge smile on my face.

I was able to be part of a very special day in Mike's life. Patty and Mike picked Joe and me to stand up in their wedding. I remember that day very clearly. Mike needed his birth certificate and he asked me to find it for him. No one knew but the four of us that this wedding was going to happen. I almost couldn't find his birth certificate, but I did. They got married at St. Bridget's with Monsignor Aughney. We went to Anthony's restaraunt to eat afterwards. Then first we went and told Mom & Dad, then we went to tell her parents. Patty's mom wasn't too happy that they weren't there, but she grew to love Mike very much!! It was a day that I always will remember.

I remember that Mike used to love to sing and whistle. I remember him singing Jennifer Thompkin's Ironic Enough and When I Die by Blood Sweat and Tears.