The 'man who never got up' (more properly 'the man who never got up again') was born on a farm near Sheldon, Iowa. Benjamin Jones Krumfeld, known to family and friends as 'Benny,' passed away on Tuesday afternoon at the age of 99, according to his CPA Ronny Kister, of natural causes. His exact age may never be known, because Krumfeld refused to use any kind of numbers or statistics or dates in his many conversations with reporters, friends, and family members over the years. In fact, he gave up talking altogether in 1999, after announcing it was too strenuous. After that, he wouldn't even write notes. He managed to nod for 'yes' and shake his head for 'no.' but otherwise remained uncommunicative but apparently happy until his demise.
Having no empathy for farm life, Mr. Krumfeld left home at age 16 and wandered throughout the Midwest for the next ten years, working under titles such as 'Benny the Boxer,' 'Benny the Bean Counter,' 'Benny the Bouncer,' and 'Benny the Blowhard.' Finally, at the age of 26 or thereabouts, he decided on a career path that brought him fame and apparently enough fortune to live comfortably in stasis for the rest of his life.
With money inherited from his father Benny bought a front porch in Fanksville, South Dakota -- a small farming community just west of the Marmalade Fields. He didn't purchase the house that went with it, only the front porch.
And then he sat down. And never got up again.
There was no fanfare involved, no press releases or ballyhoo of any kind. He simply selected a bentwood rocker and then managed to placidly sit in it for the rest of his life.
For the first two years no one seemed to notice, or care, that he remained fixed in the same place, slowly rocking back and forth with a placid smile on his friendly freckled face. The family that owned the house at the time were immigrants from Switzerland, and they always claimed that such behavior was commonplace back in Geneva -- so they never gave it a second thought.
But one day a young reporter, named Lazlo Huzzard, who eventually changed his name and became Justice Antonin Scalia of the United State Supreme Court, began to wonder about this man who never got up as he passed him on his way to and from work at the Badlands Argus. On a warm summer day in 1959 he stopped by the porch and asked permission to talk to this man who never got up.
Benny said that was okay by him. He offered the reporter a wicker chair and a glass of lemonade, and history began to be made. Not History, admittedly, but history -- interesting enough to get Benny a long winded obit anyway.
Huzzard asked him why he sat there day after day. Krumfeld said simply "I sat down one day and decided to never get up again."
The interview that followed was published in the Argus that weekend, picked up by the wire services, and shot around the world. After that, the man who never got up welcomed a steady stream of visitors to his porch. Some came to gawk. Some came to ask him questions. Some gave him food and drink. Others gave him warm clothing for the winter. No one ever figured out how he could stay in his chair and never use the bathroom. One theory was that he had at least one double, who took his place for bathroom breaks and the like. But when video cameras were secretly installed near his porch by the lilac bushes, they recorded nothing but a man slowly rocking and smiling to himself day and night. He. Never. Got. Up.
He refused to let cults or political organizations exploit him in any way. He never endorsed any person, place, or product. In his final years, when he gave up talking, he would play cats cradle with a dirty piece of string for hours on end. The deadly tornado of 1989 that destroyed much of the surrounding area made a wide berth around his porch. He told astonished reporters he didn't even know about it until they told him. At night he seemed to sleep soundly in his chair, snoring lightly.
His last known words, before he went silent, were "Life is like an inglenook -- some people think they know what it is, but nobody really does."
He left no will behind, and remaining family members will take his remains back to Sheldon and have him buried in the civic cemetery. A spokesperson for the family says that they will lay him out flat in the ground and his rocker will be donated to a flea market in Napier, Illinois.
When President Trump heard of his passing he immediately tweeted about him: "Nice Guy. I met him in Dallas in 1963."
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