Robin Leigh Arena, 59, wife of Erive Urena of Norwalk passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, May 18, 2023.
Born in Chicago, IL, on July 10, 1963, she was the daughter of the late Robert R. and Sharon Howard Bensley.
Robin had a way of lighting up any room she entered. You could feel her warmth with every smile and hug she would offer you. Her kindness in every day life, from providing food for a local homeless man for many years, to having meaningful conversations with the cashiers at CVS. No matter stranger or loved one Robin welcomed you into her heart with open arms. Her love will forever live within us as we carry on her legacy trying to be the best versions of ourselves for her.
In addition to her husband, Erive, Robin is survived by her daughters Jordan Arena of Norwalk, CT and Sarah Arena of Los Angeles, CA. Siblings Robert (Skip) Bensley and Vicki Stevenson.
Calling hours will be held on Thursday, May 25, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM at Collins Funeral Home, 92 East Avenue, Norwalk, CT.
For those who wish to send flowers to the family of Robin Arena, please visit https://www.brucesflowers.com/. Floral arrangements can be sent to Collins Funeral Home. Please ensure that the flowers arrive no later than 5/25 to be included in the service.
When I was old enough, I got my first skateboard. I had to buy it secretly with my own money saved from my paper route with the Standard star. I didn’t have pads, or wrist guards or a helmet it was just me and Hanson Lane. I would turn up onto Taymil road so I would not be seen flying by my house on Hanson Lane and I also hid my board under the back porch. I was getting really good at speed riding when a friend suggested he pull me on a boat tow line in traffic.
We set out that day with good intentions and ended up eventually on quaker ridge road up near Ward school and the hill known years previous as the site of the New Rochelle Soap box derby races.
The light changed and down we went, the Car towing me down the biggest hill in New Rochelle, what could possibly go wrong? Well, a police car that’s what. His siren was on there were two of us, the driver (Glen maybe) and me on my board.
As we neared the Pinebrook boulevard off ramp I figured I better release and let the driver fend for himself for being the tow driver. I cruised down to Pine brook and kept going heading south at warp speed towards downtown. A second police car was heard, and I bailed off my board I think somewhere near Evan Forster’s house on Pinebrook and sat there on my board like I hadn’t done a thing.
This only works in the movies as I soon learned, and the policeman was both complimentary and alarmed. He talked through his speaker and asked me to approach his car. I walked around to him, and he said board please. I gave him my board. He said, you and your friend were speeding on quaker ridge road, your friend got a ticket. If you want this board back, you can send your father down to pick it up at the police station. We can fill him in on the details of your surfing safari then. After getting my details he then said,
“You are out here going 50 miles an hour on a skateboard, with no pads, no helmet, you either are the best skate boarder in the state or you have a death wish kid”. Have a great day.
Robert “Russ” Bensley finished his final broadcast on August 9, 2022. The oldest (by minutes) child of Robert Daniel Bensley and Sylvia Gates Holton Bensley, Russ is survived by his children Skip Bensley, Robin Arena, and Vicki (Ryan) Stevenson; his grandchildren CJ, Sabrina, Jordan, Sarah, Andrew, and Ryan, as well as his twin brother Edward (Laura) Bensley. He is predeceased by his wife, Patricia Bannon Bensley. Also survived and predeceased by a sea of those who admired and respected him throughout his long career at CBS, as a horse farmer, and as an overall great guy.
Russ grew up on and around the University of Chicago campus, where his grandfather was the head of and his mother professor of Anatomy (and the first female graduate of the University of Chicago Medical School), and his father and aunt were integral to the vast scientific advances made there, particularly in the realm of diabetes research, for which the senior Robert Russell Bensley won a Banting Medal. He graduated from Hyde Park High School and went on to earn both an undergraduate and master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. During his years there, he commuted daily from Hyde Park, as he was also caring for his grandfather.
Russ’ career began in radio, eventually landing him at the WBBM-TV station, where he wrote and anchored the late-night news broadcast. Amusingly, this broadcast was watched by one Pat Bannon while sitting at Wally’s Tap in Homewood; she would meet him in person and then marry him almost 20 years later. Russ made his national news television debut doing “man on the street” interviews following the death of JFK.
The CBS network then brought him to New York, quickly making him a producer (eventually executive) of the Evening News with Walter Cronkite. In 1968 he took a crew to cover the Vietnam war, got shot, and then evacuated to a hospital that was then bombed.
“Not a great day” as he put it.
In 1971, he won the first of four Emmy awards for his work on the groundbreaking documentary, “The World of Charlie Company,” for CBS.
After his time on the evening news, he headed the Special Events Unity, covering events like space shuttle launches, royal weddings, and presidential conventions and elections. He recently told his family he loved special events because he wanted to be where the action was. He was the executive producer of On the Road with Charles Kuralt, which he enjoyed for the interesting and uplifting stories. He also taught journalism courses as a guest teacher in a variety of settings, including Columbia University, New York.
After his retirement from CBS in 1985, he, Pat and daughter Vicki moved to Niles, MI, where they raised Morgan Horses until 2003. When asked about what seemed like a major life change, Russ was frequently known to quip, “It’s just a different kind of manure.” He continued remote work for CBS for almost 3 years, putting together a videocassette series, The Vietnam War with Walter Cronkite.
After horse-farming, he took up his favorite title full-time-Grandpa. Russ and Pat moved to Homewood, IL (where Pat had grown up) in 2003, and he remained there until 2014, when he moved into the home his daughter, Vicki, and husband Ryan built for them. He enjoyed the rest of his years in the “west wing” with Vicki, Ryan, his grandsons Andrew and Ryan, and a variety of cats and dogs whom he adored. His grandsons clearly benefited from his constant presence; both have gone into journalism.
Russ celebrated his 84th birthday by jumping out of a “perfectly good” airplane, handling it like a pro, and at 86 had to have an amputation of his lower leg (unrelated to the jumping out of an airplane) proceeding to put everyone in rehab – including 30-year-olds – to shame. (Upon waking from surgery being asked how he was, he replied, “Footloose and fancy-free.”) He walked at home without so much as a cane, and used a walker only at the annoying insistence of his daughter. Until the stroke that disabled him seven weeks prior to his death, he took daily walks, got his own paper and did the crosswords, all while shaking his head at the changes in TV news.
Russ’ colleagues say he was among the best in the business, and to this day speak with great admiration and affection for him and his work. Giants in the industry have described him as “one of the all-time great television news producers and editors” and “the best newsman television ever had….[and] that for a few years a lot of Americans got their information about what was going on in the world from the honest and direct way [he] chose to tell them.”
Russ’ kind heart was even bigger for animals. If you are inclined to honor him in some way, please make a donation in his name to the South Suburban Humane Society, where many of his beloved pets came from. If you want to honor him another way, sneak some oreo cookies and perhaps a good, dark beer.
And above all, the family encourages you use the phrase he was famous for as often as you can – “Everything is Going to be All Right.”
I was delighted to accept an AV engineer position with my old alma mater and I joined them shortly after Thanksgiving in 2021. I was to work alongside the internal AV team and a group of AV contractors.
It took a bit to get integrated into the Northeastern flow of things but I did so seamlessly. There were many irregularities I noticed right off the bat however, the office was very disorganized, There were biweekly meetings where everyone seemed too scared to speak their mind but perhaps they had a reason.
Unbeknownst to me, the previous AV design team had been dismissed summarily after implementing a new AV solution called NU-Flex which was an overly engineered and underpowered solution that is almost obsolete now 9 months later. Millions were spent and when it was universally panned by students and faculty out the design team went. (4 person team) Sadly so did all the data that supported the project, schematics, etc. Five different AV integrators had a hand in making these Nu-Flex rooms but there was no knowledge base about any of it. Talk about flying blind.
A month into my tenure EJ and I met to talk about how it was going and I mentioned all the irregularities I had encountered thus far and I made notes about I even introduced a few ideas that I thought would better track these issues and while he thanked me, he then reached out to my parent company to say that I was being a problem.
So flash back to where I am now. Sitting at home after being dismissed on 2/17/ 22 Northeastern because EJ didn’t like me and said my communication was hostile. I was cordial up until the last moment.
Here is my last discussion with EJ Lewis in fact from 2/16/22 the night before. Turns out IT had turned off my key card a day early by accident.
[2/16/2022 7:28 PM] Lewis, EJ It sounds like there may be an ssue with the card. They’ll have to replace it tomorrow am.
[2/16/2022 7:28 PM] Bensley, Robert Ok thank you
[2/16/2022 7:28 PM] Lewis, EJ How was 216?
[2/16/2022 7:29 PM] Bensley, Robert
A rip-roaring crying shame honestly
[2/16/2022 7:32 PM] Lewis, EJ It’s pretty stupid.
[2/16/2022 7:33 PM] Bensley, Robert I think I ripped open and trashed the equivalent of my NU tuition so it was sort of cathartic lol
[2/16/2022 7:35 PM] Lewis, EJ I had to dump 50 gallons of milk at Starbucks once. They weren’t refrigerated right overnight and barely went over the safe temp threshold. It was brutal.
[2/16/2022 7:36 PM] Bensley, Robert
but was there crying over spilled milk? sorry
[2/16/2022 7:36 PM] Lewis, EJ Not the same but it was during the Katrina aftermath and I felt like a real jerk.
[2/16/2022 7:37 PM] Bensley, Robert
Yeah, I can see that.
[2/16/2022 7:40 PM] Bensley, Robert
I have found that anytime you see financial injustice (or injustice of any kind, for that matter) and don’t feel something, that is a problem. I could not just look away in this case.
I did not realize that EJ had already turned off my office access and dismissed me without reason, or did he?
His department was pulling down Sony Laser projectors out of ceilings at an alarming rate. Laser projectors cost about 10,000 new. They last 20,000 hours. They were being replaced and recycled after 2,000 hours. They were also being recycled by A company run by a former Northeastern University graduate by the name of Sheel Dave’ Does that not seem fishy?
Sheel Dave’
In addition to Gizmodo and other endeavors, he was taking in van loads of these perfectly good Sony laser projectors and “recycling them”. I am pretty sure that those projectors were being resold and the profits were being funneled back to those two Northeastern IT persons listed above. In fact, if you do a deep dive into Both Karen and EJ’s finances you will find them spending much more money than either of their salaries would indicate just for starters.
In my last discussion with EJ above about room 216, this was a storage area that the IT department had rented over at the Christian Science Center complex. This had become a massive storage area for all the unused equipment from the aforementioned failed NU Flex systems. I had been sent there earlier in the day to literally destroy my 1980s Northeastern tuition in perfectly good AV equipment. Holy destruction Batman! (See enclosed)
I guess documenting the issue and reporting it to my contracting company is what got me another position within that organization but I am guessing that Karen, EJ, and Sheel are still managing to skim money out of the AV department at Northeastern University. If they have not been found out yet that is the biggest travesty.
I had sent this information to the Northeastern University Press in 2022 but they declined to get involved, so much for Journalism at Northeastern University Press.
So when people asked whatever happened at Northeastern University a while back, now you know. I found people stealing from the university, called them on it, and was shown the door.
When Northeastern reaches out for money I tell them I have given enough. While I have great memories of attending Northeastern University in the 1980s you can never go home again.
The one about when “There was no Joy, in Joyriding”
So as teens when you are raised in an affluent part of Westchester County in New York State you run out of things to do. Mini bikes did it, go carts did it, joy riding in a stolen parents car with only a learners permit, hmmm.
My pal Glenn had just gotten his learners permit and was glad when his parent’s went away for a week. Jon and Glenn, Beth L and I all jumped into Glenn’s fathers pristine gold tone Volvo and off we went. There we were driving around like adults with no license and a fast turbo charged 4 cylinder leather interior barca-lounger to joy ride in.
We drove down Quaker ridge road then down weaver street. We buzzed by the YWHA just in case anyone we knew saw us. WE turned around in the Golden Horshoe parking lot, and then headed back down weaver when we ran into a police car coming in the opposite direction.
Shit!. We were spooked of course and Jon suggested we take the back roads back to their house near Quaker ridge road. It was a sunny day 70’s sprinklers were going in this neighbor hood on the cusp of Scarsdale and New Rochelle. Music was playing, we were laughing and then the Golden Volvo skidded just a little and we grazed the oncoming station wagon making a rather noticeable dent on the driver left side. No body was hurt but Glenn was having kittens and Jon was trying to comfort his brother. It was then that we all got out to see the damage and make sure the other car was ok.
To our shock and surprise 4 teenagers ( from Scarsdale perhaps) were doing the same surveying of damage. I yelled out are you guys ok, they said yes but that they were fucked, and thats when jumped back into the Volvo and headed to Jon and Glenn’s house. What were the chances that 8 kids went joy riding in 2 stolen cars and crashed into one another. They had to be astronomical, but we did it.
We got back to Jon and Glenn’s house talked about it and headed our seperate ways. I got a call from Jon later and he walked me thru the parent story about how his dads car got stolen and was being driven to the bronx by another friend and that I should stick to that story if his dad followed up with me. This plan while well thought out and executed did have one flaw, my father standing behind me very intently listening. Suffice it to say there was no joy from that joy riding and it took over a year to get ungrounded and be allowed to hang with Jon and Glenn again.
To Glenn’s credit I think he spent the next 6 years working part time and paying for his Dad’s Golden Volvo. He was allowed to breathe air as long as he bought the car he stole.
Make sure you vote, sitting out this time is not an option.
Do you remember what happened last time? We didnt take him serious enough, we didn’t realize that there were so many angry old white men who were sitting at home with nothing to do but stir things up. Stir things up they did.
Sure the Russions influenced these poor angry white guys and made them believe that Donald Trump was their saviour, that he would save them all. Has he saved them? Really?
Trump supporters are very loyal, to the point of following their leader into the ER room after getting Covid 19 from an indoor rally. This of course is their choice, if they want to die after all that is their right. They will also fight for the right to life almost as viamently as they will fight to perhaps die.
Don’t be fooled however into thinking That Biden Harris are a lock however. Every vote counts and every electoral counts. We need to make sure Trump and Pence are gone.
We have lost our way as a country. We are divided, there is no United States. We don’t lead the world in anything anymore except reality TV , drug addiction and Covid deaths. Is this really what we want for our children?
Make a plan and vote, this is way too important this time. Oh and if you sat by the sidelines in 2016 shame on you.
For Robin’s what would have been his 69th birthday today I thought I would share my random run ins with this kind man. It was about 22 years ago when I lived on the west coast in SF bay area. I was living in San Mateo but dating a woman in IT who lived in the Marina district. On this day her twin sister drove up with family from Monterey and I was playing soccer with a border collie that travelled north with them.
It started to drizzle and then rain rather hard and I seeked refuge with others in the old domed Exploratorium. I was pretty much left to fend for myself as my then soon to be ex GF walked off with her family. I walked inside and well explored, that’s what you do at an exploratorium after all, right?
So I found this exhibit or display that was widely popular and it measured your right and left brain by flashing imagery and then asking you to recreate it to the best of your ability with chalk, and I guess they measured it through video capture somehow.
Anyway, I am there and I open a sliding shiny onyx colored door to see the picture which I did. I then closed it back, and I was about to take up the chalk and draw what I think I saw, and that’s when I saw Robin Williams, in the reflection, chin on his fingers watching me intently. No pressure.
I think I started sweating next honestly, but what I did was open the other door, took the chalk and wrote congratulations Mr. Williams on winning the best supporting oscar for good will hunting. He smiled broadly, leaned down in my right ear and said thank you very much in an elvis presley voice. I turned and said thank you Mr. Williams, he said no I’m Robin and extended his hand.
For the next 8 or so magical minutes I told him my life’s history did Fernando Llamas at him ( which he said while good he said, He told me Billy Crystal hates when people do his impression at him) I told him I loved Good morning Vietnam, Mork and Mindy, I was riffing through his catalog and he was laughing and riffing back. It was then that his family rejoined him he had his wife and his two kids in tow. And as I noticed My soon to be ex GF and her family that had abandoned me outside walking towards me from the other end of the Exploratorium I asked a small favor.
We did a slap thing next and I just tried to follow him but we made up a handshake and then said goodbye. His words were take care chief.
When my soon to be ex GF’s family finally caught up to me they asked me how in the World I knew Robin Williams and I told them rather mischievously that Robin and I were old friends.
I did see Robin and his kids one other time in Golden Gate park. Robin was exiting with his children from the back of what I thought was a range rover. The kids in bike riding gear and helmets, then the bikes all being deployed with the precision of a military exercise. As I walked by he said how’s it going chief? I responded back looking good Robin. He gave me a thumbs up and was gone.
The point of my post is this, I have never heard anyone say anything bad about this man or his willingness to give time, kindness and generosity. Robin was practically light personified. He took time to talk with me, listen to my bad impressions, and was present throughout. We need more of that right now.
I miss you Mr.Williams, I mean Robin, and I always will.
To all of you that seem to learn slower than others wear a mask!.
If you think I am talking about you, I am, wear a mask.
If the current POTUS says don’t wear a mask he is worrying about winning the next election not about you dying wear a mask.
If you go to the store you have to wear a mask.
If you go to dinner outside, you ned to wear a mask until you are seated.
If you attend a large funeral without a mask, your funeral maybe next wear a mask.
90% beds filled in Houston Texas because they didn’t wear a mask.
People partying in the Ozarks dying now because they didn’t wear a mask.
People in Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas all showing surge in Covid Cases. It’s not because of testing its because people didn’t wear a mask. Aren’t all these States Trump States? Is he trying to kill off his base?
I recently watched Hamilton not once but twice and yes it was amazing. The amazing part in addition to the tremendous and diverse cast is the message to do more.
I am actively working now with the DNC and black lives matter movements as I can. I will not accept another 4 years of sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone else to do something. It’s our time to take our country back and head it back in the direction of diversity, and prosperity for all.
Not sure how long it will take to mend international relationships but if I can help I will try. Take your shot however small and make a difference. Start small, remember every pebble cast into water creates a large ripple.
It’s time to let Kyrie Irving go. It’s time to face the facts that win or lose this guy is headed either to the New York Knicks, or he is headed to Los Angeles Lakers. Considering his acting career desires, The Lakers makes more sense.
Lets face it, the young Boston Celtics play much better team basketball without Kyrie. That, and their collective body language around him now is almost as bad as Melania’s around the Donald.
It appears Anthony Davis also wants nothing to do with the Celtics so finding a young star in the middle will not be easy. Who is out there? Can we solve anything with draft picks? I think trading Kyrie to the Lakers for a package of players and draft picks makes sense. Let’s make this years run without him. We did pretty well last year. Danny Ainge , it’s time.
The Bensleygram 