August 11, 2013
7:00 a.m. Sunday
Dear Brother Dan,
I have spent a weekend with the class of ’63. It was fun to see people I used to know
a little. They were the class
below me and the class right ahead of you. I saw them at school, on the bus, some were active and so I
knew of them more than others. I
watched them at the social hours they had on Friday night, dipping down to read
the nametag before approaching someone—I remember that from our 45th
reunion—I hadn’t been to a reunion for 25 years and I didn’t recognize anyone
except Richard Morton and Vickie C. Holt.
I went to this stuff because Kay wanted someone to go with her. Her husband, Jim died in 2007, I think
it was and her boyfriend of 2 years bailed on her for good, so I was it. I think she needed the moral support
and I figured I could be a designated driver. So that’s why I was there.
But I’m writing to you because I was moved to hear people
talking about you. When they had
figured out who I was so many of them said, “I knew Dan!” Most of them knew you had died in
2003. Jerry Campana remembered you
from sports (and riding the school bus together), Tom Demick was the same. A guy named Mike Haugen told me he had
a pretty messy alcoholic childhood and you were the person he wanted to be. You had lots of friends, were smart,
good at sports, funny. He thought
you were the person that had it all together. He was so sad that you weren’t here anymore. He’d gone through some really tough
times, met a good woman who helped him turn his life around. We both wondered if that could have
happened for you.
Last night at the big reunion at the Kitsap Gold and Country
Club Jerry Green was the one who was stunned by your death. He almost went white after I told
him. He loved you, Dan. He was astounded that you could have
gone so young. When I told him
you’d used drugs over the years and struggled with mental health he remembered
another mutual friend of yours that had also died young from the same kind of
thing that took you—heart disease.
When he had his meal, he bowed his head for a while—I wonder if he was
remembering you in his prayers.
And you know who else I saw and had a good time with? Jack Gray! He told me he has a print of the “urchin” boys picture you
took, dirty faces, tattered t-shirts—a photo I have, too. He said he’d been meaning to give it to
me, but when I told him I have a copy he seemed happy to keep the one he
has. I think he misses you. Jack and his partner, Dale, live up at
Chimicum—Jack grows a garden, like you did and like I do. It sounds like he has a nice piece of
land with good sunlight. His
partner is nice and was friendly to me.
They might have had a conversation about you later and what you meant to
Jack. I have Jack’s email and want
to keep in touch with him—maybe it’s a way of keeping in touch with you a
little bit.
Do you remember Janet Cavallaro? She is full of energy still and happens to be reading my
blog. She’s been married 45 years
to a sweet man she met while they were in high school. I wish I could recall his name, but
it’s not in there, sorry. You
probably knew him, too.
I so wish you could have heard all the positive things
people said about you. It filled
my heart. I doubt if you knew all
the people who cared about you and who have happy memories of you. Do any of us know that? You should have been able to attend
your own 50th class reunion, which will be next year. But as you said at Dad’s memorial
service, you never reached the level of his success, you never had a family or
children, you might have felt that you failed in life. That might have kept you away from a
reunion. But it would have been a
mistake not to go. So many, many
people cared.
I promised lots of people I’d let you know they think about
you.
I love and miss you,
Your Big Sister, Chris
