76 Trombones

Ward is a wealth of stories about Dan. Things I had no way of knowing (I was the baby sister, after all.) and Bill had left for college when most of these things happened.

But when I discussed the latest of Ward's musings with Bill, he, like me, could just see Dan doing the things that Ward describes.

So here is the latest from Ward. Thank you for putting a grin on my face as well. By the way, I have shortened the name of the villain to avoid any repercussions!

We started music in grade school.  It was an important entity to Lindsay's persona.  Mr. Kemper was our first instructor and he helped us and our parents select the instruments we were to be married to. (Kemper also owned the local music store and sold or rented out most of our horns.) I got the clarinet (something about my mouth shape-I was really hoping for a trumpet).  Danny started on the trombone.  At first it was bigger than he was but Kemper must have been a prophet cause when Danny grew his physique emulated that instrument. 

By the time we were in the Jr. High Band we had uniforms- hand me downs from the high school, I think.  Ill fitting scratchy wool gaberdine - they said I looked like the organ grinders monkey with the tin cup.  The crotch of my pants almost reached the floor with the waistline at my armpits.  Danny's hung like clothes on a stick scarecrow.

We never took anything seriously in those days, especially band.  Band was an enjoyable release from scholastic activities.  Sour notes and other interesting sounds could be produced on our horns at inopportune moments.  Band teachers failed to appreciate our efforts.  None the nevertheless we had a succession of instructors that whipped our band into an award winning entity. Mr. Kemper passed away of a brain tumor and was replaced by Mr. Roach, a young cocky trumpeter who we adored and would do anything for. Roach got hired away and Henry Leal was his successor.  Dark hair, tall, mysterious looking Mediterranean, he gave us the score to Victory at Sea which we all loved to play.  The band was excellent.

Mr Jones came to stay when I was in my Sophomore year, Danny was a freshman.  We soon discovered that he had a temper and we could get his goat at will.  To counter our subterfuge Jones, Fella, Mr. (our name for him)  appointed Dave, DRUM MAJOR!!! Dave took his job and everything else much too seriously and soon got slaunchwise with Danny and me; because he often was seated next to the trombone section, he gave Danny an especially hard time.  He often made life miserable on band trips especially on the bus where there was very little supervision, if any.  Danny took a lot of guff from this bully and came close to throwing punches.

So here's the story.  There was a big production of THE MUSIC MAN in Visalia.  The call went out for trombones and trumpets from every county high school.  The finale had trumpets and trombones marching down  the aisleways of the auditorium to the stage playing "76 Trombones.  ( Now Danny got a great big grin and glint in his eye when he told me about this the Monday or Tuesday after it happened, and he had the same look when he retold the story some 50 years later.)  It seems to Danny's incredible luck that the trombones marched behind the trumpets and going down the path just in front of Danny was Dave.  Danny's words were the same both times he related the story.  " I never played a note.  I just got as close as I  could to Dave and kept ramming my slide into his backside with every step."  There was a lot of marching in place and Foster just had to take it.  Poetic justice was served.

So as I was throwing feed to my chickens and peacocks, feeding and petting my foster cats, I remembered Dave's name.  I had everything else as sharp as the first time Danny told it, just couldn't remember the villain.  I started to smile, then grin and chuckle cause I can just see Danny strutting down that aisle whanging away at Dave with his slide.  I can see him in the band room stretched out on his chair blowing for all he is worth and the tune is either "76 Trombones" or "Victory at Sea".

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And that is where my brother's grin comes from!!!!

Others Remember

We are still finding people who do not know that Dan is dead.

It is so hard to say that. I don't like to think that he is. He is just gone and somehow that thought lets me believe somewhere that he will be back.

But I will always have my memories. No one can take them from me.

And so do all of his friends.

The following is from Dan's childhood friend, Ward T. Ward was one of the ones that just found out about Dan. Through his tears, he wrote me this:

Bikes.  Growing up we were always on our bikes and we went everywhere.  It's  interesting  that Danny's last bike was like the bikes we grew up on.  Three speed Sturmey Archer "Mary Poppins" style bikes.  Danny's was red.  I had a black "Indian".  School, music lessons,(Hannigan's of course), Boy Scout meetings, baseball practice, swimming pool we were all expected to get  there on our bikes unless it involved being after dark or it was raining.  A flat tire was like being grounded.

I don't know where the idea came from, but Danny and I would drop the front wheel off one of our bikes and then bolt the front fork over the back wheel of  the other bike and, presto!! - an articulated tandem.  We rode all over town like that.  I don't think the idea was too popular with the folks.

There was nothing quite like the carefree freedom we had and the independence bestowed on us via our bikes.

We grew up in a wonderful town at a wonderful time. We were allowed everywhere (well, almost everywhere) And we were watched by everyone in town. We felt so very safe. 

Thank you, Ward. He is alive with our memories.

At the Feet of Hemingway

Dan loved the writer's conference that is held every year in Idaho. Bill would (at first) sneak him in and later got him tickets. Dan just absorbed all of the intellectual discussions and thoughts. He was in "hog heaven".
He tried to go every year but couldn't always get out of the truck schedule.

So when Bill was in Idaho this last week, he took the remaining remains of Dan to the site of the writer's conference. There is a memorial to Hemingway there and some grassy areas that Dan loved.

On the memorial is written:

Best of all, he loved the fall.

The leaves yellow on cottonwoods

Leaves floating on trout streams

and above the hills

The high blue windless skies

…Now he will be part of them forever.

He lies there now. 

At the feet of Hemingway. 

Knees

Ok. I will admit that what I am about to write is a little weird.

Maybe it is just how I put things together in my brain. And that is known to be very weird.

But when I think of Dan, like when I am passing a semi-truck on the freeway, or when I see the ocean, or when I look at a good climbing tree, the first thing I visualize is not his face.

I see his knees.

They were always bent. Or so my brain sees them.

This thought process began as I sat for breakfast with some friends whose 15 year old son is well over 6 feet and is the center on his high school football team. He is a rather LARGE young man. And his mother was describing the son's discomfort when sitting in restaurants or school buses or any other mode of transportation meant for the general public.

Dan spent his travel time with his knees somewhere near his nose. And usually closer to his ears.

We took a trip once on Amtrak. From Whitefish, Montana to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Twenty four hours where he never got to stand straight up or stretch out his legs. Airplanes were worse.

But even just sitting on a lawn mower, his knees were above his hands. He just didn't physically fit.

He was that way as a kid. At least as I remember. Knees near his ears.  Just trying to fit into a space too small for him.

Maybe the world was too small for him.

So I think about his knees.

The Star

Back: Dan, Gael, Heather, Bernadette, Bill  Front: Mom holding Melodie, Dad holding Jill                                         Christmas 1972

Christmas at our house was a BIG deal.

Our mother had a real flare for that kind of thing and she loved kitch.

So we had little elves swinging from the chandeliers and picking around lamps on tables. There was real and plastic ivy on anything that would hold it. There were pine wreaths in every room. Ornaments hung in the most unlikely of places. And there was always the tree.

Covered in every ornament you can think of.

The house was bright and shiny.

Now there were jobs for each of us. Bill and Dad did the outside lights and Dad and Dan did the lights on the tree. Always.

This was, I figured, because Dan was so skinny and tall that he could reach the top of the tree without knocking it over. I remember him putting on the star. Or at least I think I do.

It is funny what your brain does with memories. All my childhood becomes a amalgam of impressions and snap shots. I somehow manage to put them all together. Not necessarily in chronological order.

Because we weren't always grown. Dan had to have been too small to do what I think I remember him doing.

But it is a good memory. So I will keep it.

Just like I have kept mom's elves, her Christmas table cloth, and, believe it or not, some of the holly.

Christmas was a big deal.

It Happened Again

Another of Dan's friends from high school contacted Bill today. He had lost track of Dan over the last year.

Bill and I have both sent him emails but I know he will be crushed.

He was part of the Linda Vista Gang.

Those were the kids that hung out in our back yard and played baseball and football and any other game we (they) could think of. My mom was always making kool-aid (the good kind) for them. And I was always being a pest cuz I wanted to play. I didn't care that they were boys but they seemed to care that I was a girl. Go figure.

When I think of Butch, I remember warm summer nights and the smell of orange blossoms. Which is kinda funny since oranges bloom in the spring and the last of any crop was gone by summer. But that is how my mind scrunches up the time.

Butch's mom and dad were great friends to our parents. They disagreed on almost everything political but, as my dad would say, politics shouldn't ruin good friendships.

When I think of those nights I remember Dan running. I remember him throwing the baseball with all his might and the hat coming right off of his head. I remember him grinning.

I remember him. I remember him healthy and happy.

I hope that Butch can remember him that way, too.

Today is Another Day

I have lots of thoughts of Dan these days. Just random memories that really make no sense.

Except for today. This one made a little sense.

Today my daughter walked into work so that she could go to lunch with me. Which is really neat as she no longer works here and is getting ready to go to San Diego for three months to study for the Bar exam.

We go to lunch with some friends and she is ragging on me about something. My comeback was to give her the look. And her comeback was "You can't be mad at me when I am being cute! And she proceeds to screw her face into the 2 year old "I am so cute" face.

I start to laugh and the memory of Dan playing "Concentration" with her comes to mind.

Please note that at the time of this little card game Melodie is @ 2-3. And Dan..... well,

He hadn't changed much in 18 months or so from the time this picture was taken.

But Melodie was a sharp little kid. AND SHE KNEW IT!

She keeps beating the ***p out of Dan. Dan, despite his youth, had a serious case of ICRS (I can't remember ***t) Which does not work well when you have to remember where the last card was and where it's match is.

And being the shy, retiring child that she was (and still is) she would say things like;
"Can't you remember anything, Uncle Dan?"
"How old ARE you, Uncle Dan?"

And other politically and socially correct things like that.

Dan got so frustrated. You could see it in his face. He couldn't yell at a little kid even if she was a smart-aleck.

Not when she made that face.

Thirty-five+ years later, she makes that face and I see him.

Yeah, that cute face

I see him laughing at his own frustration at being beat by an itty-bitty, smartypants kid. With a cute face.