pictures from Di

Hi, Mar: I first met your dad in 1966 two years before Kate was born. (It all seems like yesterday). I went to work at the Northeast Welfare Department and your dad was working there at the time. I think he'd started just before me. I can't remember when I first met him, or how. I know we all used to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee together in the staff lounge. It was a turbulent time, "welfare rights" were the thing then, and there were a few rebel rouseres, Hank Cetola, Richard Rachel, and another guy whose name I don't remember but I can see him in my mind's eye. I think your dad was sympathetic, but wasn't part of it because he was always such a family man, had a strong sense of responsibility to Julie then, and eventually to you kids. Dan was, the kind of guy any woman would like to be married to! I think all of us bugs, actually, felt that way about Dan, probably every woman who ever met him did, what a perfect husband he must be. We knew it because we saw it up close and personal with him and your mom.

Some of the things that have popped out in my mind the last few months:

When your dad went to school, Kate was about 8 months old. I returned to work ½ days (something considered "innovative and daring" at the time! Can you imagine? ). I needed a baby sitter. Your mom and dad desperately needed money while he was going to school. Your mom was perfect. It was a win win situation all around. I always felt she was Kate's second mother. She potty trained her you know. Do you remember all that time you two spent together as toddlers? I can't really remember when I got to know your dad well. I always knew your mom first.

At some point all of us became friends, your dad and mom, and Ran and I. Julie was in the SDSU baby sitting co-op, and introduced me to Goldie. She and Warren and the girls left for a sabbatical in Europe just before I had Ben. It was the baby sitting co-op that brought us all together then.

Your folks and Ran and I started doing things together. We'd get together ALL the time and play poker. It was HILARIOUS. I still think of those days as being some of my funniest. We'd play "no see um" poker, eat chips and drink beer like there was no tomorrow. We'd all hold a card on our heads and play poker on everyone else's cards but our own because we couldn't see them. I can remember laughing until my sides split. Those were also the BEST days of Saturday Night Live. We'd play poker, then stay up every Sat. until it was over and roar with laughter until we cried.

The most vivid memories of just your dad, though, were with him at DEAD shows........remember all the shows at the Greek Theater in Berkeley with Warren, your dad, and all the other Boskins, sometimes your mom would come too, but I always thought of me and Warrn and Dan as a musical trifecta! Especially the time we went to Las Vegas (photos added here). To save money I shared a room with your dad and Warren. I have absolutely no remembrance of the details, who slept where, etc., but it was one of the most memorable DEAD shows I have. Dave and I had your mom and dad come up for a show at the race track, Laguna Seca, one time here in Monterey too.

And then there were just all the times we all, the bug families, did stuff together. Endless birthday parties in "Hintzman Park"......the Thanksgivings out in the desert, birthdays, Christmases, all of it, all together. You kids growing up, the problems you had, the successes you had. We were all so worried about all of you at times. I shared all of all that with your folks.

It's all so mysterious this thing called life, how and why we connect with the people we do, and particularly the people we stay connected to for a long long time.

I've always thought of your folks as stanchions of marriage, the living proof that wedding vows..........for better or worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death stuff.......could actually be lived by two people. I was always always amazed by how they worked things out, stayed together for what has seemed like forever. I once sent them a Raymond Carver story entitled "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love". It's how I've thought of them through the years; they're what I think about when I think about love...............not just lust, and sex, and happiness forever after, but as two people who live those vows. I'm still amazed by them. I think I've hung around them so long because I thought some of that would rub off on me, that through them I'd learn how to be a good good wife/partner. I still don't quite know how they've done it.

Dave and I were looking at some photos a little earlier today, this silly little trailer thing your dad and mom went to look at with us last year or year before last. I've been wanting something like that so bad so I wouldn't have to deal with tents anymore, REALLY wanted a camper like Goldie and Warren and your Dad and Mom have. When we were looking at the photos of that little tent thing yesterday, your dad's leaving hit me again, like it has over and over and over these last few months that we won't have those days again, and it makes me so sad. I guess as much as anything I want to tell you and Danny and Kate and Ben, for all the trouble you might be having at any one time or another, just try to let it go, and somehow realize that this life is so incredibly short, that those wonderful special times are so fleeting, so special, but so brief so enjoy them to the limit while you have them.

Above all, though.........the camping trips that were so special, the DEAD shows, sharing music, talking about The Reader, playing poker, Saturday Night live, raising all you kids, picnics in the park, oh and the beach, God, how could I forget the endless weekends and summer days at the beach............. as much as any thing I think I'll always remember your dad calling all us girls "doll" "hi doll" "bye doll". That's been Dan's trademark with all us femals, something all of us, young and old, have loved him for I imagine. I will miss him more than I can tell you.................

Big love and hugs to all of you.

Di