covid notes 44

On August 29, at happy hour, Tim left Martini Lounge, probably to make dinner, and I began scrolling through my Facebook feed and suddenly saw a post from Julie, announcing that she was devastated, that Dave (her husband) had died in his sleep of a heart attack. This was completely unexpected. (He would have turned 59 next week.)

 

Last year, on Route 153 in one of my quarterly reports, I told you the story of the whip-poor-will I got to hear, the one that always landed on Chuck’s roof. I was in town for my college reunion, but a couple of my dearest friends had been in the class ahead of me and still lived in the area, and there was one from my class who wasn’t going to reunion stuff, so I’d asked Chuck to host them all at his house, which he kindly did: Marty, Dave, and Heidi.

 

At the last minute, Julie didn’t come along, but Dave brought his daughter Maggie, who was awesome and funny, early 20s. He also brought me a half-pint of maple syrup produced at our college’s field station. Chuck runs the field station, and each year, Dave is one of the head honchos of the sugaring. This has been true since they were freshmen in college in 1979. Sugaring with them during college—and a few times after—is a great memory for me. (See also the ghost story from our scary stuff month. And this poem.)

 

There was a little laughter about coals to Newcastle when he handed a now-Vermonter some syrup, but I was thrilled.

 

The morning of August 29, Tim and I finished up refrigerated syrup in a glass container I wanted to keep. I cleaned it out and took it downstairs to store until I needed it again. There were some empty syrup containers on the shelf: a couple I’d saved in case I wanted to break down a gallon and give some away and the empty half-pint Dave gave me. I decided I’d go ahead and recycle most of these empties, but when I picked up Dave’s and saw the logo and thought of that night and his sweet gift, I put it back on the shelf.

 

Which must have been right about the time—or right after—that Julie discovered that Dave wasn’t going to wake up.

 

That night, I spent some time on the phone with an old college friend. He was a 9/11 first responder who has been losing fellow responders regularly for years, and more and more during this covid-19 crisis. Everyone’s lungs are shot.

 

We talked about the frustrations of not being able to mourn properly.

 

Dave deserves a big sendoff.

 

This is what I said about him in our original 365 project:

 

72/365 A Third Dave

He was the part of martychuckanddave I knew the least, despite being around him so much: the notmyboyfriend, notmybestfriend one. Now I suspect he was the most like me, but in ways that kept us slightly distant then. I almost miss him the most.

 

Because Cedar Waxwing is from Elgin, I should note this: Chuck was from Elgin, and after Chuck and Dave graduated, they both moved there and got jobs at American Can while they were figuring stuff out. I moved to Elgin the year after that as a volunteer for a church-related organization, so I got to hang out with them again. Dave used to give me rides on his motorcycle, which was, frankly, awesome. Julie also grew up in Elgin, and she and Dave got together while he lived there. When they got married, they moved to Pennsylvania. (Chuck and Julie and all their many siblings graduated from the same high school as Cedar Waxwing.)

 

Eventually, Julie got the obituary up, which I’ll quote in part here:

 

Most recently he worked in information technology at Penn State University. But his TRUE love was making maple syrup at J—C—’s Field Station on Raystown Lake each spring, where he took charge of the sugar shack, working with close friend and field station director Charles Y—. David was known to his friends for three things: 1. building fires, 2. making maple syrup, and 3. building fires. Fires are mentioned twice because as his friends will say, that man knew how to build a fire!

 

He did indeed. Should we ever have a proper sendoff, there will likely be a big bonfire involved—but it won’t be as good as one he would build himself.