This is the first Fathers Day of my life that I do not have a father.
My father, John Joseph "Jack" Dancoe, passed away unexpectedly on April 5, 2020.
Since then I've been working on a eulogy, which I've finally completed (link below).
I knew this would take a while, because I wanted to be very careful about it. It turned out a lot longer than I expected.
I didn't work to a schedule, and it's almost a coincidence that I'm publishing it today.
I finished writing it a couple weeks ago. Then I passed it by my sister and my uncle, mainly for fact checking. Next I wanted my mom to read it -- but unfortunately her eyesight is no longer up to the task.
Credit Laurel for thinking up the birthday present of audio books -- which Sue made happen by leveraging an obsolete cell phone. Since then Mom's been very much enjoying listening to what she can no longer read.
I realized there was no reason I couldn't narrate my eulogy for her benefit.
And then I realized maybe others would enjoy a podcast version as well.
So I spent some time figuring out how to make the recording, and then more time doing enough takes to get it right.
And then I realized there was no reason to make it voice-only, and a lot of reasons not to; visual content would help, and even mom would be able to see pictures well enough; it's just text that's the big problem for her.
As Fathers Day approached, I decided the day was a logical deadline.
It's been another all-nighter.
But here it is, the multi-media version (intended to be experienced with high quality audio/video), featuring one of the best songs you'll ever hear:
Fathers Day 2020
The text, if you prefer, is below.
My father taught me to ride motorcycles.
Nothing I could say about him is more significant in terms of his impact on my life.
This epiphany occurred while I was out riding for the first time in nearly two months.
For the first time since he’d passed.
It was also the first time I’d tried my Bose noise-cancelling earbuds with my newest helmet. I was frankly astonished by a successful first attempt at donning the snugly-fitting Schuberth without dislodging the buds from my ears.
Thus, that Sunday morning I found myself weaving and wending the curves of Milford Road, much of it recently resurfaced and butter-smooth, blissfully free of traffic, to the accompaniment of one of my very favorite songs: Short and Sweet from David Gilmour’s first solo album.
A reverie of my father coalesced.
I considered what I’d written a few months ago, in Nada One Year Forty, when I described my first BMW motorcycle as “The single best purchase I've ever made, by far. One of the most profoundly important decisions of my life.”
If what I’d written was truth, which of my father’s gifts could I consider more valuable than that he taught me to ride, and introduced me to BMW motorcycles?
* * *
I began this essay as a tribute to my father, John Joseph “Jack” Dancoe, who passed away at the age of 79 on Sunday, April 5, 2020.
But I see no way to keep it that narrowly focused.
As a reflection of his life seen through my eyes, this will be as much about me as about him.
I will surely get some things wrong, somewhere along a spectrum between misperception and poor recall.
I’ll almost certainly blend or misattribute the actions or words of both my parents, who worked as a selfless and effective team throughout my youth. They provided my sister and I with an upbringing I can’t easily imagine having been significantly richer.
Mom’s participation in my riding history must not be understated. Unlike so many moms, she always supported the sport. Our entire family rode motorcycles – dirt bikes and later street bikes – and it was mom who suggested names for my first three motorcycles: Grin, Sneer, and Smirk.
* * *
That recent Sunday ride was particularly pleasant.
I shouldn’t have done it.
Unless you’re a stuntman there’s no good time to crash a motorcycle. But this day would have been especially poor timing for such a thing, as southeast Michigan hospitals were then full of COVID-19 patients.
It was a selfish and entirely preventable hazard that might have resulted in a Very Bad Outcome.
It was in fact illegal.
* * *
Until this day Laurel and I had followed the spirit and letter of the COVID-19 Stay Home, Stay Safe executive order. Since the order was first issued, Laurel had left isolation only to make a single post-op medical appointment, and I’d only gone out to gather food and do far less walking than is healthy. For months prior Laurel had been almost entirely sequestered, during the time she was awaiting and later recovering from surgery. During much of that time I’d been largely cloistered with her, working from home (WFH) in order to be there to help her through what was a very painful and prolonged ordeal.
We’re very fortunate WFH has long been accepted and increasingly common practice at Plex Systems; relatively early in the pandemic response WFH became official company policy. As spring arrived, I elected not to ride my motorcycle even before the Stay Home order was issued because Laurel would not have been able to take care of herself were anything to happen to me.
By late April she’d recovered to a condition of basic self-reliance, and I decided to take the chance. I weighed the decision carefully because the consequences of a motorcycle accident, were one to occur, would be even more dire than usual. But based on a not inconsiderable degree of experience in the matter I judged the likelihood of mishap low. Significantly reduced traffic density would greatly diminish what is always the greatest threat. I exploited the rationale of keeping my riding skills honed, as failure to do so carries very real risks. I’d certainly maintain generous social distancing – as long as my combination of skill and luck held. On balance I judged it not unreasonable to go for a ride.
In that sense the ride was not unlike my last trip to Arizona in early March. I’d decided not to throw away my Delta ticket at the last minute despite COVID-19 emergence having by then made air travel a non-sanctioned business activity.
Had I not taken that flight I would have missed my last opportunity to be with my dad.
Had I not taken that Sunday ride I might have missed the inspiration to write this.
We have now arrived at what was, at one point, the beginning of this eulogy.
* * *
My earliest memory is of drowning.
I'd leapt from the end of a dock on some Michigan lake, found myself in over my head, and only then realized I'd arrogantly but incorrectly presumed swimming was something I'd instinctively be able to do.
Now I was looking at the beach, the trees beyond swaying in the breeze.
Some impossible distance away.
That view disappeared periodically as waves probably no more than three inches high submerged me, then rolled on, granting me a chance to flounder and gasp for breath before mercilessly drowning me again.
I was about to die.
Then I felt a strong hand grip my wrist and lift me bodily from the water.
I think it was dad but it might have been mom, who after all had been a lifeguard and swim instructor. I’ve no reason to think both my parents weren’t there, and both watching me with eagle eyes.
I was never in the slightest danger.
But it was just like both of my folks to give me that experience.
Letting me teach myself something very important.
* * *
The account of my first near-death experience seems an appropriate segue to the biggest of Big Questions.
The answer to which I know I don’t know.
I’m entirely comfortable with that.
And I’ll always be grateful to my parents for the degree to which they felt organized religion, or even the scripture of religion, should be important in our lives.
That degree was zero.
For most of my life, thanks to dad and mom, Sundays have been about riding motorcycles.
* * *
Despite all my grandparents having been religious, my nuclear family never attended church. I recall no discussions with my father on the subject, and I recall just one, at a fairly young age, with my mother. She succinctly explained there was no reason for anyone else to be involved in my personal relationship with god. She implied that nobody else even had the right to be involved.
But even then I doubted there was a god.
I am not an atheist. I have no proof that god does not exist.
All I have is doubt.
I’m fine with that.
Because one thing I have absolute faith in is that I’m not deluding myself.
* * *
My absence of belief in god cannot be equated with lack of moral or ethical standards.
My parents firmly instilled in me the importance of honesty and a sense of right and wrong, modelling by example. I was expected to behave in an ethical manner. My occasional failure to do so was the only reason either of them ever brought a hammer down.
I’ve never had any problem understanding ethical concepts. And I don’t do what I think is right because I expect posthumous reward. Nor is guilt of knowing I’ve done wrong based on the fear of punishment by some supernatural being.
My guts churn because I know it was wrong for me to have done it.
I’d like to think there’s an eternal afterlife, but I’ve no compelling reason to believe in it. Thus, because I assume every other person in the world has but one life to live, I assume nothing I’ve done wrong – nothing that’s caused another person harm – can ever truly be “forgiven”. Nothing I’ve done wrong can be considered trivial compared to an eternity of bliss, or an eternity of torment, that follows the end of earthly existence. If I’ve caused another person harm, it’s harmed the only set of experiences that person will enjoy during their ephemeral flicker of existence.
A right thing is a right thing.
A wrong thing is a wrong thing.
And yes, it’s sometimes difficult to know the difference, or to always do the right thing even when it’s clear.
That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant to try.
These are things I learned from my parents.
I don’t think they ever explained them in as many words.
They didn’t need to.
* * *
Only relatively recently did I realize the Boy Scout Law is a nearly infallible guide to doing the right thing. Any day I can honestly tell myself I violated none of the 12 Points is a day I can be confident I was a good person.
A Scout is:
Trustworthy.
Loyal.
Helpful.
Friendly.
Courteous.
Kind.
Obedient.
Cheerful.
Thrifty.
Brave.
Clean.
Reverent.
About that last….
Scouting is explicitly non-denominational.
Thus “Reverence” is not dependent on any specific religious belief.
“Reverence” is a personal and profound dedication to the concepts of fundamental importance to every Scout.
And for every Scout, those concepts will be different.
The differences are unimportant if the Scout is true to the other eleven points.
* * *
Something fundamentally important to me is that Earth is the only known abode of Life in the Universe and must be cherished and protected for that reason if for no other.
That said, I doubt Earth is unique. I suspect the Universe is awash with Life, though it may be almost exclusively microbial. But there’s as yet no proof of such galactic fecundity. And does it really matter, if the gulfs between the stars are as immutably profound as they appear, perhaps having never been travelled by any being larger than a seed blown on the stellar wind, to which a voyage of a million years at near absolute zero is no different than drifting to the nearest warm pool?
Irrespective of whether Earth is unique, a rare anomaly, or part of a rich tapestry of Life that spans the Universe, the Earth’s Biosphere is nonetheless a “godlike” being which I fully credit as being our Creator. It is this belief that allowed me to truthfully answer one specific question – for which an affirmative answer was obligatory – each of the innumerable times I was required to fill out yet another Scout leader application form.
This has been a particularly long-winded way, even by my standards, to say, “Thanks mom and dad, for being Scout leaders when I was growing up. Those experiences made me a better person, a better father, and a better Scout leader. The time I spent as a Scout leader during your grandson’s path from Wolf Cub to Eagle Scout is one of the very few aspects of my life that I treasure more than my experiences riding motorcycles. How lucky I am that I can look back on both.”
* * *
Another Big Question has to do with political beliefs.
Over the years dad and I ended up holding highly disparate views.
In early 2017 we discussed those differences in a short series of long letters. They were never acrimonious, but it quickly became very clear that neither of us was going to sway the other in any significant way.
Without ever saying it, we mutually agreed to avoid further discussion, and thus were able to maintain a loving relationship.
* * *
Earlier I wrote I had “an upbringing I can’t easily imagine having been significantly richer.”
That was not a reference to money.
We certainly weren’t poor, and because my parents were hard workers and good providers, we never wanted for the necessities. We even had enough to spare for luxuries like motorcycles. High-end motorcycles at that, though almost always purchased used.
But I was certainly raised in accordance with the 9th Point of the Scout Law, “Thrifty”. And I never had the impression that we were swimming in extra cash.
So I was always a bit surprised, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been, every time my parents managed to come up with the bucks to give me something really nice. In sixth grade when I tried out for band, I was really concerned about how much that trombone must have cost (little did I know they’d soon have to figure out how to pay for Sue’s saxophone). I practiced diligently every day, to ensure their investment would be worth it.
A few years later, when I was invited to travel to Europe for a month with the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Band, my initial reaction was that it was out of the question – how could our family possibly afford something like that?
But my folks encouraged me to sign up. They did what it took to make it happen, and to make it happen with a professional quality Yamaha horn that I still own and occasionally even play.
I’m glad to say I didn’t let them down, landing first chair in a section of nine – the position of which got me cropped out of the band’s brochure cover photo.
Those experiences were the foundation for a lifetime of musicianship that is another of those things I’d have traded motorcycling to get, but I’m glad I didn’t need to.
Thanks again, mom & dad.
* * *
When it was time to go to college, I was again sensitive to the family bankroll. We talked about schools like MIT but I couldn’t imagine us being able to afford such a thing. I did very well in college scholarship competitions, but not quite well enough; I applied for multiple grants, but we were just a bit too well-off to qualify. That pervasive 9th Point mentality ruled out even the consideration of taking out a student loan.
In the end the answer was easy and inexpensive: in-state tuition at Arizona State was cheaper than the low-end off-campus digs I shared with my friend Paul Chuey throughout my college terms.
Still, I needed to work a job because I was always reluctant to ask for help to make ends meet. By then my parents’ divorce had played havoc with the family finances.
But dad never once blinked those times I asked.
* * *
At a very early age I inherited dad’s love of reading.
At a much later age I’d acquire his notoriety for attending parties and quickly retreating to a comfortable corner with whatever seemed the most interesting item in the host’s library.
Dad’s library when I was young was full of science fiction, and nothing could – or should – capture a youngster’s imagination like stories from the future. I was raised on Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and the other grand masters of classic science fiction. It is impossible to overstate how important this was to my scholastic and professional success. Good reading skills are invaluable, and there’s nothing like rocket ships and ray guns to keep a boy turning pages. In my case this also spurred a talent for writing that has served me well in all aspects of my life. Not least, my compulsion to write has become an avocation through which I can reach out to family and friends in a unique and artistic way that I hope will be a lasting legacy.
Over and above those impacts was the effect science fiction had on my mind. The genre shaped my perspectives on life, the universe, and everything, in ways that reading westerns, fantasies, or cops & robbers would not have. Because of my familiarity with concepts that are the common stock of science fiction I’ve always been well-prepared for the changes that technology never stops making to the world I’ll be living in next.
A coincidence of timing meant that not only was I reading about rockets (sometimes in the time-honored tradition of under the covers with a flashlight) … I was watching them on television. Growing up with the space program lead to one of my most cherished memories of my father and I. It was late in the evening of July 20, 1969, as we sat eating popcorn and watching those ghostly images of the first men walking on the Moon. It was well past my bedtime but dad would never have let me miss it, any more than he’d have let me miss the pilot episode of Star Trek, or the debut of 2001: A Space Odyssey when it played at the Huron Theatre in Pontiac.
I’ve never been more profoundly moved than I was at that moment, not yet eight years old but completely aware of the literally astronomical odds against my bearing witness to the realization of dreams to which men had aspired for thousands of years.
* * *
My father was a master mechanic for my entire life.
At some point during my teen years, mom told me dad didn’t think I had any mechanical aptitude.
I was a bit taken aback by this, as I realized how much that must have meant to him.
But I understood why he might have that perspective. There was no question I liked riding dirt bikes way more than wrenching on them.
I took on a bigger share of maintenance and repair duties, but it was years before I really felt the inspiration needed to consider it enjoyable. That light bulb came on after I bought my first BMW motorcycle – something that might never have happened had dad not introduced me to the brand as I wrote of in Nada One Year Forty.
Today I smile knowing dad was indeed proud of the mechanical skills I eventually came to master.
* * *
If there was something dad did better than auto mechanics, it was scuba diving.
Inspired by the earliest work of Jacques Cousteau, dad was that crazy kid wrapping his long underwear in electrical tape and submerging himself in Cranberry Lake with cobbled together gear mail-ordered from pulp catalogs.
Later he had a side business, Oakland Divers, a consortium of scuba enthusiasts who’d offset the cost of their hobby by recovering items lost by boaters – which were sometimes the boats themselves – from the bottom of local lakes. He bought a gigantic air compressor that dominated our garage on Heights Road and he used it to fill about a dozen welding gas tanks with dive air. He’d installed the tanks into a trailer frame he could haul to a site and recharge scuba tanks all day. I’ve still got half a ream of Oakland Divers stationary somewhere.
After we moved to Arizona dad didn’t dive for many years. He and mom divorced. He met Cathy Getz, who has always been my son’s 3rd grandmother. At some point, dad and Cathy decided to start diving.
What followed was a phenomenal period of scuba diving during which dad and Cathy travelled to some of the most beautiful and amazing sites in the world. Dad bought only the very best of any gear he could imagine putting to use, which was all of it. He had a wet suit for nearly every occasion, and a dry suit for the rest. He qualified for NITROX and Cathy knows what else…
But the best of dad’s diving days, from my perspective, were trips to the Caribbean island of Curaçao.
Dad’s primary intention was to take his grandson on the dive adventure of a lifetime.
If I wanted to go along too, that was OK.
Dad sprung for J.R.’s dive certification training, over a year in advance of the 2005 trip. I got my own cert in the nick of time, and J.R. and I drove to Atlanta – a great father/son road trip I’ll remember most for when John spotted the defective “WAFFLE HO” sign in Ohio, and a spooky coincidence involving “5:15”.
We caught the plane for Curaçao and spent a week there.
Dad’s dive buddies were like, “I’ve dived all over the world and there’s no place better.”
Curaçao spoiled me for diving anywhere else.
On my first dive I reached the edge of the shelf and found myself surrounded by a school of fish wearing my favorite color scheme: iridescent sapphire blue with a black racing stripe.
Life just doesn’t get better.
Except it did, when we went back in 2007, joined by mom, Sue, and dad’s brother Jim.
This is a very good place to stop.
John Perry Dancoe
Lake Orion, Michigan
June 19, 2020
Nothing I could say about him is more significant in terms of his impact on my life.
This epiphany occurred while I was out riding for the first time in nearly two months.
For the first time since he’d passed.
It was also the first time I’d tried my Bose noise-cancelling earbuds with my newest helmet. I was frankly astonished by a successful first attempt at donning the snugly-fitting Schuberth without dislodging the buds from my ears.
Thus, that Sunday morning I found myself weaving and wending the curves of Milford Road, much of it recently resurfaced and butter-smooth, blissfully free of traffic, to the accompaniment of one of my very favorite songs: Short and Sweet from David Gilmour’s first solo album.
A reverie of my father coalesced.
I considered what I’d written a few months ago, in Nada One Year Forty, when I described my first BMW motorcycle as “The single best purchase I've ever made, by far. One of the most profoundly important decisions of my life.”
If what I’d written was truth, which of my father’s gifts could I consider more valuable than that he taught me to ride, and introduced me to BMW motorcycles?
* * *
I began this essay as a tribute to my father, John Joseph “Jack” Dancoe, who passed away at the age of 79 on Sunday, April 5, 2020.
But I see no way to keep it that narrowly focused.
As a reflection of his life seen through my eyes, this will be as much about me as about him.
I will surely get some things wrong, somewhere along a spectrum between misperception and poor recall.
I’ll almost certainly blend or misattribute the actions or words of both my parents, who worked as a selfless and effective team throughout my youth. They provided my sister and I with an upbringing I can’t easily imagine having been significantly richer.
Mom’s participation in my riding history must not be understated. Unlike so many moms, she always supported the sport. Our entire family rode motorcycles – dirt bikes and later street bikes – and it was mom who suggested names for my first three motorcycles: Grin, Sneer, and Smirk.
* * *
That recent Sunday ride was particularly pleasant.
I shouldn’t have done it.
Unless you’re a stuntman there’s no good time to crash a motorcycle. But this day would have been especially poor timing for such a thing, as southeast Michigan hospitals were then full of COVID-19 patients.
It was a selfish and entirely preventable hazard that might have resulted in a Very Bad Outcome.
It was in fact illegal.
* * *
Until this day Laurel and I had followed the spirit and letter of the COVID-19 Stay Home, Stay Safe executive order. Since the order was first issued, Laurel had left isolation only to make a single post-op medical appointment, and I’d only gone out to gather food and do far less walking than is healthy. For months prior Laurel had been almost entirely sequestered, during the time she was awaiting and later recovering from surgery. During much of that time I’d been largely cloistered with her, working from home (WFH) in order to be there to help her through what was a very painful and prolonged ordeal.
We’re very fortunate WFH has long been accepted and increasingly common practice at Plex Systems; relatively early in the pandemic response WFH became official company policy. As spring arrived, I elected not to ride my motorcycle even before the Stay Home order was issued because Laurel would not have been able to take care of herself were anything to happen to me.
By late April she’d recovered to a condition of basic self-reliance, and I decided to take the chance. I weighed the decision carefully because the consequences of a motorcycle accident, were one to occur, would be even more dire than usual. But based on a not inconsiderable degree of experience in the matter I judged the likelihood of mishap low. Significantly reduced traffic density would greatly diminish what is always the greatest threat. I exploited the rationale of keeping my riding skills honed, as failure to do so carries very real risks. I’d certainly maintain generous social distancing – as long as my combination of skill and luck held. On balance I judged it not unreasonable to go for a ride.
In that sense the ride was not unlike my last trip to Arizona in early March. I’d decided not to throw away my Delta ticket at the last minute despite COVID-19 emergence having by then made air travel a non-sanctioned business activity.
Had I not taken that flight I would have missed my last opportunity to be with my dad.
Had I not taken that Sunday ride I might have missed the inspiration to write this.
We have now arrived at what was, at one point, the beginning of this eulogy.
* * *
My earliest memory is of drowning.
I'd leapt from the end of a dock on some Michigan lake, found myself in over my head, and only then realized I'd arrogantly but incorrectly presumed swimming was something I'd instinctively be able to do.
Now I was looking at the beach, the trees beyond swaying in the breeze.
Some impossible distance away.
That view disappeared periodically as waves probably no more than three inches high submerged me, then rolled on, granting me a chance to flounder and gasp for breath before mercilessly drowning me again.
I was about to die.
Then I felt a strong hand grip my wrist and lift me bodily from the water.
I think it was dad but it might have been mom, who after all had been a lifeguard and swim instructor. I’ve no reason to think both my parents weren’t there, and both watching me with eagle eyes.
I was never in the slightest danger.
But it was just like both of my folks to give me that experience.
Letting me teach myself something very important.
* * *
The account of my first near-death experience seems an appropriate segue to the biggest of Big Questions.
The answer to which I know I don’t know.
I’m entirely comfortable with that.
And I’ll always be grateful to my parents for the degree to which they felt organized religion, or even the scripture of religion, should be important in our lives.
That degree was zero.
For most of my life, thanks to dad and mom, Sundays have been about riding motorcycles.
* * *
Despite all my grandparents having been religious, my nuclear family never attended church. I recall no discussions with my father on the subject, and I recall just one, at a fairly young age, with my mother. She succinctly explained there was no reason for anyone else to be involved in my personal relationship with god. She implied that nobody else even had the right to be involved.
But even then I doubted there was a god.
I am not an atheist. I have no proof that god does not exist.
All I have is doubt.
I’m fine with that.
Because one thing I have absolute faith in is that I’m not deluding myself.
* * *
My absence of belief in god cannot be equated with lack of moral or ethical standards.
My parents firmly instilled in me the importance of honesty and a sense of right and wrong, modelling by example. I was expected to behave in an ethical manner. My occasional failure to do so was the only reason either of them ever brought a hammer down.
I’ve never had any problem understanding ethical concepts. And I don’t do what I think is right because I expect posthumous reward. Nor is guilt of knowing I’ve done wrong based on the fear of punishment by some supernatural being.
My guts churn because I know it was wrong for me to have done it.
I’d like to think there’s an eternal afterlife, but I’ve no compelling reason to believe in it. Thus, because I assume every other person in the world has but one life to live, I assume nothing I’ve done wrong – nothing that’s caused another person harm – can ever truly be “forgiven”. Nothing I’ve done wrong can be considered trivial compared to an eternity of bliss, or an eternity of torment, that follows the end of earthly existence. If I’ve caused another person harm, it’s harmed the only set of experiences that person will enjoy during their ephemeral flicker of existence.
A right thing is a right thing.
A wrong thing is a wrong thing.
And yes, it’s sometimes difficult to know the difference, or to always do the right thing even when it’s clear.
That doesn’t mean it’s unimportant to try.
These are things I learned from my parents.
I don’t think they ever explained them in as many words.
They didn’t need to.
* * *
Only relatively recently did I realize the Boy Scout Law is a nearly infallible guide to doing the right thing. Any day I can honestly tell myself I violated none of the 12 Points is a day I can be confident I was a good person.
A Scout is:
Trustworthy.
Loyal.
Helpful.
Friendly.
Courteous.
Kind.
Obedient.
Cheerful.
Thrifty.
Brave.
Clean.
Reverent.
About that last….
Scouting is explicitly non-denominational.
Thus “Reverence” is not dependent on any specific religious belief.
“Reverence” is a personal and profound dedication to the concepts of fundamental importance to every Scout.
And for every Scout, those concepts will be different.
The differences are unimportant if the Scout is true to the other eleven points.
* * *
Something fundamentally important to me is that Earth is the only known abode of Life in the Universe and must be cherished and protected for that reason if for no other.
That said, I doubt Earth is unique. I suspect the Universe is awash with Life, though it may be almost exclusively microbial. But there’s as yet no proof of such galactic fecundity. And does it really matter, if the gulfs between the stars are as immutably profound as they appear, perhaps having never been travelled by any being larger than a seed blown on the stellar wind, to which a voyage of a million years at near absolute zero is no different than drifting to the nearest warm pool?
Irrespective of whether Earth is unique, a rare anomaly, or part of a rich tapestry of Life that spans the Universe, the Earth’s Biosphere is nonetheless a “godlike” being which I fully credit as being our Creator. It is this belief that allowed me to truthfully answer one specific question – for which an affirmative answer was obligatory – each of the innumerable times I was required to fill out yet another Scout leader application form.
This has been a particularly long-winded way, even by my standards, to say, “Thanks mom and dad, for being Scout leaders when I was growing up. Those experiences made me a better person, a better father, and a better Scout leader. The time I spent as a Scout leader during your grandson’s path from Wolf Cub to Eagle Scout is one of the very few aspects of my life that I treasure more than my experiences riding motorcycles. How lucky I am that I can look back on both.”
* * *
Another Big Question has to do with political beliefs.
Over the years dad and I ended up holding highly disparate views.
In early 2017 we discussed those differences in a short series of long letters. They were never acrimonious, but it quickly became very clear that neither of us was going to sway the other in any significant way.
Without ever saying it, we mutually agreed to avoid further discussion, and thus were able to maintain a loving relationship.
* * *
Earlier I wrote I had “an upbringing I can’t easily imagine having been significantly richer.”
That was not a reference to money.
We certainly weren’t poor, and because my parents were hard workers and good providers, we never wanted for the necessities. We even had enough to spare for luxuries like motorcycles. High-end motorcycles at that, though almost always purchased used.
But I was certainly raised in accordance with the 9th Point of the Scout Law, “Thrifty”. And I never had the impression that we were swimming in extra cash.
So I was always a bit surprised, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been, every time my parents managed to come up with the bucks to give me something really nice. In sixth grade when I tried out for band, I was really concerned about how much that trombone must have cost (little did I know they’d soon have to figure out how to pay for Sue’s saxophone). I practiced diligently every day, to ensure their investment would be worth it.
A few years later, when I was invited to travel to Europe for a month with the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Band, my initial reaction was that it was out of the question – how could our family possibly afford something like that?
But my folks encouraged me to sign up. They did what it took to make it happen, and to make it happen with a professional quality Yamaha horn that I still own and occasionally even play.
I’m glad to say I didn’t let them down, landing first chair in a section of nine – the position of which got me cropped out of the band’s brochure cover photo.
Those experiences were the foundation for a lifetime of musicianship that is another of those things I’d have traded motorcycling to get, but I’m glad I didn’t need to.
Thanks again, mom & dad.
* * *
When it was time to go to college, I was again sensitive to the family bankroll. We talked about schools like MIT but I couldn’t imagine us being able to afford such a thing. I did very well in college scholarship competitions, but not quite well enough; I applied for multiple grants, but we were just a bit too well-off to qualify. That pervasive 9th Point mentality ruled out even the consideration of taking out a student loan.
In the end the answer was easy and inexpensive: in-state tuition at Arizona State was cheaper than the low-end off-campus digs I shared with my friend Paul Chuey throughout my college terms.
Still, I needed to work a job because I was always reluctant to ask for help to make ends meet. By then my parents’ divorce had played havoc with the family finances.
But dad never once blinked those times I asked.
* * *
At a very early age I inherited dad’s love of reading.
At a much later age I’d acquire his notoriety for attending parties and quickly retreating to a comfortable corner with whatever seemed the most interesting item in the host’s library.
Dad’s library when I was young was full of science fiction, and nothing could – or should – capture a youngster’s imagination like stories from the future. I was raised on Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and the other grand masters of classic science fiction. It is impossible to overstate how important this was to my scholastic and professional success. Good reading skills are invaluable, and there’s nothing like rocket ships and ray guns to keep a boy turning pages. In my case this also spurred a talent for writing that has served me well in all aspects of my life. Not least, my compulsion to write has become an avocation through which I can reach out to family and friends in a unique and artistic way that I hope will be a lasting legacy.
Over and above those impacts was the effect science fiction had on my mind. The genre shaped my perspectives on life, the universe, and everything, in ways that reading westerns, fantasies, or cops & robbers would not have. Because of my familiarity with concepts that are the common stock of science fiction I’ve always been well-prepared for the changes that technology never stops making to the world I’ll be living in next.
A coincidence of timing meant that not only was I reading about rockets (sometimes in the time-honored tradition of under the covers with a flashlight) … I was watching them on television. Growing up with the space program lead to one of my most cherished memories of my father and I. It was late in the evening of July 20, 1969, as we sat eating popcorn and watching those ghostly images of the first men walking on the Moon. It was well past my bedtime but dad would never have let me miss it, any more than he’d have let me miss the pilot episode of Star Trek, or the debut of 2001: A Space Odyssey when it played at the Huron Theatre in Pontiac.
I’ve never been more profoundly moved than I was at that moment, not yet eight years old but completely aware of the literally astronomical odds against my bearing witness to the realization of dreams to which men had aspired for thousands of years.
* * *
My father was a master mechanic for my entire life.
At some point during my teen years, mom told me dad didn’t think I had any mechanical aptitude.
I was a bit taken aback by this, as I realized how much that must have meant to him.
But I understood why he might have that perspective. There was no question I liked riding dirt bikes way more than wrenching on them.
I took on a bigger share of maintenance and repair duties, but it was years before I really felt the inspiration needed to consider it enjoyable. That light bulb came on after I bought my first BMW motorcycle – something that might never have happened had dad not introduced me to the brand as I wrote of in Nada One Year Forty.
Today I smile knowing dad was indeed proud of the mechanical skills I eventually came to master.
* * *
If there was something dad did better than auto mechanics, it was scuba diving.
Inspired by the earliest work of Jacques Cousteau, dad was that crazy kid wrapping his long underwear in electrical tape and submerging himself in Cranberry Lake with cobbled together gear mail-ordered from pulp catalogs.
Later he had a side business, Oakland Divers, a consortium of scuba enthusiasts who’d offset the cost of their hobby by recovering items lost by boaters – which were sometimes the boats themselves – from the bottom of local lakes. He bought a gigantic air compressor that dominated our garage on Heights Road and he used it to fill about a dozen welding gas tanks with dive air. He’d installed the tanks into a trailer frame he could haul to a site and recharge scuba tanks all day. I’ve still got half a ream of Oakland Divers stationary somewhere.
After we moved to Arizona dad didn’t dive for many years. He and mom divorced. He met Cathy Getz, who has always been my son’s 3rd grandmother. At some point, dad and Cathy decided to start diving.
What followed was a phenomenal period of scuba diving during which dad and Cathy travelled to some of the most beautiful and amazing sites in the world. Dad bought only the very best of any gear he could imagine putting to use, which was all of it. He had a wet suit for nearly every occasion, and a dry suit for the rest. He qualified for NITROX and Cathy knows what else…
But the best of dad’s diving days, from my perspective, were trips to the Caribbean island of Curaçao.
Dad’s primary intention was to take his grandson on the dive adventure of a lifetime.
If I wanted to go along too, that was OK.
Dad sprung for J.R.’s dive certification training, over a year in advance of the 2005 trip. I got my own cert in the nick of time, and J.R. and I drove to Atlanta – a great father/son road trip I’ll remember most for when John spotted the defective “WAFFLE HO” sign in Ohio, and a spooky coincidence involving “5:15”.
We caught the plane for Curaçao and spent a week there.
Dad’s dive buddies were like, “I’ve dived all over the world and there’s no place better.”
Curaçao spoiled me for diving anywhere else.
On my first dive I reached the edge of the shelf and found myself surrounded by a school of fish wearing my favorite color scheme: iridescent sapphire blue with a black racing stripe.
Life just doesn’t get better.
Except it did, when we went back in 2007, joined by mom, Sue, and dad’s brother Jim.
This is a very good place to stop.
John Perry Dancoe
Lake Orion, Michigan
June 19, 2020
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