As I have been reading all the nice things that people have been saying about my dear brother, I have been trying to figure out a way to put something into words about how I feel about Dan. All of the talk about Dan being such a mentor really hits home with me. I guess I was Dan’s first attempt at mentoring someone. I don’t remember it, but my Mom and Dad tell me that when I was almost 2 years old, and hadn’t really started talking yet, they began to worry. Very soon, I started talking in complete sentences. It seems that the reason I hadn’t talked before was that Dan was doing all of my talking for me. We had that kind of relationship for a number of years. Dan lead, and I followed, except when I went way out on a limb that he didn’t think would hold me, which was very seldom. I recall having occasion to feel a bit jealous in high school, because I thought that my name might need to be legally changed to “Dan Mayo’s Little Brother”, but I got over that, and decided that that name was a pretty good fit, and as Sheriff Bart said in “Blazing Saddles”, “when I establish myself, ‘Deputy Spade’ might turn out to be a pretty groovy position.” There were lots and lots of fun, interesting situations that Dan and I got into. I remember shortly after we moved from Webster Groves to Fairway, Ks, and were attending Shawnee Mission North high school, that we had to wait in a room at school for the bus to pick us up in the afternoon. Dan got tired of standing and just sat down on the floor. I and a bunch of people followed suit, and before we knew it, the Vice Principle was standing there telling us the Police were on the way and that he was not going to permit any sit-ins at his school. Dan told him that the only thing that was going to break up the sit-in was the arrival of the busses, and that there was nothing to get so upset about. As some of you may remember, Dan’s battle of wits with the school administration took a number of turns, but I feel like he won it in the end. You might also notice his picture in the 1970 year book, with his note about what is important in high school. He is sitting on the grass by a tree. Looks just about how he looked at the “sit-in”. Never trust a prankster.Looking back on it, I feel sure that Dan was born to be a pyro-technician. He taught me how to make smoke bombs out of kitchen matches and tar off the street, and how to do some other amazing things with lighter fluid and various other materials. Later in life, I noticed a gleam in his eye when he told me about using flame projectors, mortars and devices that could throw confetti (and cheese puffs, apparently) 4 or 5 stories into the air. Young Dan was also the first person in our family, to my knowledge, to find out first hand, why you don’t put old shaving cream cans in the trash fire.
When we were in junior high school, Dan moved downstairs into the finished basement of our house in Webster. He started painting murals on the walls. It was typical of life around our house. Dad and I painted the walls yellow, and Dan made giant art out of them. At the base of the stairs, he had a 6x6 foot picture of Frank Zappa’s face. Another larger wall had the caterpillar from “Alice in Wonderland”. Dan painted nearly every piece of furniture he had. I think he looked at just about every object that he saw as a potential piece of art. Later, he started a project with the unlikely name of “Aunt Rosie’s Garage” which did surreal lighting behind bands. I got to work with / for him in that endeavor for a while, and Dan just loved doing the lighting. He was in high school, and already had an entire car full of “lighting instruments” such as slide projectors, overhead projectors, filters, gels and all kinds of stuff that produced effects that nobody else was able to figure out. We had to do the first few shows for free, but pretty soon, word got around and we started making money doing art. Well, Dan did art. I just puttzed around and adjusted as I was told to. But I still enjoyed doing it.
Dan and I both went to KU, but he managed to stay for the full degree, while I bailed out after one semester. I went to computer school, got a job, and after Dan got done at school, we moved into an apartment together for a while with one of his buddies. Again Dan was very patient with me. He took care of me when I had a bit too much to drink, and even reacted relatively calmly when I accidentally shot off a few bottle rockets in the living room. As I recall, the only comment he made about that was that he now understood fully why they required a license to shoot those things off professionally. I think Dan was also the one who had to explain to our downstairs neighbors why they had water running out of their ceiling light when I was testing out my new SCUBA wet suit in the shower and got a little water outside the tub.
When I got married, Dan was Best Man in my wedding. That wasn’t just because he was my big brother. It was because he was my trusted friend and, well, the best man I could think of for the job. He did a couple of things for the rehearsal and wedding that really impressed the bridal party, such as showing up at the rehearsal dinner with yellow roses for each of the ladies. He took the job seriously, just like he did almost every job he ever agreed to do, and made sure that everything went smoothly.
Dan and I still have a lot in common, as well as a lot of differences. We both love humor, in just about any form, and sometimes we find the tasteless stuff the funniest. A lot of times when we got together with the folks, we had pun wars at the dinner table. We also all knew lots and lots of classic jokes, and all we had to do was mention a few words from the punch line Dan memorized most of “Blazing Saddles” and “Monty Python in Search of the Holy Grail”. I’m still not sure what we should put on his tombstone. He mentioned in a recent email that “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” would be appropriate. He has also mentioned other witty things that might work for him, such as “It’s just a flesh wound, I’ve had worse”. I really do think that Dan would want something that would make strangers that happened to see it laugh out loud, but we will have to see. I will surely miss Dan, but I probably got Danny-ized more than just about anybody else, so I have lots and lots of good memories of Dan to bring to mind to help make it all better. Besides, when I get to heaven, I won’t be at all surprised if I see Dan step up to me and say, “Okay Bub. Here’s how it works up here…”
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