Dan Clarke: 1942–2024
Daniel Clarke – at various times “Grandpa Dan” and, if I’m really reaching back, “Grampy” – has passed away. As my Dad said, “end of an era” – I would say so, too. A couple weeks shy of 82 and with more escapades than could fill a book, he lived a big life, and the world is that much smaller with its extinguishment.
For years, I have wondered how I would mark this occasion. My grandfather was a complex man with a complicated history, and while I certainly don’t agree with the general sentiment of whitewashing the dead in the immediate aftermath of their passing, I don’t know that anyone is done a great service by re-litigating past skirmishes. Instead, I’d like to spend some time on the things that made him admirable and the things I loved him for.
Grandpa Dan was, in the best sense of these words, a Jeffersonian, a renaissance man, and an autodidact. His was the kind of life borne out of a very specific period of American history – largely postwar but young enough to have lived through a part of it; coming of age in the early 60s, a continuation of the 50s as compared to its latter half; growing up in the midwest but moving to the northeast; influenced by the guitar mavens of the day; at various times a hippie, coldly realist, absurdist, a businessman, a ne’er-do-well, and always creating. He had some formal education, but he largely built the world around him, learning to fix just about everything that needed fixing, or getting a very good grasp on it before finally, begrudgingly, turning to someone else to handle the task – not as good as he could’ve done if he knew how to do it, of course. From the house he designed and built, to the nonstop rotation of cars he was shepherding from the junk-heap to road-ready, to the small sailboat he bought cheap and turned into a fine ship, he had a fascination with mechanics and the way things worked. I have never yet met a single individual whose knowledge about widely varying subjects is more vast and deep than his.
Up to this point, any reasonable reader would take him to be a mechanic, but he was in fact an artist. He taught guitar for many years, and played for many more, primarily jazz; he passed this on to my father and to me. He loved Ives and Mingus. He painted beautifully, and could draw just as well. Both of the houses he lived in during my life were artful constructions – architecturally sound in repair (for the first) and construction (for the second), but also designed and adorned in a creative way, from careful paint choices to intricate cornices. He used to build and paint theatrical sets. He was widely read, from the great works of fiction, to history and politics, to science, to endless technical manuals. He is a hard person to conjure by today’s standards, a person with an endless quest for knowledge and who took great joy in engaging with people and things, coupled with a unique temperament that suggested he would be fine simply sipping a cup of coffee and watching the stream go by without yearning for anything.
In affect, Grandpa Dan was entirely one-of-a-kind. He was deeply engaged in conversation, and was the sort of person who would only ask “how are you?” if he wanted to hear the full and complete answer — never as a pleasantry. Though he didn’t always betray it, he was deeply empathetic and clearly cared for and about many things. He hated small talk, and you could always tell he was eager to get on to headier topics, not outwardly ecstatic but from a lifelong sense of curiosity. He was always honest, had no trouble telling you what he thought, and had absolutely zero tolerance for bullshit – not in the fashionable I-say-whatever-I’m-thinking way, but from a strong conviction in what he was saying and a belief that you shouldn’t equivocate or lie, even if it were a white lie. He had no problem going to a concert and, when you asked what he thought at the end, saying “I didn’t like it” – not with malice or to be contrarian (though he could be contrarian), but because you asked. He was utterly allergic to unfairness and the idea that he, or anyone else, was getting ripped off. He also loved to rile people up, and would frequently say things at our family gatherings just because he knew it would get a rise out of people. (I think, as with other aspects of his life, he was just interested in testing the limits; others were not as forgiving, though with many more decades of experience to justify their misgivings.)
We would have hours-long conversations, ranging across the globe and throughout time, often carrying the feeling of a long, ongoing conversation that existed before us and would continue after us, and that we were simply dipping in to for the time allotted. He was always very curious about me – what I was up to, how I was thinking, how these things had changed over time.
I think that Grandpa Dan saw, in me, a chance to do things better than he had done with my father – a little kinder, a little more interested, a little less harsh. There’s a level of healthy detachment between a grandfather and grandson that allows for this, where parenthood sometimes does not. Even during my early childhood, he still had many of the vestiges of anger and impatience that plagued those who knew him earlier in life. After his quadruple bypass, the second major cardiac event of his life, it was truly as though a cloud had lifted. He was still the same fundamental person with the same fundamental human flaws, of which we each carry our own unique flavour; but he was somehow lighter, more eager to make jokes, more curious, interested in taking more time with people. Our relationship was never the same, in the best possible way, and I’m so grateful to have had that time with him.
When they installed a pig valve, I believe as part of the bypass (I am clearly a doctor), they told him he would get eight years out of it and then they would likely need to either replace it or, more likely, that would be the end for him. He got nearly twenty years. He often seemed like he was on borrowed time, remarking “I’m here!” when I would ask him how he felt about his age. Grandparents seem eternal – they were old when we were young, and are still old when we’re grown up. About him, I always felt both ways: it seemed like he would be around forever, while simultaneously it was a pleasant surprise that he was still around every time we got together.
In an ending that only the Greeks could’ve constructed, his hamartia finally caught up with him. Decades ago, he had a heart attack getting frustrated trying to fix his car. Yesterday, heading to the garage to get an estimate on something he couldn’t fix, his truck broke down on the side of the road. Only the sky knows exactly what happened, but it seems that he got the truck running again and, overly frustrated, had a heart attack while driving, crossed the middle line, and ended up in a ditch. Grandpa Dan, his cars, and his temper. Were there an afterlife, I am absolutely positive he would be there, shaking his head and laughing himself silly.
I will miss him more than I can say.
11/23/2024
