But there is no immortality!
"There is no immortality and therefore death for us is not an evil, it simply does not concern us.
While we live, there is no death.
When we die, we simply cease to exist."
-Epicries
Memories of Dillon Crandall
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Dillon's Writings
To my friends and just the idle curious;
As you may know, I had been seeing lots of head doctors lately as they were trying to discover what was going wrong up there, both mentally and physically. I’m sure that you have shared their puzzlement and quest. The good news appears to be that I wasn’t crazy after all, just diseased, which may be better in the long run. We all know we are going to die, just not when or of what . . . I had pretty good information on my demise and as they say it will clear your mind and focus your attention.
The above process is valuable and good in that it helped me understand how I got to this point, 60 years after birth, that most can’t comprehend and only a few admire. We are all the sum of our beginnings, our experiences and the people we meet.
I feel that I have been blessed in all of these, including my origins which include genetics and family. I was given a fine body and mind by my parents and they didn’t stop there. My Dad was patient and loving, I could tell he was proud of me and devoted attention and training on me even though I suspected he liked my brother a little more. My Dad kissed me goodnight every day of my life we were together, even if we had disagreed over something. He died 30 years ago and I never got over it.
My mom would take me to her room at night and read to me until I could read back, no Romper Room then. She taught me to cook and sew and gave me a strong moral foundation. Mom and I took a little longer to reach accommodation because of my strong will and need to think independently. I always loved her and knew she loved me, but the big day was sometime in my twenties she sent a wall trivet with Thoreau’s ‘different drummer’ on it. I have carried it with me everywhere since and will take it to my grave. She was my first ‘convert’.
I love my sister and brother and know they love me, we just don’t say it enough . . . why is that? I am proud of them both and what they have done with their lives, raising six fine men between them so I didn’t have to. I tried to help Mardi when we were younger and Jim never seemed to need help unless it was emotional. Sorry if I wasn’t there for either of you when you needed me.
I know many people think I didn’t appreciate Shirley enough and that would be wrong. I knew her before all of you and I saw the diamond in the rough. She and I come from different backgrounds and families which might explain much of the conflict. As you may know I am an obsessive perfectionist that can’t keep his mouth shut when something doesn’t fit my world view. My deepest apologizes to you, my love, for all the times I’ve hurt you. However, I would like to believe it was never on purpose. The few times I thought of leaving you were only because I didn’t want to hurt you further.
My experiences cover the world and run from sky diving to sky spying. Did I mention I spent three years working in England, Sam? Lived in Wimbledon and spoke the language. They liked me and I loved them. I have driven a Corvette all over Europe from Norway to Spain including a lap on the track at La Mans, skied in five countries and all over the US. I even won a silver medal in Switzerland for Giant Slalom. Raced dirt bikes, toured on sport bikes, went to Sturgis with my brother. I was on the launch team for the Hubble space Telescope, spending six months it KSC in Florida, a major honor for me. That was followed by ten years of processing satellite images for the government on the east coast, from the Pentagon to CIA headquarters and places that ‘don’t exist”. Came back here and became a contented handyman, (kind of like Herman Hess’s Siddhartha). Can’t leave out seven years in the US Navy where I learned a trade and saw the world.
Oh, the richness of my acquaintances. Everyone says that they are blessed, but I can prove it. I have lived next to a little old lady baking tortillas on a rock in her yard and next to the BBC reporter for Parliament. I have shared a bed and food with a Navaho American in the Philippines and an Australian castle with the president of the Bank of New Zealand. In fact, the only ethnic group I never got on well with was Arabs and that doesn’t make me all bad. (And yes, Elkers, I do have a black nephew and daughter.)
Old and new, Jack Manska is my oldest closest best friend for 25 years and Dave Fogleman the newest for under 5 and they both knew each other before they knew me. I love them both and am proud to say it. Once you start down the road of naming names you risk leaving out someone. You know who you are, Mike Mirda, Robert Aldad, Brian O’Relly, Ron Noero, Craig Schothather and the special woman Lynn, Lisa, Vicki and my sister-in-law Nancy.
I couldn’t leave out Pittsburg and the fine people we have found here. Just let me say: I was born in Colorado, raised in Kansas, came to California at the age of 22; have lived in southern and northern parts of state including SF; spent most of 4 years in Asia, another year in Georgia and Florida, 3 years in London, ten years in Virginia including 18 months on the boat in Virginia Beach, everywhere in the Bay Area except south bay . . . and I liked it best here. Sure location and climate, but mostly the people. You show me you care about us and you are really interested in who we are. Thank you all!
Epitaph
He didn’t much care for the world he found himself in from birth. He didn’t fit in and couldn’t understand how and what others saw at so differently.
He made the best of the world and tried to make his peace and accept others.
Sometimes, he even made his little corner a little better for someone by helping or understanding (when he wasn’t asking them why they hadn’t already done it).
Sum it up; an oddball that didn’t go too crazy.
* Intermission time for liberals and non-intellectuals. *
Red candy is best: most people would expect a deeper comment than that on the way out the door along the lines of W.C. Fields’ Philly line.
I have gleaned much from my time and experiences in life, just don’t know if others would appreciate, kind of like the French waiter in Monty Python’s ”Meaning of Life”.
Some of my earliest principles were, fight the bully and stand up to injustice. I have a good story or two to illustrate that, tell you in the afterlife.
During my formative years that morphed into; have a good time in life, just don’t hurt others.
When I learned about the Nazi’s and Stalinist’s: I became fascinated with just how poorly we can treat each other, not to mention the injustice in this country to Native and impressed people. The more I learned the more I wanted to speak out and fight against it. (You can’t fix the world, but you can clean your corner a little every day.) For those of you that don’t understand my stand against the Elks, this is the genesis. I you really want a better world, integrate the place and drive racism out of Pittsburg.
There is a thread here, I think. Fight the bully and stand up against injustice.
Where did I get my inspiration?
My first real teacher was Ann Rand with “Atlas Shrugged” where I learned that I should not live by the labor or another or permit them to live from mine, allowing for some humanity to creep in now and then. (She was an escapee from Communist Russia.)
Then I read Herman Hess who resisted Hitler and escaped to Switzerland. In several of his books, (notably “Siddhartha” and “ Magister Ludi”) his subjects searched for happiness and contentment in life only to find it was always there in front of them.
And finally, I discovered Solzhenitsyn who helped me understand injustice with his “Galug Archipelago” (I am the only person I ever met that had read all three volumes). In “The oak and the calf” we see a portrait of a seemly average man raised to greatness by the situation he finds himself in.
I have read a few thousand other books, but these were the ones that led me to where you found me.
I lament the demise of good literature in our world, replaced by television and who knows what. I often think about the progression of knowledge in society from tales around the campfires of out ancestors to the internet. Elder persons were valued for their store of knowledge and listened to in prehistory. I believe the creation of poetry and then music was a device to help remember and pass on that lore. Then came writing and the rest is, as they say, history.
I am also proud to have been a teacher in life, both formally and informally.
Teaching flowed naturally out of story telling and the good teachers (those Latin students out there know you called your teacher Magister (master) each morning) were the ones that could package the knowledge in ways that provided better understanding. Isn’t that the way it worked for you? Some teachers bore the student or, worse, demean them. Then, some teachers inspire the student and the epiphany of knowledge makes the air shine. Search out the teachers in life, for you and for your family.
Spiritually, you are on your own, I can’t help. I will not become squeamish at the end and ignore this, most major, issue here. I believe in my soul and with all my faith that no one knows the answer to this conundrum and therefore, I was and died an agnostic.
I extent all my love to all of you on this final occasion. You are invited to the dusting at Relief Reservoir when Shirley plans it.
