RezSays

When we eventually started hanging out outside of school, we became good friends, sharing many of the same tastes.

I have very happy – albeit smoky – memories of many nights in the basement at Monatiquot Av., especially listening to the National Lampoon Radio Hour.
(Yes, that Lampoon – the show that led to Saturday Night Live.)

Besides sharing comedy tastes, we loved a lot of the same music.

I have a particularly vivid memory of sitting with Dan on the Monatiquot Av. porch on a pleasant summer evening while he played the new! Elvis Costello My Aim Is True album.

No, we didn’t always stay in, especially after we got our driving licenses.

Dan was a thrill-meister in his Dodge Duster down at the South Shore Plaza.

With just the right snowy road conditions, he’d gun the Duster, then pull the emergency brake and rip the steering wheel sharply.  Dano’s Donuts produced more pants-pooping excitement than any ride at Paragon Park!

Some time in 11^th grade, Dan and I had a battle of wits – or dimwits, actually.  We each skipped a ton of days, but not together.  Mine were spread out, but they added up.

Dan, the showboat, skipped 18 straight days.

Shockingly, we were both nailed and briefly ‘bounced.’

Given our diminishing appetite for academics at the tail end of high school, Dan and I – again independently – each opted for some ‘gap time’ before starting college.

It was during these two years that Dan and I were Sunday night regulars at the Ground Round (image:  plentiful pitchers and popcorn – with a sea of peanut shells on their floor)

We also took in some great concerts together during this prolonged school break, typically at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre (AKA “The Opium”), an intimate venue.  Among the acts we saw together were Frank Zappa, Blue Oyster Cult (as in “More cow bell!”), and some fledgling little band from Ireland called U2.

During this same era, Dan could rapid-fire rattle off the names of a dozen obscure punk bands, most with names bordering on the profane.

Eventually, though, we relented and confronted our adulthood by starting college.  I commuted to a local college, but unhappily for me, Dan moved away to Colby College in Maine.

My next set of vivid Dan memories after that were a couple years after college when Dan was a Navy Lieutenant, and he’d visit us Braintree chums who roommated together in West Newton. 

Dan made sure to embrace the Navy-man-on-leave persona, earning our nickname for him:  Lieutenant Juicer.  (A Dano quote:  “Engine room, where the eff is my drink?!”)

But once Dan joined the Navy, he’d shipped off for good from the Boston area.

When Dan became a civilian again and would return East to visit his family, it was often around the Fourth of July.  He’d typically see his family down the Cape and regularly invited me.

By this time, though, I was married.  And my wife’s family always had their own July Fourth gathering, which also celebrated a sister-in-law’s birthday.

In hindsight, I should’ve found a way to make it work one year, but I never swung it.

I think my never making it to July 4 at the Cape with Dan’s family hurt Dan, understandably.

And I’m pretty sure it hurt our relationship.

Later that same eon, Dan was married and living in California.  When I was lucky enough to start getting some calls from him, I started to greet him as “Lieutenant Dan” with a Gumpish drawl.
I soon confessed how I felt I’d messed up by never getting down to the Cape with him.

Dan was gracious – in his direct, terse, and often comical way – and didn’t linger on it.

And we got closer again after that conversation.

From that point on, I made sure to be around when Dan was around.
I didn’t want to miss him any more than I had – and now do again.