Daniel Bartlett, August 1, 1960-Mary 21, 2002.
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
(from the funeral card.)
JoAnn told me Dan’s service would be held in a small chapel, so I promised not to use any big words.
On the way up here from Gettysburg, it struck me that perhaps our most persistent sin as humans is our sloppiness toward time.
We spend it like the government spends money, as though we had an unlimited supply. Time is our greatest thief, and now it has taken Danny away from us.
In the few short years I knew him; it never passed my mind that I would attend his funeral. Certainly not this soon.
We had a lot of fun when we’d get together, usually with our significant others. We didn’t see each other all that often, actually. We had work. We were busy. There was so much to do. There would always be time…later.
Well, later is here, now, and look where we are.
There is a lesson here, somewhere. I just know it.
Those who really knew Dan Bartlett will not be surprised to learn that most of our get-togethers involved food and laughter.
One of the many reasons I enjoyed hanging out with him was that he was one of the few people I know who could eat more than I. How he arranged to do that and have ME gain all the weight, I’ll never know.
His enthusiasms were as quick as they were energetic. I remember one time Dan and JoAnn were over for Sunday breakfast at our house. I’d made up a mess of biscuits. One of the condiments we had on the table was a jar of soybean butter. Dan gave it the old hairy eye-ball and announced that it must be simply God-awful, and he’d have none of it.
Well, I talked and cajoled and pleaded with him to give it a try.
Reluctantly, he agreed, and smeared a modest gob of the stuff on half a biscuit.
About 20 minutes later, 3/4 of the contents gone, I had to threaten to whack him on the head to get what was left of my jar of soybean butter back.
Dan’s sense of humor stayed with him until almost the end. A week before he died, JoAnn took him to see his neurologist, as he’d had two very bad seizures the night before.
“Well, Mr. Bartlett,” the stern and humorless physician said.”What brought you here today?”
Without batting an eye, Dan replied:”An Oldsmobile.”
All kidding aside, the thing that stands out most in my memory about Dan Bartlett is his persistent and spontaneous humor. Even as he approached what we all assumed would be his middle age, I think he still looked on the world in a very joyous, childlike way, and was very quick to see the humor in almost any situation.
And yet, here we are. We have all lost a good friend, and I know the world seems today a little darker, and a little less interesting.
© 2007 Marsh Creek Media,
Gettysburg, Pa.
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