So I miss knowing Dan is out there in real life ready to chat and be interested in the last creative thing I accomplished. He gave like that – a lot to us all – over and over again. I hear his voice. I recall his passion about a simple camera move or an over the shoulder look by Ingmar Bergman to the camera. For my birth day one year he surprised me with an 8 and one half by 11 inch, black piece of cardboard he used to matt a 1 by 1 inch black and white photo – profile of Ingmar at 23 looking over her shoulder to the camera. It’s upstairs in the last box of college papers and poems reminding me of how powerful a connection there is between folks that love the cinema. We can never get enough.

Dan was always surprising us. Yes he was. One day he asked my friend Colin and I to stop by his office – he had a proposition for us. He said if we would take (escort) his teenage daughters to a heavy metal concert at the new haven coliseum we could get credit for it as background – a site survey, and he got off the hook with the girls and Sharon. He could stay home and watch basketball or football or both.

He made me believe that there would be a tomorrow. That man and woman could create. They could make a movie – could write a play – could take a photo – could make a pot that mattered – sing a song unsung – be moved by someone else’s ability to think to work to create to communicate to entertain to instruct to reveal – challenge – complete – support – diminish or enhance the moment.

He believed we could all do any of that. That we all possessed genius revealed or yet to be revealed.

I profited by knowing Dan. I became a better man by knowing Dan.

Dan is a model, a mentor a guide – even now here in my heart, close to my soul and at this table in my dinning room with a beer and a screwed up smile he sits before my minds eye commenting on my poor spelling and endless run on sentences – driven by my unique passion to be heard.

Hey Dan you would want to know that last Wednesday I sang with my coral group, the South Side Singers, average age 73, I am the youngest at 63,at the Como Park Pavilion and that I received a round of applause for the 3 verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic I delivered in perfect-rich baritone – solo. Yeap me, the guy who won the poetry award at southern, the year you ran the jury and liked my poetry. I think you would like to know about my new singing career at 63; See, Dan, America really does have Talent, perhaps a little less since you moved on to the next thing.

My love to Sharon and the Girls and their families.
What wonderful DNA you all possess.

Jump Up, and live again
Honey in the heart
Thirteen thank yous
No evil

William Plikaitis
Minneapples

Meg just learned and told me yesterday that Dan had died. This is a lovely eulogy/tribute/rememberance. I only got to meet him twice, but he was crearly very special.

Regards,

Chris