Love you, Dad.

Missing you.

For me, Doug has always been my best friend’s older brother. I didn’t have brothers, so an older brother with cute friends was an intriguing concept to a teenage girl in the 60’s. We were infatuated with a few of them, one being particularly dreamy. Sigh, the memories of a teen.

Doug had a cool little car , a tiny Nobel, but would sometimes drive us around in his Mom’s not much bigger car. Notably, our most memorable ride was probably to The Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1964, where he dropped us off to see the Beatles in their first Los Angeles concert. Our first rock and roll concert, a coming of age moment. It was so much cooler to be dropped off by an older brother than a parent. We were ecstatic, and he was stuck in a pile of traffic at both ends of the concert. Something we probably didn’t consider at the time. What a nice guy he was.

Doug was there for another coming of age moment, when Lynn and I took our first road trip without parents. I guess we must have been 19ish, 1968, and two girls on their own was a new and exciting adventure. The trip was possible because we started by meeting Doug and Falline in Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite. I think our parents agreed to the trip because we at least started with “chaperones”. We had so much fun with our newfound freedom. Thus Doug was intertwined in some of my significant milestones as I grew up.

My heart goes out to Doug’s family and friends as they walk their paths of grief. May the grief quickly give way to only delightful memories. Doug will always have a place in my fond memories.

Doug and I married in 1968, when we were both students at the University of MD and really didn't know who we were going to be when we grew up. We changed a lot during the few years we were together, but in different ways. Before we parted, we had adventures and good times, including a two-month, 12,000 mile camping trip in our Volkswagen bug that took us all around the US and into Canada.

We visited Yosemite where his sister, Lynn, was born, and he actually managed to get me up the face of Lembert Dome. Doug was a natural climber, shaped like a string bean, but my body type was more jelly bean. With his helping hand and some, okay, a lot, of swearing, I got to the top in one piece. That was my first and last rock climbing experience, but I'm very proud of having done it.

I also have a fond memory of "stealing" his paycheck in order to buy him a very nice gift. We both worked for the same tiny computer software company whose business model was getting lots of no-bid purchase orders from friends at Goddard Space Flight Center. At my request, our boss, Ed Cutler, told Doug that he didn't have the money to pay him that week (not a unique occurrence), but instead wrote the check out to me. One of our best friends helped tone-deaf me shop for and hide a truly beautiful acoustic guitar until Christmas. Christmas, our anniversary, and his birthday all fell within three weeks, so this present covered all three occasions. He loved playing the guitar and never would have bought such a nice instrument for himself, so his friends had to make it happen for him.

Who was Doug Danforth to me? He was an older brother that had some cool high school friends that I liked to hang around. He was the one that went on vacations with the family when my other brother was working. He was the fulcrum between my oldest brother, who is artistic and literary, and me, who is rather normal and very un-scientific. He was the one that was always thinking, theorizing, and trying to get people to understand his next brilliant idea. He was the one that tried to paint a picture for me of what it was like before I was born and all the fun times in Illinois that the two brothers had growing up. He was worried about IQs, degrees, scientific advancement, and making sure theories were correct and verified.  He was an academian. He was a good father. He was also a softy that liked stuffed toys, hugs, walks in the woods and traditions. He was a wonderful caregiver to our mother and good custodian of her homestead, Greenwood Farm, Ohio. Although he was very solitary in his later years, he has left a hole in our family by dying too young.

How does one find a father again once they are gone? In his papers? In photos? In memories? I've been looking but all I can come up with are moments from childhood that keep coming back to me. Christmas mornings, cold days with dad in his red coat, playing on the playset he built us in North Andover. Everything is a jumble. Out of order and scattered. Through it all I remember his easy smile and his wish for the world to be a better place. I'll keep working on it dad and I'll let you know how it goes.

All my love.