Banjos, Birders and Goodbyes

Today marks 4 weeks that two of our friends were in a head-on accident on the highway about 8 miles west of town. The other driver was driving fast and erratic, someone had already called him in to 911 and at the time of the accident another driver had 911 on the phone.

Dean and Patty were heading east on the highway, back to home, at about 6:30 PM on St. Paddy’s day when the other driver swerved into them, doing about 85MPH. Dean was killed immediately, as was the other driver. Patty suffered head injuries, broken ribs, clavicle and foot. She was air-lifed from the scene and has been in ICU ever since. She is starting to come around and, right at this very moment, indications are that she will fully recover. She still has not been told about Dean’s death. Since she can’t talk or mover her arms it is difficult to know just how cognizant she is of what is going on. A prisoner in her own fog clouded mind right now. It will be a long, slow recovery. All of our friends have rallied to help take care of her in the hospital and to lodge, feed, and entertain the other family members who are here sorting all this out. People are crawling all over each other to do anything for these people because Patty and Dean have always been such amazingly giving folks.

Patty hails from Sacramento California and is 59.

Patty

I met her here in Bend in about 1985 when I was a surveyor for Century West Engineering and she was one of the drafters.

Drafting was a natural for her as she is a very talented artist in both oils and watercolors. She is also an accomplished potter and sculptor and many of the galleries in town sell her raku work. Our house is filled with her art. To top it all off, she is also a gifted musician. I guess she started playing guitar in high school, but didn’t pursue it once she went off to college. In the early 90s she started playing marimba with a local band and then about 5 years ago she decided to pick up the banjo. Seems like she mastered it in two weeks and then decided to take up harmonica too. Her and a couple other friends decided to form a bluegrass/blues/Americana type band, The Prairie Rockets, who have been staples at local events and festivals.

Patty met Dean in about 1988 or so. Patty was among my group of friends and Dean was close with the group that my wife, Maureen, was tight with. Maureen and I met about 5 years later.

Dean was 62 and grew up in Seattle. He went to the U of O on a full-ride gymnastic scholarship in the late 1960s..

Dean in 1969

After graduating with a degree in biology he went into home building and was primarily a framer for most of his life. Production house framing is tough, brutal work and most framers are pretty damned crazy. Dean fit in great with that kind of crowd. It the early days, before shoulder surgeries, he’d signal the completion of a job by doing a hand stand on the ridge of the house and then walking the length of it on his hands. With all the crap in his tool belt raining down on the plywood flooring below.

Before meeting Patty, Dean became a fairly fanatic bird watcher, and once they got together birding became their passion. Patty even got a dream job, for her, at the local bird shop. They would save and scrimp for a couple years to take semi annual winter vacations to places like Turkey, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Patagonia and Costa Rica to bird. Traveling on a tight budget, they would use busses trains and hiking boots to get around. Cheap hotels and taco stands. They were savvy, adventuresome travelers who reveled in embracing the cultures they were immersed in.

Dean became a juggernaut in the local birding community. Leading tours, organizing events and various bird counts, building nesting boxes and leading the East Cascade Audubon Society. A local naturalist wrote a nice tributeto Dean that scratches the surface of Dean’s impact on the local birding community.

Dean was the kindest, funniest and most affable guy I’ve ever met. Always ready to lend a hand. North, south, east and west, every part of our house has Dean’s fingerprints on it, from fences, to doors to sheds to the bathroom remodel. If Dean caught word of you doing a project, he was at your doorstep at 7AM on Saturday morning, tool belt on and compressor firing up in the driveway.

The point? Enjoy yourself, it is later than you think. In the blink of an eye Dean is gone. No goodbyes. No more ski trips, campfires or pot luck dinners with Dean clowning around, making everyone laugh. Patty s facing years of recovery and will not live the simple, beautiful life she and Dean had created. She is strong and well loved and will persevere, but things didn’t pan out the way we all anticipated.

Lessons? Love hurts. Don’t take friends or family for granted, get together more often. Of course, don’t drink and drive and don’t let drunk friends drive. Toxicology test haven’t been made public but it sounds like the guy who killed my friend was way messed up. If his friends, or the bartender or whomever had said “whoa, you aren’t getting behind the wheel like that”, then Dean wouldn’t be an urn of ashes and Patty wouldn’t be finishing her 4th week in ICU.

Rest in peace Dean, and thanks for the lessons in friendship and unselfishness. Rest assured, we will all take good care of your Patty.

What birders eat for dinner