Eulogy for godfather David

Anybody who knows me has at one time or another heard me talk about the pig roast. It was so important that it had a THE at the beginning. It’s not like you were going to a pig roast, it is THE pig roast. Happened every year Labor Day weekend or at least it did.

When godfather David sold the farm and moved into town that pretty much halted the party. Sure, there would be gatherings on Labor Day weekend with other people who lived close by, but there was not a magic camaraderie of this nearly village size amount of people all camping at Dohn’s Farm for the weekend.

The pig roast was more important to me than Christmas. It was hands-down my favorite holiday for my entire life. I was born in 1975 and I had the luck of being the youngest person ever to attend the pig roast. (others may claim that someone else took the title by being a fraction of something younger, but we know they’re just jealous.)

So, the pig roast being an annual celebration, this special group of people, sometimes got bigger and sometimes got smaller, but there was always a core group of people you can count on to see every single time. And the linchpin in the whole operation, the roving life of the party, the master storyteller, both King and Jester, the one and only legendary David Dohn.

He had a gravitas about him similar in some regards to Christopher Walken, but godfather David had by far a better voice. His voice to me always reminded me of something wooden. Not emotionless, but with a depth like some old table with scratches and writing in it. Or like a wooden ship with a thousand adventures etched in its hull. If you trace each line in the wood, in his face, it’s a story, and you could never see them all, hear them all. His eyes always looked like serious machinations were going on behind them. Most of the machinations were hilarious jokes and anecdotes.

When he told a story, or a joke, his sincerity and mournful pauses were amazing; especially given the fact that you knew there was probably a dirty joke punchline at the end of it. One pig roast we tried to do a talent show, and godfather David’s entry was a memorized reading of the story of Abiyoyo. His face danced in the fire as his spirited recitation dazzled. Abiyoyo is dear to my heart because of this. One of my favorite pig roast memories. (I was too young to witness the time an aerosol canister in the fire burned his eyebrows off.)

He had a beard, and he twisted the ends of his mustache; not in a hipster way but in an effortless kind of cool steeped in a well-read tradition, forged in a type of calm wildness all his own flavor.

His hats were many, but if I were to conjure a picture of him in my mind, it’s a straw cowboy hat; him grinning and laughing while holding a good cigar between his teeth. He would stroll around the pig roast from tent to beer garden to euchre table, seemingly always humming the melody of Mrs Robinson and going “deet Dee-Dee Dee.”

When things fascinated him, he shared it with you and usually finished it with a chuckle, a sunshine grin and “Idn’t that neat?” He introduced me to Tom Waits’ song “What’s he building in there.” He recited the words with such dusty serious reverence that when I finally heard the real version, it paled in comparison.

Godfather gave me guidance a couple times. One time I was playing guitar around the fire, and when I had finished a song, he said plainly, “I sure wish you could play that better.” You can bet I practiced more after that. Another time I was getting obsessed with the Marx bros and bought a top hat and was wearing it around the pig roast. He took it off my head and introduced the concept of a rakish angle so that his godson wouldn’t look like a dork. I perch my hats at a rakish angle to this day.

I became a godfather myself and when I asked his sage advice on how to be a godfather, it was short. There may have been some bourbon happening.

So, “Godfather, how do I become a good godfather? What’s the….what do I do?”

With his eyes half lidded and the head wobble of someone who has all the answers, he said, “Well, do you know the Lord’s Prayer?”

“Yes.”

“Well there you go.”

A clap on the back, a puff of cigar smoke, and off he went to the firepit.

There’s a passage in “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner where he’s describing someone’s silhouette as being cut from tin. That person was so real, so alive, so present that their own shadow had mass. That’s how I feel about Godfather David. He was a rare specimen. His shadow could cut.

For a few years in a row, I helped cut the grass out at Dohn’s farm. It was a ride on-mower, and I didn’t have very much experience with it. The first year I accidentally ran over his chestnut tree. Just chewed it to a nub. The following year, the tree had bounced back….and I mowed it to a nub again by accident. He was angry and disappointed, and told me so. The following year I don’t think I touched it, either because I was super careful or maybe it’s because I didn’t mow that year at all. Seven or eight years later godfather pulls me aside and shows me the chestnut tree, and lo and behold it is solidly strong and robust and thriving. It resembles less a tree, and more a tall bushy column. It came back stronger after two incredibly hard events.

All of us here probably feel mowed down to a nub emotionally. But I can see, have seen already, the strength of us, and we will come back stronger. He would want us to be that chestnut tree. He wouldn’t want us moping or sad. He’d want us laughing. And telling jokes.

Playing euchre and drinking bourbon.

Sharing memories and stories.