[MD] Hal Darts

[MarshaV]

Condolences, John.  This was very open, heart-filled expression of your feelings.  
I appreciate all that you've tried to share.

Marsha 

 
 


On Jul 25, 2010, at 2:53 PM, John Carl wrote:

> Well it's been a quiet week in my hometown, my mom's husband Hal died.
> Expectedly.
> 
> Everybody who watched it happen, admired his humor and good grace till the
> end.  Everybody who watched his process said, "that's the way I'd do it - no
> chemotherapy"  Having witnessed my wife's mom's passing, and comparing it to
> Hal's, not as if that were enough of a sampling to hold any statistical
> significance mind you, but the difference was like night and day.  Lu's mom
> really suffered from the chemo and the effects, and lasted about three
> months after her diagnosis, most of it absolutely miserable.
> 
> Hal had the same cancer (lung) and opted for a natural treatment and died
> anyway, but lasted for a year and a half and he never really suffered, just
> got shorter and shorter of breath.  His last day, he was pretty out of it.
> On sunday, he said he thought he'd be gone on wed. and he was right.  Small
> satisfaction, to be proven right in one's prediction about the day you die.
> 
> He died at home, surrounded by loved ones and family and peace.  He had two
> packages of Depends - adult diapers - and only used one out of those
> packages and didn't mess that one up.
> 
> Hal never wanted to be a bother.
> 
> He succeeded.
> 
> He didn't always hit what he aimed at.  In fact, his greatest claim to fame
> might just be a phrase that derived from his creative misses.  "Hal darts",
> is a term recognized in almost any bar in Grass Valley where there's a dart
> board, and has been heard being used in places as far afield as Reno and the
> Bay Area and is understood in dart shops in Sacramento and all over.  It
> refers to a lucky miss where a player is aiming at the trip 20, and hits the
> trip 18 instead.  It's a miss, but its a GOOD miss.    And very rare for
> good players who usually just miss a little bit and hit the 1 or the 5 right
> next to the 20 instead of landing all the way over in the 18 - and not just
> a single 18, but a trip 18 to boot.  To do it so consistently that you get
> the miss named after you takes some doing and I have probably more insight
> into the mechanics of the miss, than anyone alive.  Which makes it incumbent
> upon me to explicate to the world at next Sunday's memorial service.
> 
> I'm  the chief Yougoogleyizer (as Derek Zoolander calls it) of the family
> due to past performances at my daughter's funeral and my mother-in-law's.  A
> rarely needed skill, but vital in the moment it is needed.
> 
> Just as funerals are vital to a family's sustenance and continuance.  You'd
> think they'd be counter-productive to social adhesion, but its funny how the
> opposite is true. Just like Hal Darts, the creative miss from what we aim
> for turns out to be better than we'd imagined at the outset.
> 
> First of all, the obvious.  With one old person out of the way, there's now
> more room for the young.  Which by no means delights the young.  They seem
> the most upset when they find out that individuals are not permanent.  But
> what happens is, their upset turns to idealization, and the things they
> appreciate most about the lost loved ones, becomes part of their behavioral
> repertoire.
> 
> Second, old arguments and feuds seem to dissipate at a funeral.  We get too
> locked into static grievances, which in the face of actual death look stupid
> and make it easy to look each other in the face anew and move on in positive
> ways.  I've seen it repeated over and over, in my family and other's as
> well.  Funerals are great for burying hatchets as well as corpses.
> 
> And as for killing all intellectual patterns, well funerals are good for
> that as well.  Not only in the deceased, but in the survivors as they cope
> with a new reality with one less person to interact - starting most strongly
> of course, with the widow left behind.  My mom and Hal married the same year
> my wife and I did.  And my brother and his wife, who just divorced this
> year.  1988 was a fecund year for marriages.
> 
> The theme of my eulogy, will be, of course, "Hal Darts".  Not only is it
> obvious, but there's quite a bit to say.  Figuring out how to put it
> together is a tricky bit of writing.  You want to convey information in an
> eulogy, but more important than anything is the right emotional tone.
> Preachers usually suck at it.  They're all about making the conversion,
> manipulating the masses who usually wouldn't get caught dead in a church
> (ha-ha) by scaring the shit out of them and promising them glory and
> reunification.  If you really think about the true processes of grief and
> healing, you'll agree with me that this is an insanely evil thing to do, and
> one reason preachers are (and should be) widely reviled.
> 
> Plastering their facile bandaid theologies over a family's real and
> devastating wounds, and pretending to be kind in doing so.  What a farce.
> 
> I'm determined this time, to get the last word.  In the past, I have come
> upon some very effective and moving themes in my eulogy, only to have the
> mood completely undone by a sappy and stupid sermonologist intent on scoring
> his points.  I figure, let the man have his say, its his church after all,
> but if I can get the last word, perhaps I can prevent the preservation of
> platitudinous libels, on and on into the future forevermore.
> 
> 
> Songs help.  A friend and I came up with a song for my daughter's funeral,
> and it made such a difference to me.  I don't know why, but it did.
> Accurately portraying my grief in words and music, was SO very cathartic.  I
> don't perform the songs, I just write them.  I gotta good one for Hal so I'm
> optimistic that this will be a real good eulogy.
> 
> Man, what a weird thing to say - "optimistic about a eulogy".  But its true,
> so I havta.
> 
> Most of his life, Hal was agnostic.  Which I think is a good thing to be.
> Open-minded seems to produce the clearest thinking.  We'd talk philosophy
> while practicing darts in his garage, which was hugely cluttered with
> paintings and pictures, mostly of naked ladies.  Hal was a title officer by
> day and a painter by hobby, who did buttons for the lion's club, painting
> the windows at the office for christmas and other such civic minded
> contributions that he was always getting sucked into because Hal couldn't
> say no.  He hated all that community shit, but he just couldn't say no.
> What he liked to do was stay home by himself, listen to a ball game and
> paint naked ladies.
> 
> And shoot darts on tuesday nights.  He was always working on his
> techniques.  He read books and books and focused intently on his shot
> mechanics and was very frustrated with me because I didn't pay attention to
> any of that, just took my stance and let it flow without too much thinking.
> This aggravated him a lot (but then, a lot of things aggravated Hal) and
> he'd shake his head at me.  Nicknamed me "mr natural" because I just took my
> shot without worrying about outcome.  I imagined myself as a sorta zen
> darter, but honestly I've always had pretty good hand/eye coordination and
> in construction you're always having to throw stuff up to a guy on the roof
> or something like that and one reason I could be natural, was that I had a
> lot more practice than a guy who worked in an office all day and mostly
> flipped pages for a living.
> 
> Not that title officer is a boring occupation.  Especially in Nevada County
> with a rich history of mining laws as the basis for most of its real estate
> - you get some fascinatingly convoluted conveyances over the years, and
> there's a bit of field work involved.
> 
> But Hal with his worrying and his rules and his focus on technique, was one
> of the most socially-bound people I ever met.  He and I were so different,
> it was sorta like Phaedrus and DeWeese in ZAMM, we came from such different
> worlds that we fascinated one another.  I studied him and came to the
> conclusion that Hal's misses were sort of second-guessing himself midshot,
> overthinking as it often happens, and his life was similar.  He didn't
> really like people that much, but ended up with many friends who adored
> him.  He didn't really have much appreciation for my mom's large and
> invasive family  - Hal was a lone adoptee of a spinster schoolteacher mom -
> but he ended up as the most beloved center of all her siblings and
> spin-offs.  He didn't like religion, but he converted and was baptised
> before he got cancer, and having all that under his belt felt about as good
> about his chances in any afterlife as anybody.
> 
> I really emphasize family and community, but nobody can stand me and I don't
> do anything for civic causes ever.  And I certainly can't be guilt-trip
> manipulated.  I've been a Christian most of my life, but if caring for the
> sheep of the good shepard is any criteria, I'm for sure going to hell.
> 
> About the only good thing I can offer is the occasional eulogy, and bit of
> poetry here and there, mostly for my own satisfaction.
> 
> 
> So here's the song I wrote for him.  So far.  It's a simple rondelle that
> goes C - am - F- G.
> `
> 
> 
> Young hearts
> Fade to old smarts
> everybody gets their day, in the sun
> 
> Where we aim
> Is not the same
> As where we end, when we're done.
> 
> Hal darts
> the strange arts
> of getting what we want, when we fail
> 
> missing wide
> something inside
> we discover at the end of the trail
> 
> It's all the same
> a fool's game
> when it comes to love, we don't wanna part
> 
> While we cry
> We try
> to remember leaving's just a brand new start
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