A final goodbye

Two weeks ago I made a quick trip to New Orleans for the memorial for my friend John Dauns, who died in June. I was very honored that they asked me to speak at the event, which was held in the beautiful Rogers Memorial Chapel on the Tulane University campus;  and also that they listed me in John's obituary as one of his survivors.

Here's the program from the memorial with a portrait of John drawn by his colleague and friend, Professor Karl H. Hofmann, and below that, more John stories resume.

  

At the memorial many of John's colleagues talked about his achievements in mathematics, the warm associations they had with him in his many years of teaching at Tulane. It was clear to me that they truly ``got'' him, and remembered him with much affection. Of course, some of them had some very funny John stories, too.

My personal favorite is about what happened when John first arrived in New Orleans after receiving his PhD at Harvard. John was not terribly worldly, and, like many other mathematicians, lived so utterly inside his head that he sometimes missed some important clues from the environment around him. Before he found an apartment, he needed to stay in a hotel for a couple of days. He found one on St. Charles Avenue, and tried to check in and was very frustrated that they wouldn't let him. The problem? He was trying to check in to Bultman Funeral Home (which is famous for having buried many of the kings and queens of Carnival, not to mention Jefferson Davis and film star Jayne Mansfield).

Another new-to-me story was about the time John was mugged on his way to see a movie at the Prytania Theater. He handed over his wallet as requested and then asked if he could have $5 back so he could see the movie. Amazingly, the mugger very politely handed John back $5 and John did go on to see the movie.

One thing that did surprise me was the people talked about John's very large bubble of personal space and his need for physical distance from others. That was never the case in my experience. I remember particularly well one night during the Louisiana World's Fair (attended by virtually no one but New Orleanians, but still, a fabulous party, all told) when we were out on the steamboat Natchez, watching the nightly fireworks over the river.  John held on to my hand like a toddler clings to his mother in the supermarket.  Later I realized that for someone who spent some of his childhood as a refugee moving from Latvia to city after city in Germany during World War II, seeing things explode in the night sky might have caused more than a little anxiety.

On one of John's last trips to California, we  took the boat over the Angel Island, which is a state park in the middle of San Francisco Bay. It had a long history as a military garrison, and also formerly functioned as a sort of Ellis Island for new immigrants from Asia. We took the little tram tour all over the island, then had a picnic in a glade overlooking Ayala Cove.  It was one of those rare, really warm summer days in the Bay Area, and both of us were too tired for much exertion. So after we had the picnic, we walked down to the dock and sat on a bench watching the little kids play on the beach, and the boats sailing across the bay. I leaned my head on John's shoulder, shut my eyes, and fell fast asleep there in the sunlight. And so, I think, did John.  It was such a warm peacful day, and I think he was the most relaxed I'd ever seen him, at least certainly post-Katrina.

Several days before John died, the entire math department went to the nursing home to say goodbye. They posted some photos they shot that day on a memorial page. Here's what is probably the last photo of John. And I note that sick as he was, he was also aware of proprieties, so he dressed for the occasion in his good navy blue blazer.  It makes me sad to see this photo, of course, but I am pleased that it seems to capture the essential sweetness I always found in this dear, but more than a little bit eccentric, man. The memorial page also has several audio clips of John's telling his own life story, including his account of his childhood during the war, at this event. It's good to be able to hear his voice once more.

 

I told the people at the memorial about the time John and I went to Oaxaca together. John did have one vice, but it was something he controlled rigidly. He simply loved chocolate. I think chocolate was  rare and  delicious treat he had just a few times during his terribly hungry years as a child refugee during World War II.  The few occasions John would permit himself any chocolate, it was always only unsweetened baking chocolate.

We were walking down the street from the zocalo in Oaxaca and we passed by an open storefront where they were grinding just-roasted cocoa beans with sugar and almonds. The fragrance wafted out the door, grabbed John by the nose and drew him. in There in the middle of the shop was a large shiny steel cylinder with an open top, looking like a small cement mixer. It was filled with this fragrant mixture of sugar, chocolate and almonds. John reached and stuck his finger into the middle of the turning cylinder and brought it out loaded with chocolate. I'll never forget the ecstatic look on his face once he tasted it. Given that he was ordinarily so very reserved and polite, the fact of his walking in and tasting this chocolate without permission speaks to me of how powerful his craving was.

Whenever John came to see me, particularly in the post-Katrina years when he was clearly losing so much weight and not eating well, I tried hard to cook him things he liked and could eat. He was very suspicious of most food he saw in restaurants, and had an extrordinarily  limited range of things he could cook for himself, largely boiled cauliflower, Knox's unflavored gelatin, and hard-boiled egg whites. But he'd eat with relish anything I cooked, and  particularly loved the fritattas I'd make, loaded with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, garlic, artichoke hearts and lots of cheese.  He' also likes soups of all kinds and the Irish steel-cut oatmeal I'd make for him with raisins, walnuts and brown sugar.

The last Christmas he came to see me, I stopped at the Crate & Barrel store and bought some  big deep soup bowls, three white and three red. Every day he was here, I cooked him things he liked and served them in those bowls. So now I think of them as John's bowls, and remember him every time I see them.

It surprises me how much I miss John. I think on some level, we had one of those very rare meetings of the mind and heart that endured despite our considerable differences, and even though we ended up living more than 2,000 miles apart.

Every morning when I go to work and boot up the computer, I have to stop myself from bringing up the Latvian news queue, from which I'd  send John a story or two so he'd be up to speed on the latest political and economic happenings in the land of his birth.  He loved having what he thought of as insider knowledge of the country he, in some ways, never really left.

Last week I wrote a story about the annual Ig-Nobel Prizes, and remembered how much he enjoyed talking about these awards and the odd research that ``won'' these awards for various scientists.  He wasn't much for humor, but he loved these very funny glosses on scientists and their research. And of course he always complained about the fact that there is no real Nobel prize for mathematics.  

Friday I packed the binoculars he gave me for Christmas into my backpack to take to work so I could watch the Blue Angels' Fleet Week flight over San Francisco Bay.  And of course they'll go with me to the ballet when San Francisco Ballet's season begins in January.

I married someone else after I moved to San Francisco, but John and I still  stayed in touch and we always remained friends. During the last year of my husband's life, I took him to New Orleans to meet my friends and see the city I love so much that I still always think of as home in many ways.

We met John on the Tulane campus and took him to dinner at Cannon's on St. Charles.  And I still laugh whenever I remember this meal. John and my husband ordered the same thing for dinner. The two of them spent much of the meal in animated conversation about their favorite  science-fiction authors. They were even wearing clothes of the same color. Clearly they got along very well. After John stepped up onto the St. Charles streetcar to head back to Tulane, my lawyer husband turned to me and said ``I know why you like him. He's a lot like me, only I'm cooler.'' Probably that was so on some levels. On others they were very different. 

In any case, John was a huge gift to me in many ways and for many years, and for that I am grateful  In two weeks I'll be making a candle bearing his name and photo for the Dia de los Muertos altar, and on Samhain, his is one of the names I will call when we summon and remember the Beloved Dead. What is remembered lives.

Comments

[Philip]

What a lovely portrait of a very special man.

[Hollyheartfree]

Ah, Victoria- I've missed your posts. This one is a lovely tribute to a lovely man. I'm so sorry he has passed, but he's left you with a wealth of memories. Yes. What is remembered, lives. Blessings of Samhain-tide, sister