In Defense Of Donalds

Certain Donalds have been doing dirt to the name. I don't want to point any fingers, but I thought about a few of the Donalds that I've known and I thought that perhaps a tribute might be in order. So, in my personal chronology:

"Uncle" Don Navatsyk:

When I was very young, my parents were young too. They belonged to a church full of young people in a small town in Ohio. The church was very close-knit and familial. Many of the young people had kids, and many others were sort of looking to get married. It was, in my mind looking back and from stories I've been told, a little like Melrose Place with a church instead of the titular locale. (And television executives reading right now, that's my idea!) Don't get me wrong, it was a lot... churchier, but you know what I mean. At any rate, the kids were encouraged to call the adults "Uncle" and "Aunt." So, Uncle Don. Uncle Don is the father of one of my best friends ever. When his daughter Julie and I were growing up there was talk that we would get married some day. (A close escape for her.)

Don Navatsyk is still, to this day, the worship leader at the church and he is one of the most exuberant worship leaders I've ever seen. He jumps around, waves his arms, sings and hollers. In most specifics, he is like an older, male cheerleader. (Cheerleader for the Lord. Once again TV executives, MY IDEA!) One of the funniest things about this is that if you call him at his house on any given day of the week, even on Sunday after his performance, you will hear the a voice from a tomb. He seems to expend all the energy a body could ever possess on his Sunday singing jags. My friends and I used to call his house a lot, back when I was in high-school. The conversations would go something like this:

Sprightly Teenager's Voice: Hello! Can I talk to Julie or Gail?
Sepulchral Voice, Like A Ghoul On Quaaludes: No, they are out.
Slightly More Nervous Teenager Voice: Well, how are you then, uh, sir?
Sepulchral Voice, Now Even LESS Enthusiastic: Goodbye.

But that paints him in a less than glorious light, which is inaccurate. That's not how we really saw him. He was the Dad of a couple girls that were widely admired as the coolest and prettiest around. (I suppose later generations of young guys felt the same way about his younger daughters, but they were too young for me to feel that way.) He was an exciting teacher in the Sunday School and other classes/Bible studies we went to with him. He was also a coach for a lot of high-school ball things, but I wasn't a part of that either.

He was this great, funny, wildly enthusiastic on occasion, fellow to know. He is still a family friend and I still think about him on a pretty regular basis. He is the guy who got me interested in St. Peter, as a guy and as a role-model.

Donald #2: Donald Shumer

Donald Shumer was a great, great guy. I dated his daughter for a while and was a family hanger-on for even longer.

When I was 19 I met Abigail Shumer and really, really liked her. A couple months after I met her, she lived a few hours away, I went to visit her and her family. My friends Dave Michelson and John Stewart came with me, and we whiled away an incredibly flirtatious evening under the watchful, and ever so kind gaze of Donald Shumer. Though it was a lot more self-consciously sexual than how I imagine the old timey courting scene, it was in some ways very similar. Don Shumer made sure nothing untoward happened and we all acted like what we imagined adults would act like in similar circumstances. (At 30 I can say, without too much fear, adults don't act anything like I did at 16. Adults breathe and blink, but other than that, there is no basis for comparison.) Even so, Don Shumer allowed us all to act like fools and never made us feel that he was not looking out for our best interests.

Over time I had a real relationship with is daughter, I dropped out of college in an attempt to make that relationship more real and I even ended up moving to his town for a protacted period of misery after the inevitable break-up. Through all of this, and through later disasters and embarrassments, Don Shumer never was anything other than kindness personified. He helped me, even let me work in his shop for a while when I lived there. (Though that was disastrous, having ingested nothing other than cigarettes and coffee for a couple days prior I passed out, almost at the lathe. I made it out of the shop just in time to pass out in his house. He helped me to a bed and his wife, the inestimable Carol, fed me wheatgrass juice. (Don't ask me why that was what she fed me, there are reasons and they are complicated.)

I am eternally indebted to the man. Throughout the whole time he invariably passed on wisdom, and since I wasn't related to him I was at least willing to listen. When, later on, another of his daughters married a very close friend of mine it helped to cement my relationship with his family. He passed on a while ago, complications with cancer and a backhoe, but he will always be a shining example to me of what a man can be and of a man I wish I could be like. Alex Gardner and I, the son-in-law and close friend, used to intone his name as a gold standard of excellenc: "Don!"

Donald #3: Donald Landies

Now, this one is a lot of fun. Uncle Donji is one of my favorite people that I've ever worked with. He's passionate and irrational. He's explosive and given to wild bouts of exaggeration and wildness. He is thoughtful and enjoys nothing more than sitting and playing a recorder on his lunch break. He is, in a nutshell, the kind of guy I can hang out with.

I started working with Don Landies after I had suffered a major life set-back and his deep and intimate knowledge of the inner workings of life setbacks was my lifesaver. I had no job, was living out of a suitcase and scored a job for John Stewart's dad, painting for a small painting company in Cleveland. My first few weeks there I never met Don. I suppose that I knew him from my past, his family and mine go way back, and I know I helped him move once when I was in my teens. But I didn't know the guy.

I first worked with him on a job where my position as the young guy on the job was indisputable. I forget what that position is like, now that I am in the military and it is never the case for me. But when I think back, it's a great thing to be. The young guy on a job, particularly in the trades, is a dog's body job. Run to get coffee, run to get lunch, sand that wall. There is no responsibility and no need to worry. Every mistake will be dealt with, provided there are not too many mistakes. It's a great time and there is ample opportunity to sand while talking to people.

And boy, can Don talk! I think that I have never spent more hours on a job site with my mouth working, and if you know me, you know that's saying a lot. Don Landies has done every stupid thing I have ever done, and then some. He and I can compare experiences from now till we are no longer able to experience anymore.

I probably think about Don Landies once every couple days. I don't know a man better able to coin and capture phrases, and I use Don phrases every day.

While tapping one's head: "Not Just A Hatrack!"
When leaving anywhere: "It's Been All Hats And Horns."

I resurrected the old "Uncle" gag for him and he became my Uncle Don. He'd call me O, which no one has done since I was a baby. I loved it. A couple of times we had the opportunity to work, just the two of us, at a job site. These times were amazing, we'd talk about every boneheaded thing ever done. It was like some kind of boneheaded endurance course. Between the two of us it was as if there had never been a boneheaded thing that hadn't been done. David Sedaris says, in his latest book, that there are times when the things you haven't done are the only things that leave you able to be a human. He says that it gets bad when it gets down to murderers, but even they must be able to say, "I've never killed anyone, WITH A HAMMER." That was the kind of talk Don and I would have.

All of this, this whole thing, to say that I like Donalds, they are A-OK with me. If you know a Donald, go out and give him a hug.