In Memory of Peter Traczyk.docx

In Memory of My Friend Peter

Friendships, perhaps especially adult friendships, are lived in fragments. Hundreds of little moments: chatting on the sidewalk after work, random encounters at the gym or the store, small favors--returned or not--carpool drop-offs and pickups, texts exchanged, outings to concerts and games, shared laughs at youth sports, barbecues and block parties.

And the blur of life is such that we seldom have time to take stock and articulate why we love our loved ones. Ive been thinking about that this week.

And so if youll indulge me Id like to read to you some Peters recent texts, as I think these little peeks into his life give us a sense of who Peter was and what made him so special.

Cant make it. Seussical Cast Party at Brown Cow-- w zack. How did Wisconsin play?Hang out on my porch?Walk down to Paul Manns?See u at the luau?U around to look at your door. Ill bring my tools.Kinderhook?Sorry, staying home with kids tonight. 2 20 LB Bags Please.Sure. Finishing Golf. Did you DVR it?Your kids are over here playing. Cindy says to grab Heidi and come join us. Did the lineup card. Were all set. And once I texted him Tonight do you want to go And I accidentally hit SEND before I completed the thought. While I was typing the rest of the sentence, my phone pinged. It was Peter. Yes. he said. Missed you coaching today. We got crushed. Im with all three at tennis. Im with Eric Sorensen and Mark Fisher. Tributasaurus is playing. Join us. At OPRFHS--Then going to 97 Board meeting for Early Childhood discussion. But can pick you up after. Drink some tea and man up!Meeting was a little slow, but very thorough pro argument. Finn is sleeping on zacks floor. I dont think we should wake them up. PS--in a sleeping bag. I need to work out details of soccer shuttles--Ill let you know. I can come at 630 or 8 Im picking up Gib at practice at 745Grabbing my shop-vac and will be right over. Need zack by 9 AM. Sure. Love to meet your college friend. Im playing poker but zack would love to watch Terminator. Z is in. And Jack. Grace and Ellie are riding with me. Send Finn to our house for sleepover. You and me and Poe are going to Hear Jimmy Vaughn at FitzgeraldsI will drive kids to school. Just got out of meeting. Anans a good host.We will send zack over at 830. Ellie has choir at 8 Meet me and Mark Fisher at 9?Drive together? Watching World Cup here after sneaking in 9 holes. Come over with kids. OBriens will be here, too. Smoker grill is in the same place in garage. Borrow away.Cant---meeting. Poe and I are riding bikes to watch World Cup. Bringing zackAre you all set with coolers? You can also use our basement fridge. Board meeting, but otherwise would have gone. Going over to Steve Nations. Ill head over at 9.Sure--Ride Bikes? I can drive kids this morningCant. Helping kids with homework. Going to Buddy Guy;s with Poe. Join us.

And in one of my very last texts with Peter. I wrote back---Cant go, too late for teacher. Have fun.

His answer:Oh, believe me. I will!

We moved onto the 300 N. block of Scoville in 2007, when our kids, Finn and Charlotte, were 5 and 3. Its a block full of children, of life, and this week Ive been listening as the kids of 300 N. Scoville remember Mr. Traczyk. Heres some of what they said. He would always say hi to you when you were walking past his house.He was very friendly towards kids.Loved dogs.Fixed our things a lot.He had nicknames for everyone.He would make sure his kids did not fight with each other.He was happy to let dogs wrestle on his lawn.He could tell very good jokes and also laughed at both others and his own (in a good way).He was happy to drive kids on our block to school when it was rainy/snowy or gross.very very nice to everyone.In snowy weather he would snow blow the whole block.Easy to talk to.

You can tell a lot about a man by the way he interacts with children. And I think theres a striking consistency to what the children of Scoville saw in Peter and what he wrote me in those texts. And from those fragments, and the childrens impressions, Ive extracted four common threads, four remarkable traits of Peters personality.

You could call these Peters Principles. 1) Kindness2) A Talent for Uniting People3) Helpfulness4) Joyfulness

We found out how kind Peter was on a summer day, the day we moved into our new house just three doors down from the Traczyks. Peter was the first person on the block we met. Of course he was. He was out working on his lawn, when he saw Heidi and I approach with our new set of keys, fresh from the closing. He came over, shook our hands and started asking us questions about ourselves. Within 5 minutes wed discovered a mutual acquaintance. Within 20 minutes we were friends. That very evening he and Cindy invited us over for appetizers and a glass of wine on their porch, while the kids jumped on the trampoline, and the dogs wrestled on the lawn. Ive never made a friend quite so easily, thanks to Peters kindness.

2nd Peter was also a remarkable uniter of people.He created common ground between people of diverse views and interests and backgrounds. --When I was first drafting these remarks Id written that Peter found common ground But found is way too passive of a verb for what Peter did. Because he worked at it. He studied people and read them, to find out what made them tick, and then he used his grace and wit to find a way in, a way to connect. Comment by Theresa Collins: this is a beautiful section.

My story of Peter the uniter was when he took me ice-fishing. Which if you know me sounds, well cockamamie.

We were in Northern Wisconsin, a locale so far out of my comfort zone, that I felt like I should pack my passport just in case. The wind chill was 50 below zero, and it was me and Peter and 2 other super manly men.

Oh, and Jeff Charkow was there, too.

And these guys, all of whom were more, whats the word for it-- male--than I am. They were just tossing around these words and phrases that to me, as a bookish city kid, sounded like science fiction. Park the truck on the lake , Light the Propane on the Auger. Set up the Wind break. Turn up the HydroWave Feeding Stimulator. Comment by Theresa Collins: i love how you are contninuing the fragments motif, dan...it's so how the way friendships are, the momentary-ness of the things that make us smile about our friends. you are talking about yourself but you are talking about your friend- and it's really wonderful. people will be having their own memories as you share yours. perfect. so many nodding heads.

Normally my anxiety in an environment like that would have been paralyzing. Id have feared being so out of place, so vulnerable to being exposed as incompetent. But Peter just did his Uniter thing, making introductions, and then jokes, and eventually even giving me a job and some equipment to man. And eventually after some trial and error, I got the hang of my task,Soon I was popping the caps off of beer bottles like an old pro. And then, thanks to Peter, I felt like one of the guys, licking a frozen beer, watching the fish swim by on the video screen, and talking about muskies and bullheads (which I gather are some sort of farming equipment).To put it plainly, had any other friend, no matter how well intentioned, invited me ice fishing, I would have been too frightened to go. But I trusted to Peter to make it work. And it wound up being one of the best afternoons of my life. Comment by Theresa Collins: This section is amazeballs.

Peters 3rd outstanding quality was his helpfulness. Peters service to the village, to charities, to his block, has nearly passed into legend by now. So I wont recap all that here. Suffice it to say, Ill never know how Peter spent all that time talking about TIFs and COLAS and things so boring that I dont even know the acronym for them. Ill just add one quick thing about his helpfulness on a personal level. Which is just to share that when we repair something at our house, we call it Greenstone fixed. And 48 hours later or so, when we realized how much worse weve made things, wed call Peter and then he would Traczyk fix it. The right way. Often we didnt even have to ask. Hed be passing by, or hanging out in our kitchen and notice something slightly amiss, like a loose hinge, or the smell of sewage wafting up out of our basement, and hed say Lemme go get my tools.And Peters 4th Remarkable quality was of his joyfulness. The way he laughed, so often, so loud, and so long. Oh, and the fun Peter had. The fun. The sheer delight he took in talking and joking and the outdoors, and fishing, and golf and tennis, and food, and music and movies, and travel. And it was the best kind of joy, because it was shared joy. Comment by Theresa Collins: already tearing up.He loved all those things, not so much for themselves, but because he could experience them with the people he loved, and most of all with his beautiful, smart, kind, and talented family.

And if you can find a friend, who has just one of those traits that Peter had: A friend who is kind. Or a friend who unites people. Or a friend who is helpful. Or a friend who is so brimming with joy that he makes others happy just by being in the same room, well, then, clutch that friend tight and count yourself as fortunate. But if theres a person in your life who has all 4 of those qualities, well then youve been blessed. And deep inside, I know that thats true. But Ill be honest, its not an easy thing for me to say, much less feel, today, because Im hurting now, as we all are. Real, blinding, raw pain. And the pain wont end today. Im not that naive.

And yet, still, Im hopeful. Really, truly Im hopeful. Because in the aftermath of the shock and trauma of this week, Ive witnessed three of Peters greatest traits flicker to life and shine all over this community, this community that he was so instrumental in building. Weve seen so many acts of kindness. And weve witnessed us come together in unity. And Helpfulness? Weve seen hundreds of people help each other cushion their sorrow as we forge our way through this bewildering time. Comment by Theresa Collins: love this phrase.

As for that fourth quality? No. Weve seen no joy this week.

But with time this fog that we are in, it will lift. It will. Joy will return. And until then? We can take some small solace from the echo of Peters laughter. Comment by Theresa Collins: Dan- this is an amazing eulogy. Thank you for sharing it with me-- not sure if you've done one of these before, but I recommend practice out loud. Seriously. (And I have it on good authority that an ativan or a belt of some liquid courage is good to take the edge off, too...). That said, it's so your voice and so totally authentic that you may feel that it is already inhabiting your language and thinking...so maybe you don't need to practice at all. It's truly beautiful and everyone in the room will recognize their own relationship with Peter in your words. Very well done, indeed. It is such an honor to be able to speak for your friend in this way, as difficult as it will be. But you've done right by his memory.Comment by Theresa Collins: We?