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Scary, Isn’t It?
Exactly a year ago, my dear family friend, Linda, who I considered to be like a second mother passed away. Eleven months later, her husband, who we all called Danno, died too. I didn’t have the same type of relationship with him as I did with Linda, but he was a constant, someone I knew my whole life. He was synonymous with my hometown. He was a North Country renaissance man who received accolades as an accounting professor at the local SUNY school for 50 years. He ran a contracting business, building and renovating homes. He owned and operated a former train station that he transformed into a bar called the Hoot Owl. He coached high school lacrosse and wrestling. Back in the day, he was a world-class bobsledder. He served as a town councilman and then as a county legislator. He was gregarious and shy at the same time. He greeted everyone with the same phrase, “Scary, isn’t it?”, his way of saying “hello”. In 1998, a devastating ice storm came through the area. Days later, when things were coming back to a sense of normalcy, he saw the mailman slip and fall on the ice. He picked him up and made sure he was okay. Then, letting the mailman recover, Danno delivered the rest of the mail on the route. The professor, the bar owner, the contractor, the landlord, the coach, the father, the husband, the uncle, the brother, the neighbor, the friend, the man who called the numbers at the Knights of Columbus bingo games—he was all those things, but most importantly, he was a kind and generous person who cared about everyone in his orbit. When I think of Danno, I think of him saying, “Scary, isn’t it?” and I think of how he made things a lot less scary.
Stay safe and healthy,
Tracy Jacobs
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