Compliments

I learned early on that fishing for compliments from Steven, or even for mild reassurance about some perceived physical flaw, was not going to turn out well.  He used these as opportunities to pull my chain whenever possible. 

So here’s an example:  Steven had listened to a novel by Tom Wolfe called Bonfire of the Vanities about Wall Street types.  One part of the story makes a big deal about the allure of vibrant, full-bodied, juicy, exotic and slightly messy younger women, as opposed to the wives of the banking moguls, who starved themselves to within an inch of their lives and whose skinny, dried-up, severely-tailored, harpy-ish selves were ubiquitous at  NY parties.  Wolfe coined the term “social x-rays” for these women.  So as I was reading that part of the book one night, I turned to Steven and asked, “Esteban, am I a social x-ray?”   His reply:   “Well . . . you’re not social.”   

It is actually my recounting of this story to Mary Murphy that first made her love Steven.             

Book: Emily Dybwad

I was very lucky to grow up next door to the Dantzkers.  It meant that our households tended to blend together with multiple dinners and desserts in a single night, shared homework tips, and group tv watch on school nights (once we broke the locks our parents had put on the tvs).  It's not an exaggeration that I was over at Alicia's house close to every day of my life.  Steve was a staple in my life who introduced me to many new things: my first big mac (from Micky D's), how to make a bottle rocket and win our 8th grade science contest, the best places for dim sum, and my first IMAX movie experience.  He wasn't just Alicia's dad to me, Steve was part of my support system and foundation.  IMpressing steve with some obscure fact was better than getting an A on a paper (though the two were mutually inclusive, I'm sure).  In each conversation I had with Steve, I learned something new.  He was full of information and it felt to me that he knew everything there was to know.

One of the things I loved most about Steve is that he never excluded people.  A lot of families tend to protect their "family time," but anytime the Dantzkers were doing something (mostly going to see a movie), Steve would include all of us.  It was this inclusive philosophy that always made the Dantzker living room the number one hang out place.  There is nothing that more aptly describes the Dantzker living room that the world's most inclusive fraternity house (the initiation is if you know where the Diet Cokes are).  Alicia described this fraternity-esque situation in her infamous college entrance essay.  Often the scene would be a smattering of Alicia's friends and maybe one or two of Nicky's friends and Lizzy sitting on the couch, arguing about what to watch on tv, and Steve would walk into the room, glance at the situation, remark on the tv program we had decided on, and as quickly as he appeared he was gone.  If we had chosen well, Steve would join us for a few moments while indulging us in a new piece of information about the tv show.  Of course, as the first wave of friends moved on to college, Nick and Lizzy's friends took over for us.  The Dantzkers always had something going on (and sometimes without any of the Dantzkers even being home).

My life was truly enriched because of Steve Dantzker and the entire Dantzker family.  I feel so lucky to have been so close to my next door neighbors.  I am who I am today in party because of the role Steve played in my life.

Book: Danny Stein

If anyone deserved a parental medal of honor for putting up with children's friends, Steve did.  He was always exceedingly nice to me and all of Nick's friends no matter how often we ate his leftover food, drank his iced tea, and kept him up till all hours of the night.  Regardless of the commotion around him, Steve was always calm and extremely welcoming into his house.  Nick inherited Steve's best qualities of warmth, humor, and insight and I can only imagine how proud Steve was of all Nick has accomplished.

The Book

Ari King, one of Nick's friends, collected memories of my dad from a bunch of their friends (and a few of mine).  He put them together and gave them to my mom as a book.  One of the nicest gestures ever, and I've been so struck by how well our friends knew my dad and how they felt about him.  Above is the cover page, and I'll add some of the entries to the blog today and tomorrow.

High school days

I attended junior high and McLean High School with Steve.  Here are some scattered memories:

It never looked like Steve devoted much time to homework and he never seemed to break a sweat in class, but he always seemed to know everything.  Civil war history was very big in our Virginia education in the 1960s.  Steve knew every battle, every battlefield, and every general.  He probably knew the firearms as well, but I probably glazed over at that point.

Steve was the McLean High School yearbook editor.  The faculty advisor was Mr. Marranian.  To me Mr. Marranian was a teacher and that elicited no questions from me about his personal history or his origins.  Steve called him Marranian the Armenian and joked with him about the massacres and forced marches that occurred after WWI. We were juniors in high school!  I still had to look it up now in Wikipedia to get that “massacres and forced marches” phrase.  It was much more of a peer-to-peer relationship than I remember the rest of us having with our teachers.  Steve seemed older in some ways, I think because his intelligence and humor gave him at least an appearance of calm.

Steve loved fresh cherries.  We cut school one day when we were seniors and figured we had it in the bag.  We walked to a shopping area nearby and Steve bought a big bag of cherries.  We ate them, spitting out the seeds, as we walked back to school, feeling like for the moment, we had arrived.

One day Steve and our friend Johanna Putnoi were over at my house and we decided to take my sister-in-law sledding.  Here is what she remembers about that day:  I remember Steve quite well.  My favorite memory of him was one day while I was visiting in McLean.  It was winter.  There was a lot of snow.  You and Steve and Joanna (I think) decided that they would take me sledding. First challenge was finding enough warm clothes for me.  After all, I had spent most of my life in the deep south and was living on Oahu.  Steve kept noticing that I was wearing your clothes and commented that I didn't have warm clothes. I remember thinking that was very observant for a high school male.  Then came the actual sledding.  And Steve put me in front and explained the steering mechanism.  I thought I understood but at the crucial moment, we all became painfully aware that I did not know right from left.  The sled was totaled.  There were no human injuries except for my wounded ego. I am so sorry to hear about Steve. Obviously, I have a fond memory of  both him and Johanna.

My mother disappeared bit by bit to dementia over seven years before she died recently.  Sometimes we would wander in conversation back to the years in McLean.  This always included the names Johanna Putnoi and Steve Dantzker.  The ripples from a life spread wide.  

Condolences to Steve’s family and friends.  Bruce, I remember you from McLean too and I’m sorry that you have lost your kind and funny brother.   Suzy Hill

Dantzker Classics

Started (as far as we know) by Grandpa Dan, continued unceasingly by my dad and uncle:

when driving by a pasture: "You know, those cows are all outstanding in their fields"

when driving by a cemetery: "Geez, people are just dying to get in there"

"Dad, I'm hungry. Make me a bagel!"
"Poof... you're a bagel"

That one always pissed me off. Actually it still does, even under the circumstances.

Way To Go, Dad

Apple, Tree

Charts and Graphs

After coming to his first nationals to watch Fury and hearing about our impressive record, my dad ordered these pins for everyone on the team.  He put them in little envelopes and included the following note:

"Dear Furies,

After the tournament in Sarasota last October I discovered that this is the fourth year in a row you've won the Nationals. That's quite a showing. The enclosed buttons are for you to pin on your hats. They're so when anyone questons your right to act like the Monarchs of Ultimate, you can just point to your hats.

Steve Dantzker"

A Classic

Bart, Stewie, or Cartman?

More From Jackie

2 reassuring signs that Steve was still Steve after his hemorrhage:

1.  When Steve was in the hospital after his stroke, a woman came in to assess his degree of brain damage.  She asked him to name all the animals he could in a 1-minute period.  He was silent for about 40 seconds, and then said:  “vole.”  At about the 53-second mark, he came out with “x-ray fish.”   She left.  We looked at each other.  It was pretty scary and sobering.  Then he got a twinkle in his eye and said to me, “Well, OK, so not so good on quantity, but I  think I deserve extra points for originality.”

2.  The first outing he took after he got out of the hospital from his brain hemorrhage was a baseball game at Candlestick Park with his dad, his brother, Bruce, and his then brother-in-law, Loren.  They went early and tailgated.  At a point when everyone had fallen silent for a little while, Steven looked around and then remarked, “Sitting here in a huge asphalt parking lot, eating cold hotdogs, breathing toxic fumes from SUVs, surrounded by drunk red-necks yelling at each other--it just doesn’t get much better than this.”  Bruce told me it was at that moment he knew Steve was still there.

Penpal

Hi Alicia -

My name is D.J. LaChapelle - I got to know your dad (via Conn) a bit over the last number of years thru email.  Steve and I regularly emailed a couple of times a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, about a lot of funny, dumb, interesting, and ridiculous stuff.  Much of the time we emailed about cars: new cars, old cars, car dealerships, prototype cars, Route 66 (I now live in Kansas), car industry bailouts.  I bought a '64 AMC Rambler wagon a few years ago; Steve knew my car originally had drum brakes, was in fact the last AMC to have drum brakes, but that newer disc brakes from, say, a '75 Javelin, would fit on my car with no retro-fitting.  I needed to get disc brakes, Steve said, because I have young kids - and he was right, of course.

Your dad was a really sweet and funny guy.  He was also quite good at that thing guys like in their friends (or at least Conn and I do, anyways): the sarcastic ability to bust another guy's chops - good naturedly, sure, but right up to the edge - the closer, the better, the funnier.

We spoke on the phone a couple of times, emailed about how we looked forward to finally meeting in person - if for no other reason than to go over Nuge's Harvard career in day-to-day detail.  I already quite miss those emails.  I'm sorry I'll never get to meet him, but was glad to have shared the moments we did, and I extend my deepest condolences to you and your family.

Warm regards,
D.J.

Jacqueline -

I too had heard lots about you and your wonderful family.  Conn was so happy to have seen you in NYC last week. I was smiling when I was writing Alicia about my car - Steve had written something like "nothing will end a nice day trip to the zoo faster than piling into the back of a fruit truck," to which I replied that I lived in Kansas and we didn't have a lot of fruit trucks to pile into, which devolved into cattle on the highway.  Funny.

I remember speaking with him after The Nugent Experience stayed with you guys - we both laughed so hard.

Warmly,

D.J.

From Jackie

  At Morrison and Foerster, a big law firm where Steve worked, floating secretaries would be assigned to lawyers when their secretaries (as they were called before “personal assistants” became the term of choice) were away on vacation.  The two secretaries Steven had during his career were very smart, highly competent, hard-wording professionals who played a big part in Steven being able to do his job.  Not to cast aspersions on all of them, but a significant portion of floating secretaries were not.  They became “floaters” precisely because they had no interest in actually working, and counted on the lawyers giving them as little to do as possible.  The support staff managers knew which of the floaters were lousy but when the lawyers filled out evaluations after they had had one assigned to their desk, they would invariably mark “satisfactory” on all the categories. Lawyers generally didn’t like to get a bad rep with the secretaries, who when provoked (sometimes quite legitimately) could form an impressively hostile cabal, and the lawyer was unlikely to have to work with that floater again anyway. 

  Steve, however, couldn’t have cared less what others thought about him (or about being politically correct, for that matter), so he filled out the evaluations in his usual understated and tactful fashion.  For one floater, Steven wrote:  “This is the laziest person still holding down a job in the Northern hemisphere,” and had the following to say about another floater’s initiative:  “If breathing were not an autonomic nervous response, this woman would suffocate.”

  I found this out because the managers came to my office (I worked at the same law firm at the time), cracking up, to show me these evaluations.  Unfortunately for Steve, this back-fired on him.  Whenever his secretary was out, the supervisors would assign him only the worst floaters whom they wanted to get rid of but couldn’t without written evidence. 

It Just Adds Character

In high school, our suburban was parked across from the Dybwad's driveway (which is breaking some unspoken rules, I think), in which Emily's car was parked.  My dad and I were outside when Emily got in her car, backed up, and smacked straight into the side of the Suburban, leaving a decent dent.  She looked totally terrified, but my dad's only response was, "Nice shot, Em."

Who Trained Whom?

  These two squirrels would come up and chatter at my dad's office window until he fed them peanuts.  He said it took him a few months before he realized there were two of them, and not just one very persistent guy.  The cat really hates them--they get in hissing fights about who gets to be on the trellis.

   The obese fellows keep checking in at the window.

Definitions by Steve

Moore Interval:  The time between when my mom says she's ready to go and when she actually leaves the house.


Liz:

WGGP: World's Greatest Gin Player - his nickname for our grandpa dan.

BFG: Big Fucking Gun. Rather self-explanatory I think.

AFU Light: the All Fucked Up Light. Applicable to both computers and people. As in, "why are you on the couch? was the AFU light on last night? *smugness*"

From Jackie:

DTJ:  A "Don't Take Jackie" movie.

ESWG:  "Even Steve Won't Go"  The at most 2 movies a decade Steve refused to see.  Mostly bloody teen murder movies.

IBA:  "Intensified Body Awareness"  The condition in which there is a 2 degree range that is neither too hot nor too cold.  Also applies to other sources of discomfort.  Shamelessly cribbed from Alan Parsley.


Giant Food Redistribution Events:  Any party involving my family, which Steven described as my sisters, my mother and me descending on one or another of our houses, carrying mass quantities of food in our trunks, each dish large enough to feed twice the number of people attending if you assume that was the only food being served.  Everyone eats the equivalent of two kernels of rice and a pea (remember, he coined this before the 9 grandchildren grew up to be trenchermen), the leftovers get divided up, and everyone leaves with mass quantities of food in their trunks.  

Emma and her manservant:  my Dad and his beloved dachshund, as in, "Are your mother and Emma and her manservant coming over?"

feel free to keep adding to this list

King of the Lake

One of my favorite stories of all time:

  Our whole family was in Italy, and had gone out to an absurdly large dinner.  Which reminds me that dinner itself is a story--mostly, that for dessert, each person ordered two different desserts, which pretty much horrified the delicate waiter.  When he got to my dad, the last to order, my dad just said, "Oh nothing for me, thanks," as if this were a typical situation for him, a man of restraint saddled with his indulgent family.  Before we ever got our desserts, the waiter brought the chef out to gawk at us.  But I think he was disappointed by how not-obsese we turned out to be.

  Anyway, that night, I got food poisoning, and even though I was 19, I went to get taken care of by my parents in the next room.  I slept in their bed all morning, which had a view of Lake Como, while they came in and out.  When I woke up, my was dad looking out over the lake through a pair of binoculars.  While he thought no one was listening, still looking through the binoculars, he waved his hand across the view and declared, "Aaaaaallll you ducks, get off my lake"

  My dad was such a weird dude.  I feel so lucky about that.

Life Lessons

E-mail exchange with my dad regarding off-campus housing (which I was technically not eligible for):

Me:
Officially got approved to live off campus woo-hoo!! if this experience has taught me anything it's that being an entitled, unceasing brat and/or faking problems works

Steve's Response:
Great !!
Your conclusion is correct.
A more PC way to say it: A bureaucrat's first impulse is to say no to any request. But few rules are absolute. So if the initial answer is no, just keep at it and often you'll succeed. Use bs if you have to, but never tell a lie under oath- whether in writing or orally.

Conn's Note

Steve. Gone. Damn. What a fine soul! I will appear at the service, and probably talk too long, but I thought I’d tell a recent little Steve story here.

In the summer of 2010, NugeFam 2.0 (my wife Kati, me, and four little kids) visited California and exploited the bottomless hospitality of Steve and Jackie. We took over Parkside Drive and then we took over Kenwood. In Kenwood, my daughter Molly, then 4 years old, fell in love with Steve. He liked her a lot, too, I’m happy to say. Each morning for a week, Steve and Molly and Hudson the three-legged dog took a long walk together. Nobody else could join them. It was their special time. They chatted about the proverbial everything under the sun. What a wonderful gift he gave her! She loves him still, and mourns him. More than anyone I’ve ever met – anyone, anywhere – Steve knew how to give and take love casually, with no trumpets, but with a profundity made deeper by its very naturalness.

He was a gift to us.

-- Conn Nugent  

Dad's Most Infamous Text Exchange

We have several guesses as to what precipitated his great need for Top Dog.  Actually, no we don't.  Just one guess.

The Obit

Steven Dantzker died unexpectedly in Berkeley, California on February 4, 2012. Steve grew up on the east coast, moved to California in 1974 and lived in Berkeley for the remainder of his life. Sixty-four at the time of his death, Steve is survived by Jacqueline Moore, his wife of 30 years, their three children, Alicia, Nicholas and Elizabeth, his brother, Bruce Dantzker and his sister, Lynn Dantzker.

 After graduating from high school in 1965, a turbulent time in our nation's history, Steven launched into a life-long commitment to what he viewed as this country's most important democratic principles, opportunity and liberty for all. He believed deeply in the responsibility of those with power and means to share with those not similarly blessed, and to help preserve our earth.   Steve graduated from Harvard University in 1969 and Harvard Law School in 1974. To his military parents' chagrin, but also with subdued pride, Steve walked down the aisle of his college graduation with a red arm band signifying his opposition to an unpopular war. After law school Steve worked as a lawyer at San Francisco's Legal Aid Society. Steve joined Morrison and Foerster in 1974, where he specialized in alternative energy and independent power work. He retired as a partner due to debilitating illness in 1991.

  When no longer able to practice law, he dedicated himself to his three young children to whom he was always available and with whom he shared his sense of fun, love of learning, and ever-present irreverence. He never missed their games and was beloved by his children's friends. Steve taught his children to take risks and live their lives to the fullest. He would have been a devoted grandfather.

   Steven was thoroughly authentic, with a brilliant mind and wit. His observations on life, politics, history or the foibles of human nature were unvarnished and incisive. He was a man completely without artifice or conceit. He was a life-long avid reader of literature and history, but also loved comic books and thrillers. Steven was a regular gym rat, an outdoorsman who especially enjoyed white water rafting, back-packing and skiing, and an enthusiastic world traveler. Although he was truly erudite, his tastes were catholic. Steven loved all jokes, good or bad, and enjoyed mindless action movies as well as any baseball game. His friends were always delighted by his dry sense of humor, sarcastic wit and pithy comments, whether it was over a gathering for Chinese food, a hike at Kenwood, or a Tuesday night poker game. He was deeply devoted to his family and was the most loyal of friends. He was an honorable man, unfailingly generous to those around him in every sense of the word. His family and friends cannot imagine life without Steven. A memorial service will be held in March. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Oxfam America, the Nature Conservancy or the American Civil Liberties Union.

On the website: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/15/MNDANTZKER02166.DTL#ixzz1nKU2mqbO

Wiley

You are such a special family to me. Up until to this point, this letter could have been written by anyone, no? Because you are so universally considered special.  Because you are so special. I have never known a family so kind and loving as yours and have never heard a single word spoken against anyone in the family with the exception of Nick.  Every member uniquely different but equally beautiful.  For this reason and a million others, I am so so sorry for your loss.

I consider Nick my best friend and through him have had the luck of getting to know you all. Before meeting Steve, I knew quite a lot about him. In my mind, he was already a role model, and when I met him, I realized that Nick's stories didn't even do him justice. I liked him at first sight.  I thought it might have been seduction via wardrobe, but then I realized that he was exactly the kind of man I was trying to become. Except that he didn't "try" to be that person, it’s just who he was. Happy, loving, principled, down to earth. All effortless because of the strength of his head and warmth of his heart. I know I don't need to tell this to his family of all people, but as a non-family member, as much as I wish I were, I can objectively say that Steve did in fact spread love and life to everything he touched. You felt it in yourself and noticed it in those around him (i.e. you!).

It may be too soon to hear these, but if/when you ever feel like it, here are the things about Steve I will never forget:

-Our graduation dinner at Town and Country: Everyone was dressed in Sunday best and on their best behavior. The parents were talking wine at their end, with the exception of Steve, who by no coincidence was giggling at the kiddie table about “Big Bob,” my well-endowed grandfather.  He then chatted with Mike about Native American Indians for the rest of the dinner.

-“Kill your television. Subvert the dominant paradigm.”

-His advice to always tell adults your Dad is a trashman if you are asked what they do for a living.  I still do and always will.

-A story Nick told me about how he blew up at some obnoxious parent when he was helping Lizzy move to school.

-A similar story about him blowing up some pretentious bakery.  See how I romanticize him?

-When Nick, Casey, and I were in Asia, Steve would usually communicate with Nick via 5$ text messages that said “Go Niners!” or “Hey, I’m in Sonoma, can you feed the dog?”  It was his way of loving Nick and he did it well.  This made it all the more surprising when Nick received an email from Steve in Vietnam about getting clothes tailored.  Steve’s 10 page recommendation was to get a rainbow variety of full suits (at the very least, black, blue, and gray) and six North Face fleeces.  Nick, every time you don’t wear one of those suits, I hope you can think of your wonderful Dad.

-Steve once lent my girlfriend Jackie and me the family’s suburban to drive to Tahoe, and spent, no joke, 45 minutes explaining to us how to operate it.  To this day, I don’t understand an automatic transmission.

-His tupperware in the Berkeley fridge.  I could always count on some deliciously mysterious (rotten) leftovers.

-His mustard in the Sonoma fridge.  I never enjoyed that place without feeling him there and I don’t expect that to change.  Honest to god, the happiest times of my entire tortured undergraduate years were in Sonoma and I honestly believe the happiness he poured into that place somehow rubbed off on me.  And Hudson.  I can offer no other explanation for Hudson’s contentment.

I truly am sorry for your loss.  Really, it is the whole world’s loss because of the man that Steve was, but I don’t necessarily love the world as much as I love you guys, so you have excusive rights to every ounce of loving sadness I feel.

If you need someone to laugh or cry with, I am here.  If you want to laugh and cry with someone more qualified, my Mom is here and also knows every psychologist in the Bay Area.  Or if you need an opinion on financial stuff, my Dad would love to help.

We’re here to help.

With never-ending love for your whole family:

Nick, Jackie, Alicia, Lizzy, UB, and Steve

An Excerpt from a Really Kind Email

I may have only been around your family for a few years, but I can still hear you dad's voice as he joked with me. I can remember his mannerisms as he pulled off his headphones after coming into the house and decided I might just be worth talking to. Even though I just passed by, your dad always managed to make me feel as though I clicked. He was intimidating in his brilliance but never in his attitude or approach. He was inquisitive and engaging and I'll be damned if he wasn't a hell of a lot of fun to talk to. I never once had to fake it around him because he never felt the need for artifice. Now, after years spent in various businesses, and so many hours spent talking to people who didn't give a damn about what they said or what was said to them, I know how special it was that your dad said what he thought and meant what he said and didn't think it was necessary to say anything else. 

A sad picture

I took this on Friday when I thought it would be funny and melodramatic when he got home on Sunday.  It's not funny now.  But I wanted to not be the only one who's seen it.

Roadtrip, 1970

So, these are photos from our trip cross country in 1970. 

There was Steve, me, Steve's friend sitting next to me 
(I can't remember his name for the life of me), and Steve's 
girlfriend, Reggie, who's on the bike w/Steve in the second photo. 

We travelled in Steve's VW bus, pulling his Harley on a trailer behind 
us! I think that's a perfect symbol for Steve. He was so gentle 
while fancying himself to be so fierce.  

In the first photo, we are in Montana, at Lost Lake (?) Ranch. 
It was owned by Reggie's uncle, who was not happy to have 
a band of scruffy hippies visiting his ranch. He had no idea 
his beautiful, smart niece from Radcliffe, had turned into a lefty, 
hippy, ne'er-do-well. Remember, it was early in the story of the 
culture wars.

Upon first arrival, as we exited the bus, Steve said Reggie's uncle 
took him aside and said in no uncertain terms: 
"I have a fourteen year old daughter, and if you or your friends offer 
her drugs, I'll kill you!" 

It was a very uncomfortable moment. He let us know that the men 
and women would be staying in separate quarters, and then, as I recall, 
took us to a huge field of hay bails. We were asked to walk behind a pickup 
truck and lift the heavy bails up to a waiting cowboy, who stacked them in 
the bed of the truck. It took a couple of hours to load all the bails, and by 
the end, our hands were blistered from the ropes that held the bails together. 
We were very hot and tired. 

Happily, Reggie's uncle was impressed by our hard work and invited us to dinner. 
We feasted on home made everything. The family was amazing. They grew their 
own food, both animal and vegetable. It was my first experience of this kind of life, 
and I loved every aspect of it. 

I think we stayed nearly two weeks. I got up every morning at five and rode 
the range with cowboy Bob. He couldn't believe that a college girl could ride 
a horse so well. 

The family grew to love us. We worked hard every day, and at dinnertime, 
we naively carried on about such things as geodesic domes, the war, and 
dreams of living a life governed by right livelihood. I think they were sad 
to see us go. 

We pushed on, searching for Hole in the Wall. As you know, Steve was in 
love with the outlaws. We risked life and limb trespassing on miles and 
miles of big sky country dirt roads, camouflaged by that damn bike dragging 
behind us. We slept on the ground, underneath the stars and surrounded by 
cattle, when we got caught by the night and couldn't turn our wagon train around. 
It was both wonderful and scary. Steve was our captain and insisted we get to the 
end of the canyon. 

We never found that illusive hole in the wall, but for one brief shinning moment, 
we were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kids.

And so it was in the long ago.

Much love to you my dear.
How I wish he were still here.
Johanna

Adam's Email

Dear all,

I am so very sorry about Steve.  What a massive loss.  He was the coolest, funniest, smartest, sweetest, most generous, most passionate, most wonderfully mischievous guy--who gets dealt this woeful hand yet manages to knock it out of the park in life.  I will really miss him.  

I'm sure you're hearing this a lot but he was not shy about how much he loved his kids and how proud he was of them--one of his many endearing qualities.

When my dad died, the passage below from a New Yorker article on Roland Barthes' diary of mourning, provided some comfort. I found it to be true--you won't be consoled, but that is sort of the point.

Take care,
Adam 

MoFo Announcement

As many of you now know, our former partner and long-time close friend, Steve Dantzker, passed away suddenly on Saturday, February 4.  For those of you who did not know Steve, he was a valued partner in our financial transactions group.  After leaving the firm in 1992, he continued to maintain friendships with many of us. 

 
Steve was a brilliant man.  He had a remarkably absorbent and retentive mind, collecting and sharing facts on every subject imaginable.  He was an iconoclast. He could be spectacularly irreverent, but always with a dose of irony, humor -- and humility.  He had a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.  He had a sweetness about him. He was amused by and loved this human comedy.  Learning to practice law from him, as I did, was always fun.

 
Steve also deeply loved his wife, Jackie, and their children, Alicia, Nick and Lizzie.  He was so proud of each of them.  They adored him.  Our hearts go out to them for their loss.

 
Steve was a man comfortable in himself -- with enough room in his expansive mind and heart to give each member of his family, his colleagues and friends a special place in his rich life.  We will all miss him.

Keith

Entries from the Obit Guestbook

February 17, 2012

There are some experiences in life that even Time does not erode. Steve Dantzker was a force in our high school lives; a force of intelligence, of irreverence, and of kindness. Although our contact since those days has been more limited, we still feel keenly the strength of his presence and we mourn now the loss of our beloved and irreplaceable friend. Please count us among those who honor his name and who reach out with sympathy to his wife, his daughters, his son, his brother and sister, and all other family members and friends.
Johanna Putnoi and Suzy Hill

~

Johanna Putnoi Suzy Hill,

Menlo Park, Crowheart, WY, California

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February 18, 2012

I had the distinct privilege of working with Steve as his secretary for six and a half years. He was dedicated to his profession, the brightest attorney, charming and very funny. He will be sorely missed. My deepest sympathies to Jackie and his children.

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Alma Gilligan,

Loon Lake, Washington