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Letter from Joyce Archives

January 6, 2001

Dale O. Zaret
March 13, 1936 - January 4, 2001

Dear Friends,

Dale first visited this discussion forum over three years ago -- one of the very early participants, drawn to this spot initially after he read an article of mine in the San Francisco Examiner Magazine about my experience, having moved to the Bay Area the year before as a total stranger, knowing nobody here. In many ways, I was starting over again, at the age of 42, with virtually no family but my three children. My parents were both dead, my marriage had ended years before. I had good friends, but none in the area. I was very much alone in the world, at the time.

Knowing Dale, I suspect he may have at least vaguely entertained the notion of a dinner, wine... He was a bachelor and no doubt something of a playboy in the old-school tradition, a man who spoke of women as "ladies," believed in opening a car door for a woman. One of his prized possessions had been a collection of Playboy magazines, dating back to the magazine's beginnings in the fifties. For those who might choose to see possession of such a collection as evidence of sexism, I'd have to say, you should have known Dale. He adored and admired women. There is just no way to talk about him without mentioning that, right off.

But if he dropped by this place, at first, with nothing more on his agenda than to check out the possibility of a date (which never happened ... not that way, at least) what made him stick around for over three years, on a nearly daily basis for most of that time, was the wonderful and extraordinarily diverse group of participants in our ongoing party, with whom he shared observations, wisecracks and stories. Many of those people have drifted away over the years, understandably -- though Martin, Anthony, Gilda and a few others remain. If they were here today (I'm thinking of Claudia, Dean, Jim, Maria ... oh, and so many others we have heard from over the years) I know they would have so much to say, today, because Dale bantered with them all.

It's one of the strange and unique aspects to the internet, the way a person can become a friend, even if you've never met him, and the kind of friendship that develops, online, that might never have been possible in the regular world. One of the closest I observed here being the wonderful and surprising connection that developed between Dean (a family man from my neck of the woods, New Hampshire) and Dale, a man who had probably never attended a kid's soccer game in his life, who lived in the most elegant of bachelor pads, in Santa Rosa, California. A place filled with original art and the clean lines of all-white furniture, he had made beautiful gardens there, and the spot, high on a hill overlooking Santa Rosa and beyond, was heavenly. The one thing I didn't like about it being the smell of cigarette smoke. Having lost one good friend to lung cancer, I wished Dale didn't smoke.

I may be sketchy on a few of the details of Dale's life -- and if so, I'm counting on others here to correct me. Dale was born in 1936 or so ... a Depression baby. Born in Chicago, he grew up in Culver City, California. His father and mother split up when he was young -- father took off, I think, and married a new wife. You couldn't have a conversation with Dale without his admiration for his mother coming through. He had been estranged from his dad, and met only once, briefly, the brother, Gary, who was born to the new wife.

Dale joined the coast guard, lying about his age. He showed me a picture one time from his Coast Guard days. It showed a very handsome young man -- strong profile, intelligent eyes.

At Bodega Bay, with Mindy

It is telling that nearly fifty years later, Dale maintained friendships from those Coast Guard days. He was a man for whom friendship -- old friendship in particular -- was precious. He was intensely loyal.

Somewhere along the line he made a marriage -- ultimately two of them, I think, and though they ended in divorce, what stands out in my mind is how well he spoke of his ex-wife, Sally. None of the usual bitterness or blame a person hears from someone, speaking of a person to whom he used to be married. In fact, when you heard him speak of the women with whom he'd been involved over the years, you'd have to wonder why he wasn't still with all of them, he talked of them with so much affection and respect.

He had no children. I suspect he would have liked to, though -- private as he was -- he didn't talk about that. Certainly a theme of my own friendship with Dale, over the years, was his intense appreciation for my kids, whom he met on a couple of occasions, but whose progress through life he followed with what always sounded like the most genuine concern and interest.

Dale was an advertising man in San Francisco, and though he never bragged about it, I could tell he had been a highly successful one. He still had, in his home, a few examples of his work, from the sixties and seventies, but they weren't displayed. You had to ask him to show you.

He didn't have many examples of his work, or much of anything else from his history, though, because on two separate occasions Dale's house had burned down, destroying virtually everything in it. Those fires were a kind of theme in his life. He spoke of them -- once again, not with bitterness or even deep regret, just as a life-altering fact -- on nearly every occasion we spoke. Just in passing, though. He was not a man eaten up by regrets.

Dale retired young, in his fifties. I'm not sure about this, but I think that last fire may have had something to do with his decision to pack it in a few years back. During all the years I knew him, (close to four) he lived full time in a wonderful house he'd built in Santa Rosa, on the spot where his last house had burned down. He played around with stocks, read, visited friends some ... but he kept to himself mostly, I think. He wasn't a football fan or a golfer. He was the kind of man you'd expect to be a great dancer, though one longtime ladyfriend of his (Dale's term) reports that in fact, though he danced well, it was hard to get him out on the dance floor.

For several months after he first appeared on the message board here, my communication with Dale was confined to postings on the board. Then one day, having observed the close connection and warm feeling that had been developing here between Gilda and me, Dale made a lovely offer. He wanted to take Gilda and her husband Ed and me out to dinner in San Francisco. We accepted.

[ Harley Jane, the Slut Cat ]

It is very like Dale that ultimately, he bowed out of the dinner he initiated. It took place though, and from the moment I met Gilda and Ed they felt like family to me, a woman with very little family of her own. We drank a toast to Dale that night, and over the years, spending time with Gilda and Ed -- far more time than I spent with Dale -- I have often found myself silently thanking Dale for taking the action that made our friendship possible.

On Thanksgiving of that year, I held a big dinner here at my home. All three of my children were here, along with various friends of theirs and an assortment of friends, without families of their own to be with that day. Sometime around noon that day, in between putting pies in the oven, I had gone onto this discussion forum and observed that Dale appeared to be home alone, with no plans. I got his number from information and called him up, inviting him to dinner. Two hours later he was on our doorstep, with wine and flowers. The next day he posted a lovely message, talking about his wonderful Thanksgiving, though he never identified where he'd been.

Shortly after that, I hosted one of my pie parties here, and Dale came again, though I can't truthfully say that I pictured him as the type who'd ever held a burning ambition to uncover the secrets of good pie crust. (He may have thought of the pie party as a good place to meet great women, and of course it was.)

One day that fall, I posted a dilemma on the board, soliciting advice of participants in our forum. My son Willy, then age thirteen, had come to me with the request that I give him a subscription to Playboy Magazine for Christmas. Being Willy, he'd mounted the most compelling case in favor of this: (including the guilt-inducing argument that if he wasn't the child of a broken home, and he had a dad around, he could just sneak his dad's Playboys) "Wouldn't you rather that I be honest and open about my sexuality, instead of skulking around hiding magazines under the mattress?" he said.

Dale posted a response to my story within minutes. (It seemed, sometimes, as if he was never NOT at the computer.) No self-respecting boy should receive Playboy from his mom, he wrote. That was a job for a Playboy type of uncle-figure. Keep an eye on your mailbox, he said. And sure enough, within weeks, the first issue arrived, addressed not to Willy but to our dog, Opie. Willy has been receiving Playboy for three years now, thanks to Dale. Some people (including his sister) call it sexist, and of course in some ways it is. But on the rare occasions when I flip through his issues, courtesy of Dale, I'm struck by how much good information he's getting, and my guess is, it will do more to assist him in knowing how to treat women respectfully and well, than harm him.

At the paella party, with Joe, Joyce and Rigo

Over the years, we saw each other infrequently -- though he came to Thanksgiving again the following year. (Not after that, because my family and I were invited to other people's houses in the years that followed.) Once he invited a bunch of us to attend the graduation ceremony of his favorite charity, Canine Companions, an organization in Santa Rosa that helps families train dogs to become helpers to severely handicapped individuals. The ceremony we watched that day, in which the trainer-families handed over their dogs to the new owners, after raising them for two years, was among the most moving events I have ever witnessed.

It was like Dale that as much as he loved the Canine Companions organization, he didn't own a dog, himself. (He did, however, own a wonderful, museum-quality doghouse he'd bought at one of their charity auctions. He kept it in his garage.)

Dale was a wonderful but erratic contributor to this forum. Sometimes he'd post late at night, and you could tell he'd had a few martinis. Now and then he'd leave some wildly inappropriate message, and someone would take offense. But it was always clear to me what a large-hearted and kind man this was. His writings here enriched our group on more times than I could begin to count. At his best, he was devastatingly funny, and very occasionally he'd tell a story that was heartbreakingly poignant too. I wish I'd saved a few of them.

At some point over the years of participation on this board, we held a contest in which the photographs of regulars here were posted, without names, and visitors were asked to guess which face belonged to whom. The picture of Dale, posted that day, showed a strikingly handsome man (no hair, but no need for any) with his arm around a springer spaniel. He had a dog once, evidently. But didn't talk about it.

Sometime after that, Dale got together with a woman who had been a regular on this board. Their romance, conducted long distance, between New York and California, was inspiring to all of us here who believe in the power of love to conquer all odds. The odds against this one were great, however -- neither one of the two could move -- and the relationship ended. Dale was deeply grieved by that though, as always, private about it.

A year or so back, I held another pie party. Once again, he attended, with the rolling pin that he had no doubt purchased purely for the purpose of having a utensil to bring to my pie parties. Always a man with an eye for an attractive woman, he was charmed by a friend of mine at the party that day and dropped her a note. She wrote him back to say she would never get involved with a smoker. It was the one thing about Dale I had the hardest time with, myself. Those damned cigarettes.

The last time I saw him was last spring. One of my favorite singers -- maybe my all-time favorite singer, George Jones -- was performing in Santa Rosa, and I asked Dale (not your usual country music fan) if he would like to go with me. He took me out to dinner first -- a wonderful Italian meal -- and treated me, as always, like a queen. The music that night was hard-core heartbreak country, and the crowd was into cowboy boots and ten gallon hats, where Dale was more of a cool jazz type. No matter. We had a wonderful evening.

[ Paella party, with Jaime ]

He made many friendships here on this board. One particularly remarkable connection was with his brother, Gary, an emergency room doctor living in Vermont, whom he hadn't seen since his teenage years. He and Gary (known here as MooseBro) began communicating, first in the safety of this forum, and then on private emails and on the phone. Dale called me in the spring to tell me the great news, that Gary and his wife and kids were travelling to California, and they would meet face to face at last. One of the things I know Dale particularly looked forward to, on hearing the news, was the thought of meeting his niece and nephew.

A week before Gary was due to visit Dale, last summer, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. Dale was devastated.

Not long after that, Dale told me he had given up smoking. I was amazed. He'd been a heavy smoker for close to fifty years, and now he had quit cold turkey. In that same conversation, he told me he was experiencing back pain. Knowing what I do now, I am wondering if he didn't maybe sense that the cigarettes had finally taken their toll. Too late.

He was diagnosed with lung cancer in the fall, though I didn't know this. He chose to tell almost nobody, and chose, most particularly, not to share the information on this board. I myself was off working on a new book for most of the last few months, so we hadn't spoken.

Kris, Joyce, Dale

But I called him on Christmas day, guessing he'd be alone. When he called me back a few hours later I commented that his voice sounded funny. I asked if he had a cold. "Oh, I'll tell you about that later," he said. Then he went on to ask about my children, my work, my love life. Only when I asked him again why his voice sounded odd did he tell me he had cancer. He was in excruciating pain at this point, unable to sleep more than an hour a night. Still utterly lucid, but I sensed, speaking to him, a kind of resignation that wasn't like him. I begged him to let me take him to specialists in San Francisco. He said Santa Rosa had been good enough for Charles Shultz, and anyway, he was too tired, in too much pain, to travel. He didn't want a visit. "Wait till I'm a little better," he said. But he wasn't getting better.

Only a week ago was he finally given adequate pain medication. After that, he was not conscious much. Only two very close and dear old friends -- that former ladyfriend, and his next door neighbor -- were allowed to see him, and an old collegue from his advertising days, whose visit Dale hung on for, that last afternoon. They were there when he died, peacefully, at home, two nights ago.

I know that many of you here will want to share recollections of Dale. I hope you'll do that. Sometime down the line -- later this winter, or in the spring, after the rains are over -- we will have a pie party here in honor of Dale.

The dog house he bought at that auction, years ago -- that sat vacant in his garage all this time -- is finally being put to use, incidentally. His good friend Don will set it up in his yard across the street from Dale's house, which is also a spot where (because a church is nearby) people evidently drop off unwanted cats. So it will become The Zaretsky Home for Unwanted Cats. Fitting, in a way, that Dale should leave the legacy of a cathouse. But only the classiest kind.

One more thing I will mention here. On Christmas Eve this year -- a year that found me without my children, who were visiting their father -- I paid a visit to Gilda and Ed, who are, for me now, like parents. And in a way, though he wasn't present that day, Dale was part of the family I made for myself out here. I will miss him every time Playboy magazine arrives in our mailbox, and many other days besides.