Daniel Joseph Piette

 Dan by Mark

Daniel Joseph Piette was born on 6 July 1957, the fifth of Lawrence J. and Claire Marin deGravelles Piette’s seven children. He was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, a solid, white, middle class, manufacturing town on the Fox River at a time when the upper Midwest was still feeling the prosperity of the post world war two economic boom. Both of Daniel’s parents had college degrees but his mother never worked outside the home once she was married and moved from south Louisiana to Appleton.

Daniel had two brothers and two sisters, all of them less than 10 years old, when he was born. Within six years there were another sister and brother. The family focused on itself, education, and the Catholic church. Daniel played the violin and most of the family played instruments. Sports and outdoor activities were not an important part of the family culture.

Daniel’s older siblings all went to St. Mary’s grade school after public kindergarten, and the first three graduated from Catholic high schools. But Dan had a slight lisp so the folks sent him to public school which had a speech therapist, and he stayed in the Appleton public schools through high school, then went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Dan was an excellent student. He joined the debate team and went to the state tournament at least once, and wrote for the school paper. Even though he was six and a half feet tall, he had no interest in playing basketball. His one academic weakness was Spanish which in hindsight is ironic since later in his life, he spent three years in Venezuela as the regional manager for a geophysical software company. The first time I ever heard our father use a crude adjective was when he was driving me to the airport to go to Vietnam (my orders were cancelled) and he was telling me about how well my siblings were doing in school. He said Dan would have straight A’s, “if it weren’t for that damn Spanish!”

There were a few tough years for the family leading up to our mother’s death in January 1969 when Dan was 11. My memories of Dan talking on the phone to our mother in the hospital are some of the saddest in my life. I was out of the house, at the UW Madison, when she died, so I don’t have many details of how everyone coped until Summer vacation.

That Fall I left the country and kept in touch with the siblings with letters, these were the days before

modern, instant communication. I don’t remember Dan writing much that first year but our sister Abbie wrote that “Dan is getting to be a lot of fun. He says goofy things like, ‘Hi Ab, how’s your flab,’” and I realized how much I was missing in the lives of the people who were so important to me. Dan and I wrote more as he went from grade to middle to high school. He told me that he was involved in a school demonstration against Nixon’s escalation of the war in Vietnam and Cambodia.

We stayed close during those years and got closer through letters and occasional visits. The year Dan graduated from high school, 1975, and went to the UW Madison was my second semester back and it was wonderful having both Dan and Mel within easy walking distance. To my knowledge Dan never received another consonant for a grade after “that damn Spanish.”

Those years were full of great conversation, beer, and food. Dan was always willing to help me with calculus, trigonometry, and any other math that I was studying. Dan took advantage of the engineering intern programs to work in coal mines in Illinois and Wyoming, and an iron mine in Peru. (I’m not sure if the Peru mine was an internship.) When he was away he lent me his calculator since I could not afford my own. It was an HP and I was the only person I knew who was not an engineer and could work reverse Polish notation. Dan was working as an intern at Kemmerer Coal Company in Kemmerer, Wyoming during my last semester and arranged an interview for me with the company. The job didn’t come through but we had a wonderful long weekend in southwest Wyoming.

Dan graduated with a degree in Mining Engineering in 1980. By then Becky and I were living in Midland, Texas and had two kids. Dan came to visit us as a side trip after an interview in Houston in late January or early February of that year. One evening we were enjoying a few beers and Dan had Josienne, our new baby, on his lap. He kept looking down and smiling and said something about her smiling back at him. That was the first time she smiled.

Dan took a job with Exxon Mining in Texas, then moved to Colorado on one of the large shale oil projects which was not profitable in the days of cheap oil. The project was shut down and he took advantage of the situation to move back to Texas and work for a series of smaller companies that were in the high tech end of oil and gas production and exploration. He was so successful with one of those that he was offered the job of managing the South American operations and moved to Caracas,

 Venezuela. He turned that division around so he was offered a similar position for Asian Operations and moved to Singapore. That company was bought out and since Dan was an officer with stock options, he was very well set at 39 years old. The company was bought out by Halliburton and as part of their due diligence Dan was interviewed by Dick Cheney who would soon be vice president under George W. Bush.

We saw each other often when we were both working in Texas, and once both gave talks at the same symposium. One of the secretaries where Dan worked used to mistake me for him when I would call. Our kids were always comfortable at Uncle Dan’s house and would cry when we’d leave. That pattern repeated itself when Josienne and Dominique were both living in Texas and started having babies.

Domi’s son Oscar often called me Uncle Dan when we would go visit.

Dan was planning to marry Doreen on 2 February 2002, 2/2/2 as any numberphile would appreciate but moved the wedding to October after the attack on the Twin Towers. A more suspicious person than I might think he did that because flights were still grounded and that would keep the wedding to a manageable number, but in fact, it was adjusting to the reality of a change in the world order.

A lot of the books I read are recommendations from Dan. My son’s name is Alaric Abraham Daniel Piette, the Daniel of course if from Dan. I interviewed with plenty of companies at his suggestion and even if they didn’t turn into jobs, they gave me a chance to get together with Dan in Houston. We’ve shared a love of oriental rugs, good hats, good drink, food, and literature. Dan still travels a lot and he is involved in civic projects in Houston. He has been involved with several projects at the UW. With all of this, he is still easy to contact for a good word, a book recommendation, or for no reason at all.

Happy Birthday Dan, these last 60 years of mine have been much, much richer because of you. Thanks always.

=========================

Dan Piette July 6, 2017, age 60

Some vignettes and stories from Chas Piette, Lander, Wyoming

1] When Dan was little, he had a fascination with horses, not the hoof and mane living critters, but toy horses. He had a collection of them.

Our beloved mom would hold little Dan and tell him, “We look like twins.” To which he would reply, “we look like horses.”

Mirroring the closing scene from the TV show the Waltons, our mom would call out to little Dan, “Good night, little horse.” Dan would reply, “Good night, big horse.” BD would join in with his own “Good night, little horse.” Young Dan would answer, “Good night, dumb horse.” BD and mom would laugh.

2] A story related to me by Mrs. Hauch: We always had an early supper. The hour between getting home from school and eating was usually spent outside. Mrs. Hauch was visiting our mom, they were close friends, as she was cooking. Young Dan came in and said he was hungry, so our mom started frying him several pieces of bacon. Mrs. Hauch noted that we would be eating soon, and wondered why Dan couldn’t wait. Our mom replied, “But the Little Love is hungry.”

3] Speaking of Hauch’s and eating, college age Dan and his good friend Rick Hauch were visiting

Rick’s sister Mary in Wauwatosa. Brian and Julie were little kids, and as all little kids are, were in awe of their uncle and his friend. Dan and Rick, always the tricksters when playing the uncle card, convinced these two innocent young ones that eating cat food would be a good idea. The outcome is open for discussion. Mary claimed Brian and Julie never fell for it, but who knows?

4] Speaking of bacon, a year or so after I moved to San Francisco (1973?), we flew Dan out to visit and deliver the Haifleigh picture (mine is the original done for our mom by Bill deGravelles). Great trip.

One of the things we would cook for breakfast would be bacon, an entire pound at a time. Talk about indulgent luxury!

5] Speaking of bacon, I visited Dan in Greenville (I think this was the town), Illinois, where he was working a co-op job in an underground coal mine doing survey work. Dan was living in a trailer, his landlord was a fellow miner whose wife was named Chlorine. Dan would leave the bacon grease in the cast iron skillet on his stove. In the morning, the overnight presence of mice was evident. No problem. Heat up the grease, kills everything.

An observation from that experience (the mining, not the mice): one would assume that those men digging coal would have wanted something different (better?) for their sons (lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc.) where they would not be facing danger. This was not the case. A father’s proudest day would be when his boy joined him on the coal face. They would dig coal together.

There is a bond between those who face death as part of their jobs that those of us who don’t, can’t understand.

6] Speaking of co-op jobs in the coal industry, Dan was heading back to Madison after finishing his co- op job in Kemmerer (the final “er” is silent), Wyoming, driving his old Mercedes. I flew from San Francisco to Salt Lake City and Dan, His friend Katie, and I drove straight through to Wisconsin. It was winter, and winters in Wyoming are COLD. The car was questionable (a bungie cord was required to hold it in 4th gear), there were dead rabbits all along I-80, the temp was -40 degrees (F or C, I forget which), there were cormorants frying over Iowa, our driver scheme was poor, but we made it and enjoyed the hospitality of Mark and Becky over the Chocolate House.

Dan’s experiences in Wyoming played an important part in Beth’s and my decision to move to Lander after our marriage in 2007. For this, we are thankful.

7] In the summer of 1963, the SOP of our family’s summer trip to Louisiana was disrupted when Abbie had to attend summer school for remedial reading (?). The folks send Mark and Melanie down at the start of the summer. Soon after, they put me in charge of 5-year old Dan (he turned 6 that summer) and sent us south on the celebrated train, the City of New Orleans. I was 14 at the time, and not particularly thrilled with this charge.

The train was all coach (our regular train, the Panama Limited, was all Pullman) and it made frequent stops between Chicago and New Orleans (where Granddad would meet us).

 

Having kids travel by air is simple, they cannot exit until they reach their destination. Trains, not so much. Every stop is an exit point. And going between cars – like from one’s seat to/from the dining car – is a bit spooky.

Young Dan was not a particularly good traveling companion, especially when it came to eating his jello dessert. But we made it safely. I remember Dan crying that first night at Grandmother’s because his missed his beloved mom.

One might suppose that it was a simpler and safer time and place, but for the folks to set up a trip like this was a true testament to their belief in giving responsibility and believing in their kids – and we pulled it off, and continue to do so to this day.

Dan by Mel

In a letter dated 9th Oct. 1968, BD wrote this about his third son: “I went to Dan’s conf. today and that big dumb looking Belgium is really something to his teacher. She can’t get over his interests and enthusiasm for learning. We got a kick over the snake episode and she wasn’t about to have that snake pawned off on her.”

In the fall of 1968 Dan would have been in 6th grade, so at Wilson Junior High. Mum was still living, but too sick to participate in the teacher conferences. I don’t know if BD went to the school conferences of all of the kids, but I do know that he felt a special and important need to pay closer attention to Dan during those sad and difficult years. BD and I talked about it many years later. He said that he considered me, Charlie, and Mark old enough; Ree and Matt young enough for Noey to take over; Abbie was a girl, so she and Noey would get close; but Dan needed him.

BD was attentive to Dan as demonstrated in several different ways, but was never heavy-handed. When Dan was doing famously poorly in his Spanish class, Noey told BD that he had to talk to Dan about it. BD’s talking to Dan about it was “You don’t like that class very much, do you?”. When Dan decided to do mining engineering internships in southern Illinois, Peru, and Wyoming, BD certainly had concerns, but trusted Dan to make these decisions. BD was enormously proud of all of Dan’s accomplishments. Despite the fact that he thought that Dan “couldn’t keep a job.” (An honest assessment in the eyes of someone who spent his entire professional life at one company.)

The year of the “big dumb looking Belgium” letter was my senior year of high school. The following year I was away at college, so didn’t live in the same city as Dan until we were both living in Madison. The Madison years are the years of Pickin’ and Grinnin’, the Badger Tavern, the apartment above The Chocolate House, the mining internships, and of course, graduating with honors. But let’s revisit the apartment above the Chocolate House. The juxtaposition of college aged boys (men?) and an apartment is not good in terms of better housekeeping. One of my clear as a bell memories is being in Dan’s place with Frank, Abbie, and maybe Ricky Hauch. Abbie looks around and says “Dan, this place is a dump!” I guess she was talking about the pile of trash in the kitchen. There was a bell hanging above the pile, which we decided was used to indicate when it was time to remove the trash. Dan gave a sheepish laugh. I think this was before the mice teeth marks in the bacon drippings in the trailer that he lived in during his internship in southern Illinois. Needless to say, Dan was pretty comfortable living in less than prime conditions when he was a young man. I’m sure that he is much happier in the beautiful home that he lives in now.

It’s fun and appropriate to remember the occasionally embarrassing college years, but the more correct picture is that Dan had a fearless and ambitious professional life. His technical and business skills remain in demand by serving on several corporate boards. He has been a mentor to family members, and just plain good company during family gatherings. His “interests and enthusiasm” always make him a great person to have at a party. Whether he wants to be there or not.

Some Big Sister memories:

● Dan’s horse collection.

● “Good night, big horse.” “Good night, little horse.” “Good night, dumb horse.”

● Dan on Mark’s back, running circles through the house. Mark trips, and Dan cracks his big empty forehead on a corner of the wall.

● Taking Dan for a ride on the Rock-o-Plane at the 4th of July carnival at Pierce Park. Certainly a mistake since he was too little and too terrified. Possibly the genesis of his fear of heights.

● Being able to use the excuse of having to “help Dan play” as a means of getting out of some after school chores.

● Dan and I sharing the distinction of being two of the kids that didn’t get anesthesia from Dr. Dean.

● Dan reading BD’s genetics text book from college. Dan was about 12 years old.

 

Dan has kept his “interests and enthusiasm for learning” throughout his life; through his varied and successful professional life; and now, when he has the time to indulge his passion for learning new things. His love of Doreen, and their travels together, both geographic and emotional, have enriched his life and, I hope, have given him contentment. I know that Doreen has given him joy. For that, I too, will love her forever.

Welcome to the 60’s, little brother. I love you.

Dan by Abbie

Dan, you were my first baby, my first friend, my first competition and my first confidant. We ate together, slept together, bathed together, played together, fought together and even were sick together. Remember the chicken pox?

Life is never lonely when you have a good friend as a little brother. We weren’t the big kids, or the little kids in the family. Did we have a group name? Or were we just Abbie and Dan? When we were little, even up through elementary school, we shared a life. It was fun and loving.

We followed different drummers in our middle and high school years, but that was okay. We still shared a home life. I remember so clearly watching scary movies with you. Both of us being petrified made it all the more fun. You were good company, no matter what we did. Being two years apart in school, our paths rarely crossed. But I remember enjoying seeing you in the halls. I was always so proud of you.

We did some hardy partying in college, though most of the time we attended different schools. You and your friends were fun to be around. Sorry if I made you indulge beyond your young years. Oh, well, what are sisters for (eh, Matt)?

Our adult professional and personal lives brought us in different direction. You, growing in leaps and bounds professionally, with jobs taking you all over the world. I lived vicariously through your exciting adventures. I’ve never really wanted to eat a one hundred year-old egg soaked in horse urine, nor have my bad chi sucked right through

my skin, but I’m so glad you did! I’ll keep my bad chi right where it is, thank you.

There were years where we rarely saw each other and seldom talked, but when we did, it was like we never parted. You were the same little brother, the same Dan. Now we have the advantage of staying close through social media. I love that. And I can see that you are still the same Dan, creating a slideshow of you with the “cap”itol on your big empty. As successful as you are, I still feel comfortable calling you goof-ball. And as goofy as you are, I’m still very proud of you.

Congratulations on reaching 60, little brother. I love you.

Dan by Ree

You were my first protector. When I was in kindergarten and that bad kid followed me home you protected me.

You introduced me to scary movies.

You were the first in the family to be at my side after Bill died.

You are Godfather to both my son Quinn and my granddaughter Renée.

You were the wonderful and moving officiant at the wedding of Quinn and Roxana.

You are the person I shared some of my best times with in Houston. From the toilets overflowing at The Reddi Room to your magnificent Christmas dinners.

It is amazing to have my family, you, Doreen, Quinn, Roxy, and Renee all together in Houston.

I am proud to know you.

Love, Ree 

Dan by Matt

Dan is my brother closest to me in age and is the one that I grew up with. Today is his 60th birthday.

When I was a kid, Dan was the one who was there for us to play games in the neighborhood with, to be there when I needed a big brother, and was someone I looked up to. He was the coolest guy to me.

When Dan went off to college, our parents let me go and visit him several times. That may have been a dubious decision on their part, but we never did anything particularly bad or dangerous, but it was

always fun. I don’t know what Dan got out of having his high school brother around, but I got to hang out with college guys!

I went to visit Dan in Houston several times when I was in college. I was there for Christmas 1982 (or maybe 1983). That was the year when we tried to get into Gilly’s Club in Pasadena (stopped by bouncer for being under age), cooked a Christmas goose, and stayed up way too late most nights and ended up drinking the cooking sherry when everything else was gone.

As I started my career, Dan was always there to offer words of wisdom when I needed them. He’s the one who made me realize that changing jobs was OK and that no matter how it turns out, you always learn something new and become a smarter person for it. To this day I’m still asking him for professional advice.

In 1992 when I first told Dan about my colon cancer, his immediate response was to tell me about options in Houston for treatment (MD Anderson) and that he’d be there to help however he could. Although I chose Mayo, I’ll never forget his support and how lucky I was to have him as a safety net, no matter what.

In’94, Laurie and I went to visit Dan in Venezuela (we saw a jaguarondi!). It was our first trip out of the country and we loved it. A few years later we visited him in Singapore. Those trips sparked a life-long

interest in international travel and we still do a trip every year. It’s always fun to tell him about our trips and hear about his.

Over the years Dan and I have had countless conversations and laughs about everything in the world from books, religion, and politics to silly jokes and puns. He’s been there for the good times and has always been there for me in the difficult ones.

My life would be a different, and lesser, thing were Dan not in it, and I love him dearly. After all, he’s my Big Brother.