Aw, Maaaaaaan

Journalists aren't normal.

You could say it takes a certain kind of person to be a journalist, but you'd be wrong. There's lots of different kinds of people who are journalists. It's just that they sometimes have more extreme personalities than you see in, say, the movie Office Space.

That brings us to Dan Dickson, one of the few larger-than-life characters I have ever known. If you were to write a book about Dan, or perhaps a movie, his character would inevitably watered down by editors because nobody would ever find a character like him believable.

Though I'm sure I'm mostly writing for an audience of a hundred or so Salt Lake Tribune employees who already know "The Danimal," it's important to pause here to talk about one of his most important personal characteristics, his voice. Dan's voice is a strange blend of cowboy Western accent and surfer-dude guy accent. Take The Dude from The Big Lebowski, make his voice a little more nasal, and add a few phrases like, "Don't got no," or "Oh my heck."

During BYU basketball games, a foul should be called on every BYU possession, according to Dan. There has never been a more vocal supporter of BYU than Dan, which the entire newsroom knows because Dan is prone to putting on his headphones during a work shift and listening to the Cougars' radio broadcast at full volume. Then, when he yells about a foul or a penalty against BYU, people in the photo department 100 feet away know that something's just happened in the game.  "Call the foul, man. Sheesh, these refs are kilin' the Cougs," he'd say to nobody in particular. Once, during a particularly vocal spat I checked the stats, BYU had about 15 fouls and their opponent had 25. Didn't matter. "It's when they're callin' 'em, man."

They were always a contrast, Dan and BYU. He grew up in Utah and had a lot of Mormon friends who went there, so he liked BYU.

Dan, of course, was pretty much the opposite of a BYU man. Though he didn't do drugs or drink to excess, he would have the occasional beer after work. He swore like a sailor at work. Though he was raised Mormon, he wasn't much for sittin' in church. He didn't buy into any religion. "I guess it just didn't take, man" he'd tell you.

The stories I can tell you about Dan are, of course, memorable. Two years ago, BYU signed a high school kid to play quarterback and had a press conference at a local restaurant. Our reporter, Ross, showed up at the event to find Dan sitting in the front row. At first, that made sense, since Dan worked for the paper. Then Ross asked why Dan was there. "Just came as a fan to check out the new quarterback," Dan replied. The press conference was ostensibly open to the public, but Dan was the only non-journalist there. He spent an hour or so chatting with Jake Heaps' mom, later informing us all back at the paper that "she's pretty hot, man."

He likes to tell his own stories, of course. There was the time Dan was on the golf course with a copy editor from the paper. The copy editor got a little lippy with the group in front of them about some slow play. Eventually, a fight broke out on the course. "Never seen a fight on no golf course," he'd say, shaking his head.

Dan was more than a guy I worked with in Salt Lake. We went skiing/snowboarding together a few times. On a ride up to Powder Mountain in the spring of 2009, Dan got annoyed at the car in front of us that was going 35 in the 30 MPH zone. He got the car up to 50, swearing most of the way, and got into the left lane on an icy canyon road to pass a bewildered driver. I've never been simultaneously mortified and petrified before or since.

At work, you could call on your friendship to get Dan to help out. We're in a jam tonight, Dan. We need the Danimal. Dan, normally of a casual relationship with deadline, turned into the Danimal. He read stories faster than they were coming in. "What's next, man? Gotta read them preps."

If you didn't know him, you can see why we thought nothing of it at first. In the winter of 2010, Dan started showing up to work a little late. He was having trouble walking. He looked uncoordinated. He would have a dizzy spell or his arms would go numb. I told him to go see a doctor for a couple of months before I basically ordered him to go to a doctor.

It took at least six months to diagnose the cancer but I think it was more like nine. I can't tell you what kind of cancer it was but it was, as you would expect, pretty bad. In late March, he worked his last day at the Tribune. We talked by phone for 45 minutes. "It isn't so bad," he told me, "I got the MLB package on my TV at home so I can watch all the Yankees' games."

There was a surgery and a round of radiation and chemo. I'll spare you the specifics. Cancer takes your dignity pretty quickly. Dan couldn't talk, though I wanted to hear from him in July to hear how he was doing. We traded emails on a regular basis until a few weeks ago.

Are you takin' a picture, man? Dan with his granddaughter.

As you've guessed by now, Dan died Sunday at the age of, I think, 59. When people die, we say things like, "He was a good guy." Somehow, that doesn't exactly work for Dan. Was he a good guy? Sure. More than that, he was a character. I grin everytime I think of a new story.

When people die, we often start thinking about ourselves and how we knew that person. Strangely, I'm not sad about Dan dieing. I keep smiling, thinking about stories about him. I'd love to get together with my old (and not-so-old) Tribune friends for a few beers at The Beerhive, or more appropriately, Murphy's or Aw, Shucks. We'd tell our best Dan stories. But I'm all the way over here and you're all the way over there. So if you can, drop me a line or leave a comment about your favorite Dan stories.