Monday, August 15, 2016





David Lincoln:

1/25/48 - 8/18/99



A man of great life, he explored with vigor, bicycled NOT with speed, but with MUST SMELL THE FLOWERS - curiosity; (cannot miss a thing, you know,) hiked with enthusiasm and loved deeply. He loved so deeply.

Dear Dave, I recall in you in SO many things. You have been gone 20+ years, and it feels like 6 minutes. It was Spring of 1993 and the internet didn’t exist. The local alternative paper (Willamette Week) had singles ads. I gave it a whirl. I immediately wanted you to get back to me, after I responded to your ad, and after one or two letters, I was really eager to meet you.

Our first date was a breakfast at Sharri’s restaurant, followed by a bicycle ride up in Oxbow Park, mostly along the Sandy River. It was an immediate revelation of who you were and your personality and I fell; you fell, and we fell hard for each other. Years went by with terrific vacations, many weekends on a shoe string budget (often $20 limit; boy you were so frugal!), and an inventive way to get out there and have a good time. Oregon is so diverse, it was easy to fill our weekends with The Gorge or mountain, coastal, local hikes, bikes and constant other adventures.



You had the best nickname for me and I can still hear what you called me, I can still call up (my brain can STILL hear your voice), that name: ANNIEDEAR, like it was one word.



You were pretty tidy, lived clean, not a slob bachelor, but you were not too great about random hazards: i.e. fish hooks. Once, when I lay on your carpet, in front of the wood-stove, I found the back of my hand attached to a hook that was stuck in the carpet. That was not too fun, extracting my hand from a barbed fish hook, but the second time was worse, when the fishhook was in your van’s passenger seat, and I hoisted myself up, in, and attached to a butt fish hook. Seriously, I don’t know how you managed to extract me from either hook. I was not angry and you were always so funny; you invented a new Native American name for me after that: Hook-In-The-Heinie. Not to be outdone, I named you Whiz-in the-Woods. (Yes you did, why use a bathroom? If we were outdoorsing it, you would pee on a tree. Granted, most men do.)

It was a great love. A fantastic love. An ill- fated, cut off early, not a rocking-chair-retirement future, but it was a Rocking Chair love.



You were only 51. Too young to leave.



I Still See You!

I still hear you.

Te amare por siempre.

(I love you forever.)



****David Lincoln (Jones) RIP, 1/25/48 - 8/18/99****

It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be ENCHANTED by what was.
I don't know how the heart WITHSTANDS it!





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