WAYNE W KAKELA OF STEAMBOAT COLORADO DIED ON JANUARY

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Wayne W




Wayne W. Kakela of Steamboat, Colorado, died on January 10, 2009 of natural causes. At Dartmouth Wayne majored in geography, played tackle on the football team and was a member of the rugby club, Beta Theta Pi and Sphinx. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and daughters Anne ’92 and Kate. Wayne converted a barn on his ranch into a ski lodge, The Barn, which played host to travelers, family and friends for almost 50 years. Wayne loved the outdoors, skiing, organizing river running trips, motorcycle races and community sculpture projects. He served on the board of the Lowell Whiteman School and was a highly respected and loved citizen of his community.


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Wayne Kakela Memorial

Steamboat Springs

February 7, 2009


Linda asked me to take a few moments today to speak of Wayne and Dartmouth, and Wayne’s Dartmouth family. In a more perfect world, Monte would have the honor of doing this remembrance. The Kakela and Pascoe families are forever intertwined. Monte was first among Wayne many best friends. I can still see them all around the kitchen table, the kids more siblings than neighbors. Pat and Linda were the keepers of this great bond of two guys who couldn’t be further apart in careers, but closer together in spirit.


I like to think that Wayne is our best example of Robert Frost’s “The Road not Taken.” He shrugged off a football scholarship at Ohio State, opting for Dartmouth, a perfect fit. Later, his little brother Pete would play tackle at Michigan State on his way to a doctorate and a career in education. Wayne had by then launched his own career in life long learning. Just as he collected everything that interested him, he collected a huge set of practical skills which enabled him to live life on his own terms.


Bob Adelizzi assembled several Kakela stories. There are so many from all aspects of Wayne’s adventures that it's only possible to note a few. We hope that all of you continue to add to this collection.


Wayne was the only Dartmouth classmate in our small town wedding, and only classmate who went with us on our honeymoon. But that’s another story. We didn’t see each other again until the late sixties. By then Wayne was safely back from his worldwide travels, at least for a while, had found his soul mate, Linda, and they had become Strawberry Park ranchers. On their way to Europe they stopped overnight in Ohio. Wayne and Linda were headed to Norway to corner the market on cross county skis, and we knew in a wink that Wayne had found a perfect mate. To this day the Kakelas’ are still roaming “round the girdled earth.” Wayne later wrote, directed and produced a film titled “Skinny Skis,” an early indication of his myriad talents.


The Dartmouth family was strengthened when Ted Pascoe and Annie Kakela went to Hanover. Nan and I sent three sons there, and over the years reunions and mini reunions were followed by graduations. At one of the famous Steamboat outings a young Dartmouth student asked if his class would be as strong and as long in their friendships as the class of 1957. With his typical wisdom Wayne answered “that’s all up to you.” To Wayne, people were more important than institutions.

When Annie went off to Dartmouth we all thought Ski team. However, those river trips had an influence. Wayne didn’t know he were going to have an Olympic Crew team leader, and now an Olympic coach. We best remember Kate as a nine year old, doing serial wind sprints on the Kremmling common, at about ten below zero. She developed into a world class acrobatic snow boarder until fate intervened. Her intellect and Columbia education have launched her start in international social work, which made her father proud.


Meanwhile, in their leisure time, Wayne and Monte were busy rebuilding the Whiteman School after it burned to the ground. Look around at these distinctive architectural touches. They are similar to those Wayne developed in creating the Boy’s Club and the Barn. They are much like the cabin he once built at the foot of the tallest ponderosa pine in the valley. Wayne and Linda bunked one of our boys that summer to work with Wayne on the Whiteman re-build. Always prepared, he was one of the very few guys with a forge in his back yard. At first it was for practical ranching things. Although Wayne didn’t recognize it initially, art was pushing through to enter his life. Of course it was there all along, and would be revealed. It was manifested in his curiosity and examination of things.


Bailing hay brought out Wayne’s latent management skills . The idea was to cut, bail and stack all the hay in the barn, with about five minutes to spare before the helpers embarked on a river trip. With three dozen people milling around vehicles, trailers loaded with the homemade flotilla, and river gear, the only guy who actually knew what was happening was Wayne. This never failed to test his patience and unflappable nature. Somehow the caravan was loaded and on the road and twenty four hours later the crew was on the river.

At our 50th Dartmouth reunion our classmates were renewing old friendships, and Wayne did the same. Fifty years earlier he had been a class marshal for the class of 1957, and probably had more friends than any of us. Nevertheless, Wayne continued making new friends of old classmates. On graduation day he watched sunrise from the steps of the Sphinx Tomb, after conducting an all night session with the 2007 brothers. When the class marched to the graduation ceremony, he was among his new friends. Like another great westerner, Wayne “never met a man he didn’t like.”


Wayne loved Rugby. After years in the trenches he finally found a sport where he could run with the ball. What he liked even more were the songs, the camaraderie and the notion that you could make new friends with the guys you just finished bashing. Wayne was truly a gentle giant. If the world were full of more people like Wayne, it would be a far better place. For sure, Dartmouth College was!


Charles D. (Chic) Winslow



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THE ICE CREAM MAN COMETH


For the first three or four years after Dartmouth, Wayne and I  stayed in pretty close contact.   We weren’t into writing that much, but were great believers in the  telephone. By unspoken agreement,  conversations were held down to seven minutes or less.  In ͦthose days long distance was  intimidating.  None of this  fraction of a cent per minute stuff.   Sixty seconds cost something like $.42 and in those days that could  turn into real money, so we’d never forget to remind each other who was paying  for the conversation.


In any event, we stayed in touch, and I was well aware  that Wayne was touring Latin America, so it was  no surprise, after months of silence to receive a collect call from Wayne.  “From where,  Operator?  Oh, San Diego.  Sure, put him  through.” It sounded like my pal was calling from a tavern, so  all I was able to glean from the conversation was that he was coming through  Los Angeles, and wanted to crash for a few days.  And oh yeah, he had someone with him  he wanted me to meet.


A sidebar:   I had been hustling for work in Hollywood for almost three years since graduation, and had finally felt secure enough to rent a house in the  Hollywood Hills.


Wayne arrived on  a motorcycle the next day.   Hanging on to him from the back seat was what I can only presume was a  lady.  She was all in black,  including her helmet and visor.   Wayne  introduced her, but I never quite got the name, so she remains anonymous in my  weakened memory.  It was well into  the night by this time, but I was excited to see my pal, so we had a few  drinks, and swapped lies for a few hours.  In the course of the evening, the  motorcycle lady never spoke, or removed her helmet.  She did raise the visor, so I was  aware that there was an attractive lady lurking there.


I explained to Wayne  that I had to leave for Bakersfield in the morning on a location scout, but he was welcome to use the house, and I’d see him in a couple of  days.  This was great with him,  but he was disappointed that I didn’t want him to make some glug… a drink  he’d apparently developed a taste for in his travels.  “When I get back,”  I promised.


When I returned, a couple of days later, there had  been some changes.  The lady in  black was gone… as were her helmet and visor, but Wayne had found a new  companion.  He was clearly a Good  Humor driver.  I discerned this  from the truck parked outside, and the man’s uniform.  I initially tried to wake him, but it  turned out he was unconscious rather than merely asleep.  There was ice cream everywhere..  It had  apparently been there for some time, as it had lost the consistency of ice  cream, and turned into liquids of every conceivable hue.


I quickly realized that I had underestimated the  capacity of the Good Humor trucks of my youth.  I could only guess at why Wayne and  his new friend had brought it in out of the truck, but my guess proved uncanny  in its accuracy.  The driver had  come in at Wayne’s invitation to enjoy a late afternoon  drink.  One led to another, and  before the Good Humor man realized it, his truck (which he had left running in  order to preserve its freezing capacity) had run out of gas.  For some reason, I never discerned,  they had thought to preserve the truck’s contents by bringing it inside.  I quickly discovered that the main  section of the refrigerator could hold a good amount of ice cream, but lacked  the ability to keep it in rigid form.


I found Wayne in the master bedroom, draped in a  dozen or so Good Humor wrappings. He awoke as I entered.  “I  made some glug last night,” he told me.  “Gringos aren’t used to it, and handle  it badly.”  Walking into the  living room , we heard a lot of commotion out  side.  Running to the door, we  discovered a mammoth tow truck hooking up to the Good Humor van.  No amount of pleading or supplication  would deter the tow truck operator.   Awake finally, the Good Humor man threatened to burn the operator’s  house down, but to no avail.


As the two vehicles disappeared down the road, the  Good Humor man said something to the affect that his life was over now, and  his wife would surely divorce him.   I remember Wayne putting his arm around the man’s  shoulders and saying, “Bring her some ice  cream.”


Ron Roth


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Submitted by Bob Adelizzi

The Leather Helmet

In the fall of 1953, I tried out for Dartmouth’s freshmen football team.  Duke, the equipment manager had a challenge, there were over 100 of us and equipment was old and dysfunctional.  He had some unhappy folks on his hands, including me. I was issued some pads that barely fit over my shoulders.  As I was bitching, I glanced over at the guy standing next to me who was trying on helmets.  He had a large head and was having trouble finding one that fit.  He was rummaging through a pile of old equipment.  Unlike me, he wasn’t complaining and seemed to be enjoying himself.  He picked out an old leather helmet that must have been twenty years old and tried it on.  He looked ridiculous.  I looked at him incredulously and said, “You can’t wear that.”  He had a twinkle in his eye and an expression on his face that told me he was real proud of himself for having uncovered this hidden treasure, and responded, “why not, it fits, it has character and I like old things.”   That was my introduction to Wayne Kakela.  From that moment, we became friends forever

The Old Tweed

I had a very old tweed sport coat Wayne coveted.  One spring, I needed a tropical coat to take to Bermuda for our annual Rugby tournament.  Wayne wasn’t going to take a coat so I asked him if I could borrow his very natty blue pinstripe.  He said “no”, but proposed an alternative--an exchange of the old tweed for his very nice coat. Without hesitation, I agreed.  About 30 years later when I was visiting him at the Barn in Steamboat he said, “Liz, I want to show you something and proudly brought forth the old tweed coat.  I probably look at him just the way I did the first day we met and said.  “Kaks, I pulled that coat out of the give away heap in the Psi U house. Don’t you throw anything away?”  He responded with essentially the same words he used the first time we met. “Not this one, it has character”.

The Lincoln Cosmopolitan

One summer, Wayne came to my home in Philadelphia so we could head back to Hanover together for preseason football practice.  One of my friends owed me a few bucks from a poker game and wanted to exchange the debt for his old Lincoln Cosmopolitan.  I wanted the money, not the car.  When Wayne arrived, he convinced me to take the car.  He was fascinated by this once grand old vehicle--particularly its four cigarette lighters-- never mind we didn’t smoke.  I made the deal and we drove to Hanover in style—bald tires, no insurance, no registration and expired license plate, but the radio worked and it had four cigarette lighters.   Kaks was right; it turned out to be a great car.  I wish I never sold it.


The Wedding Gift

During his motorcycle travels he came to San Diego in the early 60’s.  Tommi and I had just got married and he stayed with us for several days before heading south into Mexico.  I recall Tommi saying she had never met anyone as handsome, curious, or interesting as Wayne.  (A good thing I’m not insecure).  He loved the flora, fauna and canyons of San Diego and explored them all. Later that year, Tommi and I were returning from a Kentucky Derby party in late afternoon.  As we approached the front, I saw huge intimidating reptile perched on our porch.  It must have been 3 feet long.  I went to the garage and grabbed a 2 by 4.  As I got close to the monster (actually an iguana), I noticed a note under its claws and realized it was stuffed.  The note was from Wayne.  “Headed North, thanks for the hospitality and here’s your wedding present.”  We loved that gift.  Every year we put it on the front porch during Halloween to greet the Trick and Treaters.  It was a neighborhood sensation.
 
Dressing for the Olympics

In 1984, Wayne called and told me Annie and Kate loved riding and the family was planning a trip to San Diego to attend the Olympic Equestrian games. (The Olympics were held in LA but the equestrian events were scheduled for Fairbanks Ranch in San Diego because Prince Philip insisted on a smog free environment for the horses.)  I insisted they stay with us.  During their drive from Steamboat to San Diego, Wayne repeatedly showed the girls a picture of the recent “Adelizzi”  Christmas card which featured a picture of our family dressed in formal attire.  He continuously impressed on the girls that they were going to visit a very formal family that dressed this way for dinner.  The evening the Kakela’s arrived, Tommi and I were scheduled to attend a black tie event to honor the Prince and his daughter Princess Anne.  They arrived unexpectedly, and quite by chance, I answered the door dressed in my tux. It was perfect serendipity for his story. As I invited them inside,  Kaks, without missing a beat, looked at the girls and said “See, I told you the Adelizzi’s were formal people.
 
The Green River Trip

Over the years, Wayne invited me to join him on a number of river rafting trips.  Virtually every year, Kaks managed to get a permit.  For a variety of reasons, I was never able to go.  In early 2003, he invited me on a trip down the Green River in Utah.  He said he thought Monte would go, and that’s all I needed to hear.  Monte picked me up in Denver and we drove to Steamboat where extraordinary preparations for the journey were underway at the Barn.   There were over 20 of us— an eclectic group of Wayne’s friends including Paul Stegner, Andy (the Buddhist monk), and Wayne’s cousin, Irene.  Our main vessel was a huge Kakela-designed raft consisting of two large WWII pontoons (he was a master at adaptive reuse) tied together with a metal frame.  It was classic Kaks.   When our armada hit the river it was a spectacular site to behold and attracted everyone’s attention. He told me I had to bring all white dress for one traditional night when everyone “dressed” for dinner followed by shared experiences and poetry.  Monte, Kaks and I had a full week to reminisce, expose our vulnerabilities and enjoy the company of good friends.  We had great fun. I was amazed at how youthfully enthusiastic Monte and Wayne were during our journey.  It was a memorable and beautiful adventure.  Regretfully, it was the last time the three of us were together.
 
So Many More

Annie and Fred’s wedding (when I broke my ribs on a mountain bike ride with Monte and Ron Roth), Monte’s memorial services, our many college reunions, the mini ski reunions that Kaks and Monte organized, the dinner in NYC honoring Bob Blackman (The night “the Bullet” cried), and our experiences “down the line” at the secret Sphinx Society, four years of football (we were both first team All Ivy and named to the All-Dartmouth half century team) and three years of Rugby were  backdrops for countless other memorable “Wayne Stories”.
 
Wayne’s Symphony—“Life as a Fine Art”

I selected the poem, “Life as a Fine Art” by William Henry Channing to read at “dress night” on the Green River.  I chose it because I thought it captured Wayne’s life.  He agreed.

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not rich;
to listen to stars and birds,
babes and sages with open heart;
To study hard;
To think quietly, act frankly, talk gently,
await occasions, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual,
unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the common—
This is my symphony.

Wayne often said he only created things that hadn’t been done before.  Well, there is only one Wayne.  He has never been done before and he’ll never be replicated.  He wrote and conducted his own “symphony” and his life is a work of “Fine Art”.


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The Last Letter


In the late afternoon Monday, January 12, 2008, a piece of me died. Bob Adelizzi called to tell me that we had lost our great friend, Wayne Kakela. Somehow I had always believed that Wayne would always be there for the next conversation, the next comparison of life notes, or the next horizon. One thing would be constant, he would be there. And now he has moved on and a piece of me moved on with him.


I met Wayne almost the first day that I spent on the Dartmouth campus. We shared with each other our backgrounds and our goals — which at that time had little to do with anything beyond football. We were eager to get started (with football not class). In the early practices we were lined up with the interior lineman (guards and tackles) and there were lots of them. However, whenever it came to blocking drills of one on one, the coaches always seemed to put us against each other. God, was he hard to block! Then they put us together as a pair for the two on one drills and a bond was formed. We played together for three of the four years we were at Dartmouth (he was a lot better than I and as a sophomore I warmed the bench while he played, but in our junior year we were back together again at right guard and right tackle). It was great being in the trenches with Wayne. In later years we talked about the pure physical pleasure involved in the game. We loved it. Later he found Rugby and kept after me to play until finally, in our senior year I agreed. It was even better than football (he, of course, knew that all the time).


That was the beginning. A relationship that started with two Midwestern teenagers knocking heads on the practice field grew and prospered to one that I consider unique. It lasted for 55 years and only once, in a small hotel in Paris, did the friendship turn ugly. The ensuing fight almost destroyed our room and lasted until we were both arm weary and exhausted. Believe it or not, we sat and talked until very early the next morning and then we cleaned up the mess and slept. The owner of the hotel very respectfully asked us to leave shortly thereafter. She said she just couldn’t allow residents to make that kind of noise.


As our Dartmouth years progressed, we roomed together on football trips and were fraternity brothers. In our private talks we dreamed of taking a trip to Europe. His Mom and my parents honored that dream by providing us with two one way tickets on a ship from Montreal to Rotterdam as our graduation gift. The rest was up to us. Off we went in June of 1957 with all the money from our bank savings and what we had been able to save working as bar waiters at the Hanover Inn that spring. I still remember the number, $1000.00. Neither of us had ever seen such personal prosperity. We carefully purchased our return trip (to New Jersey) just to be safe, then off to Europe and, under Wayne’s direction, to Germany where we purchased used motorcycles. He taught me how to ride and we were ready to roll.


During that trip we shared much. As we traveled, we carefully (you never wanted to cheat with Wayne) sliced mutually purchased food in “equal” portions. We even shared a bed in Amsterdam when we found our budget wouldn’t cover twin beds. We had a very limited, shared wardrobe (much of which had come from the war surplus store in West Lebanon and the Athletic Department at Dartmouth). And we shared our thoughts.


As we traveled, we discovered that neither of us was very widely read beyond what had been required by the classes we took at Dartmouth. So we bought books and swapped them when one of us would finish. When we split, the reading continued for both of us. As we compared notes over the years, rarely did I find an author that he hadn’t already started reading.


But I’m ahead of myself. In the early days of travel we rode used motorcycles across Europe. We mostly slept under the stars in a makeshift tent of rain ponchos between the two bikes. In the cities, we bummed rooms at local universities (and made a lot of friends), ate in cheap restaurants, and went to museums (we saw some pretty good night life as well). And we talked. A diet of bread, cheese, and wine engenders a lot of conversation. In our dialogue we discovered the kindred spirit of nonconformity that bound us and, further, a basic belief in the goodness of man that kept us from cynicism as young men and helped to preserve our optimism as we became the old men we somehow got to be. It now seems funny to say out loud, but in the soul of things we found real common ground.


On life’s road however, we split. He stayed on the BMW and after a short stop at the University of Wisconsin, he hit the road. He lived the book before Jack Kerouac ever wrote it. I opted for the “White Picket Fence” as he called it. I finished grad school (no mean trick since I was out of money), joined the army, and got married. He came back on the BMW to be my best man and stayed with my folks so long my mom thought she had another son. After leaving an indelible imprint on all members of our families, he got back on the cycle and off he went. He is still remembered with love by all he touched during that visit. After he left, about once a month or so I’d get a letter and I’d write him back. About once a year the BMW would pull into the yard and we’d talk again. Then one day I got a letter from him with a special request. He had met a guy on a bus in Mexico who had a school in Colorado and he needed a letter of reference. Wayne was going to get a job. It was his plan to teach school in Steamboat Springs. I still have a copy of the letter in amongst all the pictures and memorabilia in the attic.


Most of us know the rest of that story. It is one of great triumph for our friend. Sure, there were moments of uncertainty and in our conversations, lots of questions. But, one thing remained constant. Every person he touched felt the impact as surely as though he or she was in a one on one drill on a football field in Hanover, New Hampshire. He took countless young men and women up the mountains and helped them find a good way back. For Wayne and me, the years rolled by way faster than either of us liked, but we always managed to talk (often even to get together). We even tried a redo of our trip to Europe as a 45th anniversary celebration, but a couple of old guys and used motorcycles in the Rockies aren’t nearly as sexy as two 21 year olds in the Alps. We did get out the old slides and spent several nights reliving those days. We’d changed a lot mentally and for sure physically, but at the core of things, we were still connected. In my most recent letter from him on the occasion of a 70th birthday party put together by my family, he reminded me once again of the value of our friendship and then at our 50th class reunion we shared his homemade brandy and we talked about that very same subject into the wee hours of the morning. We had covered those subject so many times before. That’s the last time we were together. We had plans, but we knew there would be time and we would just pick up where we left off.


Today, I have the memory of the great bear of a guy we called Kaks. Maybe I’ll go up in the attic and see if I can find those old letters. Maybe I will, but I sure as hell wish that I could talk to him one more time.


John Donnelly


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The Winslow/Shaw Wedding

 


 The United States Navy had just released me and I was on my way to a small town in Ohio where I was to marry the girl of my dreams. Since I had spent the last five months as part of the 5th fleet in the Mediterranean, I definitely was not into wedding planning. It didn’t matter anyway, because this was to be a small town wedding of mostly family and few friends. Nan had her Smith roommate and I had Kaks, to represent our respective college classes.

 

 Wayne was my Beta and Sphinx brother, and Dartmouth Rugby team mate. As of June 1959, the last time I had seen him was around the keg on Corey Ford’s front lawn, after the graduation weekend rugby match. He and John Donnelly were headed to a grand tour of Europe, by motorcycle. Wayne hailed from Toledo, so on a chance, I called him and he accepted an invitation to our wedding at the First Presbyterian Church, with the reception to follow in the back yard of my bride’s family residence.

 

 Wayne arrived on the European model of his recently purchased  BMW cycle. He had his fly rod and Winchester carbine packed with his sleeping role and rain gear, and knocked at the front door of 389 Walnut Street, Logan, Ohio. I should mention that he sported a shoulder-length mane and a full beard. When no one answered, he wandered around to the back yard. My mother-in-law to be was alone in the kitchen. When she spied Kaks she advised him that “ the wood to be cut is around the back of the garage, after you’re finished come by the kitchen door and I’ll get you a sandwich”.

 

 My bride came upon the scene, and her Mom observed that “the first tramp of the summer had arrived and was back of the garage cutting wood.” Kings of the Road were not uncommon at the time, and we still have fun teasing about the incident.

 

 After the wedding Nan and I  headed to the South Jersey coast where we honeymooned for three months. I had my old job back on the Beach Patrol, and in the fall of ‘59 we were off to Ann Arbor and U. Of Michigan for Grad School. Naturally we invited Wayne to join us on our honeymoon. He arrived about three days after we did, and stayed with us for a week. The last thing I recall of his visit was Nan giving him a haircut. He hopped on the BMW and headed North. To our delight, we have been hanging out with him, Linda, Annie and Kate and  their legion of neighbors and friends ever since.

 

        — Chic & Nan Winslow

 




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