i had often thought about senior quinn over the years...i wasnt the best of
students and could be a little disruptive at times......one day while in
spanish , i was looking out the window onto school
street......daydreaming.....checking out who was hangin out...."senior
capuano" said mr. quinn..."i want 300 words by next week on what you find so
interesting out there"....."or you will fail this course"....well, i was
shocked... he meant it.....i couldnt fail.....my father, who was very
understanding about my lack of academic prowess would never stand for this
one......i worked all week....of course i couldnt let anyone know...so i
stayed up late each nite and put together my essay...in spanish!...i had
trouble getting essays together in english..... then....finally..... i
presented it to mr quinn.....he took it home...quite surprised that i had
completed it.....the following day he handed it back to me......an
A+.....well this had never happened before....A+!......from the point i
started that essay to the end of spanish101 mr. quinn had captured my
interest in learning ..i felt as though i had truly accomplished
something.....i completed the course and recieved an A...my dad was so
proud....and so was i... although i could never let my buddies know how much
it meant...it wouldnt be cool.....yes i have thought about senior quinn often
over the years.....just this winter i was in playa de carmen and cozumel with
my family..... having pretty decent conversation with many of the non
english speaking local folks.... and i thought.....i wouldnt be here if it
hadnt been for senior quinn. thoughts of pomplona and the running of the
bulls.........he made all the difference for me...muchos gracias senior
quinn.... buenos dias con dios.......

John Cap (Capuano)

Dan Quinn was a lovely guy. He wasn’t my teacher, as I never took Spanish. He was my boss at the Pool, and my friend. Through high school I knew him only as Mr. Quinn, the big guy with the bigger pot roast of a head who chaperoned events like an evening showing in the Auditorium of “Pete And Tillie” (paid admissions totaled about $30, tops).

But in May, 1976, when I began my seemingly endless tenure at the Pool, Mr. Quinn became Dan, or DQ. He was starting as director, I as cashier (Jane Gaughran too). He greeted me, in his tuneless bass, with “Hello there Dave, we’ll be working together. Basically, you don’t do shit.” Big change from the tone set by Pat Dugan (aka PD) and Butch Chemka, who treated the Pool like a paramilitary operation. Dan knew it was about kids having fun, so don’t OD on the whistle, don’t sit the kid out for half a day (even it the kid was Eric Distlehurst or Robert Sokich), just keep it safe and enjoy it. It’s summer.

If you glanced in the pool office on a hot July day, as the guards were going to fours and bitching about losing 20 minutes of break, you wouldn’t see Director Quinn testing the ph or worrying about Pat Dugan’s wail “Jesus Christ, the filter’s a mess!”. No, you’d see DQ sitting in his tiny office, a list of emergency #s on the wall (to which he’d added “SportsPhone” and “Logue’s Deli”) half eaten-sub littering the desk with a 16 oz Pepsi, Suzie Qs and a pack of Luckys, chain smoking and crossing off lists of tasks in his black organizer. None of those tasks concerned the Pool. If you listened at the door, things got surreal. Pool business conversations included “who sang ‘Alley Oop’?” “The Trilateral Commission’s a joke!” “Now, when Meyer Lansky routed tires through Cuba, who was his U.S. contact? Bebe Rebozo!!” “The Mets are miserable—Wayne Garret sucks!” “’Image Of A Girl’ was by the Safaris, not the Surfaris, you fuckin idiot.” DQ was surrounded by a staff of college kids, but each of us, each guy anyway, was “you fuckin idiot” at one time or another, usually because he didn’t agree with Dan that (i) FDR was murdered or (ii) Reagan wasn’t shot or (iii) JFK was still alive.

Dan dealt with a parade of characters at the Pool, from PD to Mike Kozell, Mrs. Lynch to Jeff Alterman, with wisdom and good humor. When PD sent John Nymchek to spy (yes, spy!) on the pool operation, John duly noted that DQ was not on site. “Village Business” was the cover story, blown when DQ strode out of the woods, sweaty, in his “Endless Summer” softball jersey with bat and glove. DQ just smiled and told John that the meeting with the Village Manager was held at Reynolds. Dan could kill half a day with us ragging PD, but he also let us know that PD moonlighted as a clown at a children’s hospital; we were college kids but that didn’t mean we had it all figured.

And when a Pool character proved really tedious, Dan showed how to handle him gracefully. Early one summer, Bob Kesner, publisher of “The Hastings Independent”, wrote to “The Hastings Enterprise” detailing his disappointment with the lack of preparation for the Pool’s Memorial Day opening. He noted the dirty mirrors, the blown light bulbs over the sink, the absence of the flag out front “so we know what country we’re in.” He wasn’t wrong, but he was a perennial and boring griper and did he have to go public with his complaints, without even talking to Dan? Dan undertook to write a response for publication; several of us urged him to tear into Kesner but the finished product was a deft exercise is slipping the rapier under Kesner’s bludgeon: “the flag is now up, so Mr. Kesner can regain his orientation. The mirrors are clean and lit, so Mr. Kesner can comb his locks.” Dan handled that, and many other things, well.

He was a good friend to me. In 1982, with a law degree in pocket, I took a year off, playing at substitute teaching (and working on my Hank Millet imitation). Dan called an old friend, an attorney, who took me to lunch and advised me on job hunting. Whether the issue was getting a job, getting laid or just getting ahead, Dan’s approach was always “we gotta try” this or that. He cared, long after the Pool was drained.

He was funny. He was unique. He was a great guy, and I miss him.

David Virrill