The Dictionary.com Word of the Day is "ephemeral"….

Dan R. Toomey
Dec. 16, 1911 — April 17, 2005

Dan R. Toomey, who died Sunday in Austin at age 93, led a colorful life and leaves as his legacy a grove of pecan trees he helped plant off Barton Springs Road. A jack-of-all-trades, Dan was a machinist, truck driver, shrimp boat captain, dam builder, farmer and newspaper photographer. In World War II, he was a gunnery instructor in the Army Air Corps and recalled that his main task was training recruits to "shoot behind their planes and not in front of them."

Dan was born December 16, 1911, in San Antonio to Lillian Clifton and Robert Pasha Toomey.  After his mother’s death in 1922, the family moved to Austin, where his father purchased land along Barton Springs Road.  He and his younger brother, Jack, planted rows of grafted pecan trees that their father hoped would become a thriving business. The business never materialized, but the trees flourished and continue to provide a canopy at Shady Grove RV Park, Mimosa Café and Austin Java.

As a boy, Dan explored the woods near Barton Springs and fished in Barton Creek.  He and his brother once had to swim for their lives in a Colorado River flood before the Highland Lakes dams were built. He and his brother also had to live in a chicken coop for weeks after they accidentally burned down their house while their father was working out of the country during the Depression. Dan attended The University of Texas for three years, then moved to Corpus Christi and rebuilt engines for the oil industry.  He later joined his father in the construction of Austin’s Tom Miller Dam in the late 1930s. Dan was a machinist and his father was a construction inspector.

Dan returned to Corpus Christi and worked as a civilian at the naval base before being drafted into the Army in 1941.  After the war, Dan drove a dairy truck and operated a shrimp boat for several years in Corpus Christi before becoming a truck driver for United Van Lines.  During a trip to Arkansas, he bought 700 acres in Huntsville and became a cattle and hog farmer for 15 years before selling the farm and taking up photography. He worked at the Madison County Record photographing ball games, weddings and crime scenes. 

He retired in West Fork, Arkansas, took up golf, and kept busy with stamp, coin and record collecting, gardening, photography and his computer. He moved back to Austin in 2000 and lived beneath the pecan trees at the Shady Grove RV Park, where he planted and tended 300 rose bushes. When Dan was no longer able to live alone a few months ago, volunteers from the Austin Rose Society transported his roses to the Zilker Garden Center. 

Dan’s brother, Major John Marshall Toomey, was killed in action in 1942.  The same year, Dan married Ann Birdwell, who died in Arkansas.  His father, Robert, died in 1968. His longtime companion Ruth Van Deusen died in 1999.

He is survived by niece Susan Toomey Frost; grandniece Edith Frost of Chicago; and grandniece Lucie Webb and her husband Mark Webb, and their three sons Thomas, Marshall and Clark, all of San Antonio. The family is grateful for years of help given to Dan by Bennie Bell and the other residents of the RV park, and the staff at Barton Hills Assisted Living on Kinney Avenue, not far from Dan’s boyhood home.

A second grove of pecan trees will be planted off Barton Springs Road in memory of Robert, Jack and Dan Toomey.  The trees will shade a picnic grove along Bouldin Creek in the long awaited Town Lake Park.

There’s a tribute to him on Pitchfork…

And you can check out his really beautiful photography over at Zabriskie Point…

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Fucking hell.

The last time I went to the Rainbo a few years ago, the vibe was a little weird.  Me and my friends were the only white people skating.  That was no prob for me, I only judge people based on their skating ability.  But one of my friends overheard some rude words about our skin color.  Something like "Oh, now the whities want to take over our rink." That’s no good, we only wanted to go there to have a good time skating, not for any kind of racial territorial challenge!  But we got over it and had a good time anyway and didn’t let the funny looks bother us.  But then I got pissed when the DJ yelled at me over the PA for skating backwards.  It was an adult night, WTF, you’re not allowed to even skate backwards?  Screw that, how are you supposed to do any jumps or spins if you can’t even turn the fuck around?  Anyway… I have to find another rink.  It needs to be BIG and it needs an adult session where you’re allowed to skate fast and do whatever tricks you want.

I used to be really serious about figure skating; now it’s just a long-lost love.  I’m not the greatest skater on earth but I do love every minute of it, and I’m better than most people.  I can do a reasonably graceful two-footed spin, and I can do a toe loop as well, those are my best tricks.  A toe loop is when you’re skating backwards, you stick your left leg out behind you, stub the toe-stop into the floor and use that leg to push yourself up and around a full 360 degrees.  It was a huge breakthrough for me to learn that jump, but then after that I sort of hit a plateau with my skating.  It was also a problem with location… in Austin I used to go to Playland at least once or twice a week, but when I moved to NYC I couldn’t find a good rink nearby. I could only go to Wollman in the summertime and skate outdoors on concrete.  Which is fun, but not really my favorite way to skate.  Here in Chicago the only decent rink I knew about was the Rainbo.  I’m sure there are tons more out in the suburbs, but I’m picky!  I don’t wanna mess around here.  I has to be BIG, they have to let you do tricks, and I don’t wanna skate with little kids around.  Nothing against little kids, I just don’t wanna watch out for ‘em.  :-)

Long live Napster!!!!!  Long live Audiogalaxy!!!!!  P2P for the masses!!!!