Gerard Daniel Duggan 1946-2024

My dad died suddenly last week.

Yet another dark valley in a calamitous year.

My sister & my father exited stage left together in 2024. I still had this pic from my sister’s memorial on my desktop, so at least it was handy.

Gerard Daniel Duggan would have turned 79 next month. He was born in Kingston, New York, and lived his early years in Margaretville. His father was a lifelong NYC employee — though he lived and worked in the Catskills. Francis was one of the architects of the reservoirs and aqueducts that make New York City’s taps the “Champagne Of Drinking Water”.

My grandfather at center with a huge joint.

Margaretville in the 1960s was a place that most kids wanted to escape. It would later become a fashionable weekend getaway in the 1990s — a fact my old man never could understand.

Gerry was the youngest of three brothers. His eldest brother, Frank and his family are practically carrying us around this year. I’m so grateful for them all. My uncle Joe died without a family some time ago. Joe was the only Yankee fan in the house. He and I had that in common. The radio signal in the Catskills was stronger from Boston, so most of the family were Sox fans. I was born a stone’s throw from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, baseball was one divide we never bridged. Still, I loved visiting Fenway, and this is possibly the happiest photo I have of my father.

We visited Fenway in 2005, the year after their suffering ended and the smiling started. We took a tour of the park, and this was our guide’s real championship ring. My old man was a hell of an athlete and after graduating from high school in 1964 he graduated Fordham University in 1968. His degree should been the start of something great, but it meant the end of his draft deferments and Gerry’s first plane ride was to boot camp. His second was to Vietnam.

“The Duke”. Everybody sent to ‘Nam got a used gun and a new name.

As the “FNG” (Fuckin’ New Guy) in Vietnam in ‘69 he was handed an M-60 and told to take point. Short timers, to the rear. While he fighting a war he didn’t understand the Stars & Stripes reported that America landed on the moon and the entire world was gathering at Woodstock, only a stone’s throw from Margaretville.

I know almost next to nothing about his days at war. He did not want to talk about his experience, at least not with me, and I learned early not to ask. He had a fist-sized scar on his side that almost looked like a child’s simple drawing of the sun. It was from being shot, and as a young kid he lied to Claire and I and said he fell on a stake…which seems even worse than getting shot? I don’t know why he thought it was less upsetting to be accidentally impaled. He received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. My father only acknowledged the first Purple Heart since the second was given to him for rushing back to fight too soon and having the wound reopen. He was deployed to Australia to convalesce, and because he learned to type in high school he finished his obligation to the US Army by filing reports for servicemen that were “Section 8", those deemed mentally unfit for duty. At least he was no longer being shot at, but I don’t guess that assignment did much for his own mental health.

Like everyone that fought…the war stayed with him.

The night the first Gulf War broke out in ‘91 he barged into my room as I watched green tracer fire on the TV and he swore if there was a draft that I would be leaving for Canada and there would be no arguing. He packed ‘Nam away as best he could. Better than some. He claimed to be a “night owl” but sleep was not his friend. It was like he was on watch.

After returning home his dreams of attempting to make it as a ballplayer were over before they began, and when he got back he reconnected with his Fordham sweetheart, Cass. They were married, and I was born a short time later. My sister arrived two years after me.

Our folks gave us a lovely upbringing in Ridgewood, NJ. My father had his ups and down in employment, but the town was home forever. He was a member of Upper Ridgewood Tennis Club, and it was a place and community that brought him great joy. He played tennis and paddle all the damn time. My old man was a social guy, and I think he needed a clubhouse.

I think most of the kids in my high school graduating class were taught to drive by my father in one of the many Volvo station wagons we owned over the years.

Gerry helped chart the course of my life, as all fathers do, in ways deliberate and accidental. He often commuted home with a comic book off the spinner rack for me and a NYC tabloid for himself. I read both. He was reflecting on his own wins and losses when I had graduated Emerson in 1996. In was a series of conversations about the course my life would take, my father discouraged me to trust corporations as his generation had. He worked in finance, and land development (whatever the hell that is) and ultimately after over a year without employment that began on Black Monday. (See WOLF OF WALL STREET) my father was offered employment on a trading desk, and that’s how he spent most of the 90s.

“Try something that makes you happy, cause nothing’s guaranteed.”

With the encouragement to pursue something different and without a detour into a war like he experienced, I went west for California. I would’t trade it for anything, but the cost of my dream was less time with my family.

My father loved me and my family so much. I know it ate at him to be a continent away. He did so many things to help me on my journey. He absorbed all my student debt. He bought my comics. His favorite was DEAD EYES.

I’ve enjoyed a lot of good times with my family since I went west, but they became special occasions. There was a very fun trip to Vegas, our wedding was a blast. My father had a wonderful laugh.

There was nothing he loved more than being with his first grandson.

He loved his brothers. He loved their families, especially their kids and grandkids. They kept him young.

He loved rooting for underdogs.

He loved the fucking Red Sox.

Covid made his world smaller, and later the neuropathy in his legs from Agent Orange exposure finally took tennis from him. Putting the rackets down was a bitter defeat that made his world darker.

I wanted to have this published by Christmas Eve, because I needed a deadline. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll be trying to figure out how to write this properly for the rest of my life.

I always think of Gerry on Christmas Eve. One year in the early nineties he had all our friends over after Midnight Mass. Over the years the party grew so large that we moved to the tennis club. Some years it didn't end until almost sun up. He liked to hang out and didn’t like to sleep. Even on Christmas Eve.

He fucking hated getting old. Now, at least, those aches and pains are gone.

I love you, Dad.

G