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We each have our memories of Danny.
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Thank you to the many friends, buddies, neighbors and family members that knew,
liked, loved, spent time with, worked with, sent cards to and especially those
who prayed with and for Danny. Thank you Liza..what a wife, what an absolute
rock. Love you. Carolyn, Gary—the time, the love, the everything..thank you.
Thank you all of the ‘buddies’ who hunted, fished and sported with Danny. All
of you racing fans, ultimate fighting fans—thank you for sharing the enjoyment
with Danny.
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We all share in some way the life of Danny.
Let me share some of our memories to give you another look at Danny as our big
brother. Danny was big brother to 4 sisters and 2 brothers. He helped prepare
all of our teachers for the Shawver kids. I loved having the Shawver name. He
was an example of hard work, determination, tough guy attitude and lastly,
Godly patience. Danny was cool. I always thought he was cool and now after
seeing so many come and pay tribute to him... I know it.
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Danny showed me what you do with a bb gun, an upstairs bedroom window and a
pig. You aim and shoot. “Aw, it doesn’t hurt it. It just stings.” He showed me
how you break your collarbone by jumping down from the school bus.
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When we were in elementary school, he made us sisters walk behind him while he
strutted in his jeans and cowboy boots. “You guys stay behind me.”
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He would ask somebody to watch him take the trash out to the trashcans and make
sure he came back okay. Sometimes Dad would sneak out and spook him.
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We loved playing wiffleball. When you have 7 kids in one family, there’s 2
teams for back yard games. He showed us how to put a sock inside a wiffle ball,
wrap it up with electrical tape and that made it last longer, go farther and
hurt more. We weren’t supposed to throw our hardest when we threw someone out.
But it usually stung.
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If he ever hit us he would act like it hurt him more than it hurt us. “ouch,
that hurts.” He thought he knew if we really got hurt…usually never.. he always
said ”that didn’t hurt.”
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He taught us how you had money to burn if you had a paper route. He also taught
us that Dobermans were scary and you needed mace to scare them away.
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Love that old Atari and video games. Pac-man and space invaders. That was when
it was 1 point for each pellet and 5 points for each power pellet. Dad and
Danny would stay up late playing the game. They played so long that they would
flip the score and it would start over again. I remember they would see pac-man
in the lids of their eyes when they went to bed.
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The Karate Kid always reminds me of Danny. After watching it, he wrestled with
Joe and Matt. Joe wound up with a broken arm.
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We watched him play with the Godfather’s Pizza baseball team and learned the
chant…"eat 'em up pizza, eat 'em up..chomp chomp."
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Both of us read all of the Nancy Drew books and the Hardy boy books. He read
all of the Hardy Boy and I read all of the Nancy Drew books, first. When he
wanted to read the Nancy Drew books, I had to check them out for him. It was
okay if I checked out the Hardy Boy books for me.
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I thought I was cool if I rode around with him in his black regal, or his red
car or his red, slammed, primered truck.
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He knew everything about hunting and fishing.
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We laugh and say that what he didn’t know he made it up and made it convincing. Our sister Anna made the
statement to him that she had seen a lot of skunks lying on the road lately.
His reply was that it was almost skunk mating season. Who knows or cares about
skunk mating season? But Danny knew. He knew every kind of fish and where it
would be found.
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He cracked us up practicing his turkey call, buck grunt or duck call. I hope I
got the terms right.
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Many things will remind us of Danny.
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Tomatoes because he loved them. Green peppers because he didn’t. Dale Earnhart
because he loved him. Jeff Gordon because he didn’t.
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Chili fritos, butterfingers, Louis Lamour books, suck egg mules, whatever they
are but he always said he was one. Ribs, a good steak, good seafood, pimento
cheese on crackers, steak and shake, Mom’s tuna salad, potato salad, Dad’s back
rubs, cottage cheese but don’t you dare let it be low fat…he’d know and he
didn’t like it.
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BLT’s because he made them for me last summer…bib lettuce because I introduced
him to it with the BLT’s.
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Those SBC trucks. We looked forward to seeing him drive his around town again.
We always knew it was him by the orange dot he sprayed on the front bumper.
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What a guy. Thank you for loving him and letting him know how much you thought
of him by your visits, your cards, your phone calls and your prayers.
From Danny's friend Paul Robinson:
I met Dan when we played baseball together in little league. We both played for Godfather.s pizza. That.s been many years ago now, but I will never forget how rarely he paid attention but somehow was always there to get the ball when it was hit. Several years passed before we met up again, but right away we became best friends. Danny was the type of friend that you only have once in your lifetime. Danny was always there for me, through the good times and the bad. I can.t count the times that I turned to him for help, and everytime he was there, no questions asked, he would help in any way he could. I may not have always liked what he had to say at the time, but that was Danny. I think that is how you judge a true friend, they don.t avoid you when you are in trouble, and they don.t tell you things just to make you feel better. They tell it like it is, and do what they can for you. That was Danny! He would do anything for you, it didn.t matter what it was. I have so many memories of Danny, it.s hard to pick and choose only a few to mention. Being a teenager hanging around uptown, with all of our lowered trucks in a line, going to the ball park to hit balls, or working out in his garage "No Pain - No Gain". Danny lived life to it.s fullest. The things that I will never forget about him, the way he loved the outdoors hunting, fishing, even working. He just loved to be outside. I will always picture his smile. I can still see him from years ago as he bounced down the road in that lowered Mazda truck. I can hear him talking about how great Dale Earnhardt was and how much he didn.t like Jeff Gordon. We watched countless Nascar races together. I will always remember and smile at the way he spun his hat backwards when somebody made him mad. I guess, in all honesty there.s not much that I won.t remember about him. So often we forget what really matters in life. It.s the little things that truly make us happy. Danny could see all of that, it was like he had the wisdom of an old man or maybe he was born a hundred years too late. I realize that a lot of the times we shared together may not matter to a lot of people or may not sound like much but that was "our time" and it meant the world to me. These are just one guy.s memories of the best friend anyone could ever have. I think often of the times we sat together near the end of his life. We would talk about going to the Daytona 500 and he and I taking off for a couple of weeks, when he was feeling better and driving out west. We talked of how we would sleep in the truck and eat at all the greasy truck stops. There are many times that I would sit and watch him fall asleep while we watched Nascar on Sundays and I couldn.t help but wish I could trade places with him because of how much he loved life, he appreciated it and never took it for granted. I just want to say "Thanks, Danny" for all the special times, thanks for always being there for me. Thanks for always having my back when I had a little "disagreement" with someone. Most of all, thanks for being my friend. My life was so much better because you were a part of it. You will always be remembered and forever missed.