Remembrances of
Larry Hoey
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Artistic Precision, Intelligence, Humor...

Kathy Gray - Minneapolis, Minnesota
kathy.gray@childrenshc.org

I am a folk dancer from Minneapolis and have gone to DCFF a number of years.  I noticed Larry immediately and continually due to his artistic precision, energy, intelligence and humor.  I noted a number of other appealing attributes upon which I will not elaborate; suffice it to say that the whole of Larry caused me to embark on a several year effort at flirtation (rather totally unsuccessful I must humbly admit).  Each communication we had confirmed for me that he was an unusually interesting man and full of life.  I would like to share a poem that I wrote for Larry after DCFF one year where a particular fun conversation had covered many topics including dance, hiking on rocky foggy mountain summits, and how life feels sometimes just like a foggy barren stretch of rock. 

I am sorry to be unable to find and share a poem that he wrote.  If anyone has it, please post it, as well as any other poems he may have written.  The one I am remembering talked about some principle of mathematics or equation in physics that most of us have never heard of, let alone understand, let totally alone be able to weave into the language of a poet.  Larry had, did and could. 

The morning Paul Collins told me of Larry's death a cloud moved in.  The kind that causes most of us to feel cold, disoriented and longing for something to change.   The kind that Larry would have set off hiking into smiling and with vigor, intrigued by it for its beauty, challenge and its rightful place in nature.

Larry, I will use your memory as a propeller out of bouts of lethargy and ill humor.  To the small extent that I knew you, your life was a model for the opposite.  Thank you. 

Kathy Gray

                                Fog

A hiker, named Larry, on mountain top barren
Decried the fog yielding neither lover, nor cairn,
As a pall of discouragement overgrew Hoey
A melodious voice from the mist called, "Yoo hooey??!!"

"Am I crazy, or blessed?", thought our hiker bewildered
Soon he knew; there she stood, in gown silken and silvered,
A second voice boomed, no doubt that of God,
"Believeth Ye! Great things ariseth from fog!"

Bewildered no longer, he now stood there shaking,
The carnal and sacred, so close in the making,
No hope had our man that his calm could recover
With a beauty on one hand and God on the other!

To conceal his great tremors, he started to pace
Back and forth, with occasional shuffle in place
"I'm so nervous!" he said.  "I'm ruining my chance!
When the woman stepped forward; "Is that a folk dance?"

"Yes it is!!," he said quickly.  "Thank you, God," underbreath,
He turned to his blessing, "May I show you the step?"
Hand in hand off that mountain, they did Ajde Idam Jano,
And lived together happily ever ono and ono.

Kathy Gray - Minneapolis, Minnesota
kathy.gray@childrenshc.org
 


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