Text of the celebration of Daniel's life held June 2 at Menlo-Atherton High School.  


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Click below to fast-forward to an individual speaker
     Introductory remarks
    Memories by:    
        Michael Barclay         Sue Kayton          Rachel Barclay           Paula Kayton
        Brad Friedman           Judy Swartz         Myron Kayton           Carol Taggart
        Eric Hartwig               Betty Kerns         David Lewin-Rowen
        Ted Enns                   Eric Eakin             Maud Naroll 
        Gregg Whitnah          Marcia Enns          Michael's closing remarks
    Mourner’s Kaddish (English)                      Mourner’s Kaddish (Aramaic)
    Closing


Michael Barclay:  | Top
It’s hard to believe that this many people came here on a sunny Saturday afternoon in June to come be here with us. Well, when it comes to commemorating the life of Daniel Barclay, we have a lot of things to share with you. 

Sue Kayton:    | Top
So thank you all for coming.   In case you don’t know us, we’re Daniel’s parents, Michael and Sue.

Michael Barclay:    | Top

I’m going to talk for a few minutes about the door to Dan’s bedroom at our home.  If that seems like an off-the-wall topic, it literally is.  As some of you noticed when you came in here today, we took his door off its hinges and brought it in here.

Daniel had the ability to fall asleep anywhere, and to sleep soundly for hours.  We noticed Dan developing this useful skill as a teenager, especially on weekends when he would often sleep until mid-afternoon.  This may have been an inherited trait.  As some of my friends from high school and college who are here today will remember, there was a running joke back then that I personally had no knowledge whether or not the sun rose before noon on Saturdays.  I am pleased to report that the same was true most Saturdays when Daniel was home with us.

Sometime in the mid-1990’s, we started collecting cartoons and news articles about sleep, and particularly with teens needing sleep.  At first it was just one or two cartoons, but then it grew and grew until it was what we see here today.  None of us can remember which cartoon was the first one to grace his door, but here are a few examples.  This one is called "The Golden Age of Sleeping."  



As my friends may also remember, I had this on my door at college.  When Peanuts began re-running old strips in the early 1990’s, I was thrilled when they re-ran this strip.  I immediately cut it out, and it was one of the first cartoons on Daniel’s door.

This one is good.  It summarizes how Daniel felt about Saturday mornings.  We have two more.  

 

This one was pretty good.

 
You can take a look at his door if you haven't already after the ceremony.  He often woke up at 5:00 PM for breakfast and whatever.  


Sue Kayton:  
  | Top

Daniel was a wonderful person and we all miss him so much.  Many of you knew Daniel only in an academic setting, and remember him for his formidable intellect, but I remember him from a mother’s perspective.  I think of the little boy who would giggle while throwing Cheerios onto the floor from his high chair, and who loved to stay up half the night drawing silly cartoons with his sister Rachel.  I remember the first time he put on skis and we had to tie a rope onto him because he couldn't stop, and not that many years later, when my husband and I yelled, "Daniel!  Wait for us!  at the bottom of every ski slope.  I remember him cuddling up to me on the couch while I read him a book, and when he got older having to go into his room late at night to get him to put away his book and go to bed.  I remember him asking me the first time he had to get dressed up, "Mommy, will you tie my tie for me?" and then about sixteen years later when he went to his first debate tournament,  I still had to help him tie his tie.  When we were going through his room at MIT,  and looking through his stuff, we found he had a tie hanging up in his closet.  It was pre-tied.  He had just loosened the knot so he didn't have to tie it and untie it every time he put it on and took it off. 

I remember the first time he got behind the wheel of a car, and then two years later when he called me from out here on Middlefield Avenue to tell me that someone had rear-ended him in the car, but everyone was okay.  The following year he drove a car full of students to Los Angeles to compete in a quiz bowl tournament, and I remember watching the clock and worrying about him while he was driving home late at night through Pacheco Pass.

Unlike many other people who are serious students, Daniel never got so serious that he forgot to have fun.  He was always hunting for people to join him in a game of bridge, World of Warcraft, Risk, Phase Ten, Diplomacy, or any number of games.  In class when he was bored, he would draw panel cartoons in his notebook, and amuse the other kids in the class by passing it around. We have a few of them over here - you can take a look at them later.

Most of all I remember his dry sense of humor and how he never took anything too seriously. 

Daniel spent almost every weekend during his last two years at MIT going to debate tournaments.  He loved the camaraderie, the intellectual challenge, and the feeling of being part of a “family” of debaters.  To help make this memory longer-lasting, we have set up a memorial fund for the MIT debate team.  Your program contains information about this memorial fund if you would like to contribute to it.  The M-A High PTA also plans to start a fund in Daniel’s memory, which will be used to assist bereaved families with financial need, but this fund is not yet ready to accept donations, but it should be by the time school starts in the fall. 

I'd now like to ask Daniel's sister, Rachel Barclay, to come on up.

Rachel Barclay:  | Top

I'm Daniel's sister, two years his junior.  It’s said that everyone is unique.  But some people are more unique than others, and no one could hold a candle to Daniel. 

Even when I was very young, I was aware that there was something special about my brother.  He saw the world in ways that no one else could, found patterns where everyone else only saw chaos.  Until the past few years, he was very shy, but he always had a way with words – he had to, in order to be able to explain what he was thinking.  And what came out of his mind was beautiful.  Daniel had more potential than anyone else I’ve ever known, or probably will know, and now that’s gone.  We’ll never know how he might have shaped the world with his life, but we already can see how he has.  And somehow, that helps ease the irreplaceable loss.

The thing I’ll always remember most about my brother was his sense of humor.  We’d stay up late talking for hours in the kitchen, trading in-joke after in-joke and keeping our parents awake laughing.  I’ll never know where he got it from, but he managed to dredge up the most random yet fitting material to fuel absurd hypothetical situations that we’d discuss in great earnest.  

When we got our most recent pet duck, we’d been trying to figure out good duck names.  It was mostly a discussion for my father and me, but Daniel felt the need to contribute.  Wordlessly but wearing a wide, almost sheepish smirk, he handed me a small scrap of paper with eight names on it, that he’d been working on for quite some time: Stanley, Skippy, Slappy, Sparky, Spunky, Stumpy, Smelly, and Stupid.  Not because he meant any of them seriously, but just because he knew it would make me smile.

Although we’ve had our differences, Daniel and I worked as a team.  On a road trip back east some years ago, we inhabited the back seat of a rental car while our parents grew hopelessly lost on the highway outside of the Philadelphia airport, my mother driving while my dad tried to navigate.  Ever eager to help, we concluded that the most constructive thing that the situation needed was a running commentary in the style of an early-morning country talk show.  Obviously, my brother was Dan, but since there’s no good way to shorten “Rachel” to a single syllable, I became Spud.  “Looks like Mike and Sue are lost again, Dan.”  “That’s right, Spud, I wonder how they’ll get out of the mess this time?”  On and on, back and forth, unceasingly, for hours.  I hope that my mom and dad appreciated it.  The Dan and Spud Show came back into play any time we were on a family trip and got lost on the road.

And though it was a lot rarer to witness, my brother was caring and kind.  When we lived in Los Angeles, we had a mandarin orange tree in the front yard.  Three-year-old me was too small to reach the oranges, so Daniel would pick and peel them for me, and feed me orange segments all afternoon, with the seeds removed.  That part of my brother never changed, and I saw it in the silent alliances we formed to escape an annoying visitor, steal extra dessert, or accomplish some other mutual goal.

Daniel is someone that I thought I’d always have in my life.  Living without him is like waking up one day to discover that that the world has lost gravity or the color blue.  No matter how close or far away he was, he’d always be part of the world somewhere, and to lose him was incomprehensible.  In fifteen years, ever competitive, we were going to argue over who had the more successful career in our respective fields.  In thirty years, I was looking forward to buying him his plane ticket to Stockholm, and I’d get to tell everyone I knew, “I told you so.”  More than anything, I was proud to have him as my brother, proud to be so close to an amazing person I’d probably never have known like this if I wasn’t his sister, and proud that I got the chance to touch such an amazing life.

Next is my grandmother, Paula Kayton.

Paula Kayton:  | Top

I am Daniel’s grandmother. We had a very close relationship and I want to share some of the wonderful memories and times we had together.

There has been a tradition of bird-watching in our family. When Daniel was seven years old, we learned that that a rare diving duck called a Barrow’s Goldeneye had been seen nearby and we went and saw the duck. Daniel entered it on his birding life list as the first entry. 
 

He came with me on many other birding expeditions and added to his life list. Daniel also used his bird-finding skills to earn a badge which helped him become an Eagle Scout.

In March of this year, I spent a few days in Cambridge with Daniel. He invited me to spend an evening attending his toy class with him. This was a class in designing toys for young children and was offered in conjunction with a toy company. It was his favorite class at MIT.

At the class, Daniel showed me the poster for his toy which he called Airlogs and he explained the toy. I said that I thought the Airlogs were fabulous and would be interested to hear what the toy company representatives thought of it.

 Daniel then told me that after the class, he had arranged a surprise and all he would tell me was that we were going to a debate on campus but he would keep me in suspense and not tell me anything further.  Here, I must digress for a moment. In the Jewish religion, we have a special secret tradition. It is called FOOD and for each holiday we have a special food.

Now, back to Daniel’s surprise debate. I was with Daniel for the festive Jewish holiday of Purim which is a relatively unimportant holiday ---except for the FOOD! Two of the foods eaten on that day are latkes – a potato pancake –
and hamentaschen – a pastry that is filled with apricots or prunes. 
  

The tongue-in-cheek debate was entitled, “Which is better, latkes or hamentaschen?” There were MIT professors speaking for each side. Daniel was rooting for hamentaschen and his friend Adam sitting next to him was rooting for latkes. The professors tried to see who could make the most outlandish representations for their side. Everybody was cheering and we were all laughing so hard that many times we had to ask the other person to repeat what was being said. After the “debate” they served latkes and hamentaschen. It was truly a very special surprise and we had a wonderful time.

We talked about many things. Daniel told me about his plans for the future. He said he wanted to work in the Boston area for the next few years since he had so many friends there and then go back to school for his PhD. I told him how proud I was of him. His ideas and plans that we discussed showed his maturity and he was very happy.

In our conversations after I returned home to California, Daniel told me the toy company liked his AIRLOGS design. I kept checking with him each week about his toy and found that others had been eliminated but his was still being considered.

Five weeks later, on Sunday evening, April 8th, I spoke to him and he said he was giving a presentation on the Airlogs the next evening. He was hoping it would continue being considered. Daniel said he would call and let me know the result of that round of the competition. He also told me he was really looking forward to the finals of the debate tournament in two weeks. I ended the phone call the way I always did, “Bye Daniel, I love you.”

I did not hear from him with the results and was very worried. 

I will always treasure and cherish these and many other wonderful memories of Daniel.  I will now say, “Bye Daniel, I love you.”

Sue Kayton:  This is the Menlo Park - Atherton area, and it's not Hollywood, but we feel obliged since we have the silver screen to bring something to you for your entertainment.  Some of you may have seen the television show Quiz Kids which airs on Saturdays at 2:00 PM on channel 4.   We have with us today the host of Quiz Kids, Brad Friedman, who is going to come up here and talk about some of the things that he shared with Daniel during the four years when Daniel was one of the stars of the show.  Brad is a teacher at San Mateo High School as his day job.  

Brad Friedman:  | Top

Hi, everybody.  Eight years ago, I was given a truly wonderful opportunity to take part in a new experience that would celebrate and showcase the amazing activities of academic students.  It would also give me the chance to be the next Bob Barker, I thought.  Quiz Kids came out and immediately there were a huge number of teams from around the Peninsula, and I was just boggled by the intellect of these kids.  I'm just the talent.  I just read the questions.  People still come up to me and say, "What about the answer to that?" and I really don't know what they're talking about.  

I was surprised, however, to so quickly meet the quintessential Quiz Kid.  I thought it might take a while to figure out what kind of person that was, but Daniel showed up right away, and he was truly remarkable.  When I first met Daniel, I was told that he had a specialty, and that the specialty was geography, and that if you asked him anything about any place, he would get the answer.  What I discovered quickly is that Daniel knew absolutely everything about everything, and it got to the point that it was almost supernatural to me.  

Click for video of greatest hits

I just have to say that I hope you noticed what Daniel could do.  It wasn't just knowing the answers to things, but Daniel could figure out the direction of a question before I got halfway through.  I said, "Gustavus Adolphus"  - I don't even know who that guy was - it could have been a thousand things, but Daniel knew it would be Sweden.  I mean, he knew where the question would go.  I know that Daniel had a ton of experience with other quiz bowls and I'm sure that served him good stead, but he also had a kind of bewitched, intuitive quality that scared the heck out of me sometimes.  

I could probably walk off the stage and say that I knew Daniel as a TV star and that's it, but he won for four years.  I do not want to skip the amazing accomplishments of his teammates, but Daniel was the star for those four years.  At the end of the second year, I was given a great opportunity to go to Europe with Daniel and the team.  The team that year was a really wonderful group of kids:  Robin Pam, William Most, Noah Veltman, and Daniel.  I kind of thought that I would get off the plane and say good-bye and go off and do my own thing, but instead I found the pure joy of going to all of these wonderful places with these kids.  I'd like to tell you that Daniel led the way, but actually I spent a lot of time with Robin, William and Noah, wondering where Daniel was.  And Daniel was usually some place he shouldn't be.  

We ended up at the British Museum one day, and were told that we couldn't see the Rosetta Stone because President Bush was there.  So we went and looked at the Elgin Marbles.  I was fascinated by all the stuff that Noah and William and Robin knew about these marbles.  It was marvelous.  We just had a great time.  Then we noticed that Daniel was missing.  We looked all over for Daniel.  He had snuck past the White House guards and was watching President Bush, probably standing right next to the man.  

He went into a lot of museums.  He loved museums.  I read in the memorial how difficult Costa Rica was for him since it didn't have all the great museums like here - I can see that.  He spent a lot of time in his room playing with a watch - taking it apart and putting it back together, and sneaking off with Noah to Pizza Hut.  Looking at some of the pictures, I'm remembering how horrible the food was, so I can understand his wisdom there.  

We took a train down to Hampton Court, Henry the Eighth's old castle, and we had lunch by the Thames.  It was very lovely and there is a beautiful garden maze.  I'd never been in a maze before, so I went into the maze and I got lost in a matter of seconds.  I'm wandering around thinking, "I don't know what to do."  And then Daniel appeared, not to save the day, but to push me to the ground and then move on.  So I jumped up.  I was pretty incensed, but I followed him out which was a good thing since otherwise I'd still be there. Then I said, "Daniel Barclay,  what were you thinking?  You just pushed me to the ground."  He said, "You were moving too slow."  And I think, in a way, that explained a lot about Daniel.  

I thought at first, I'm listening to his sister and his parents talk about his sense of humor and I thought I missed that the first year, and then I realized that Daniel and I were in kind of a rivalry for who really was the star of the show.  I like to keep it light.  They're so amazing, these kids.  They're so smart, so once in a while it's nice to kind of laugh a little bit.  And I thought that's not something Daniel would do, but it turned out I was wrong.  When he wanted to, Daniel could be ten times funnier than I am.  

Daniel and I got to know each other a little bit.  He knew I had two cats.  I love cats.  We're about to watch a clip that shows his humor, but I also think he was taking a little dig at me, but it may just be my imagination.  Here's Daniel being Daniel.

Click for cat video

He was a good sport, and I'm going to miss him.  I think he was going to change the world and I'm sorry that he will not have that opportunity, but he did change mine, and he will be with me for the rest of my life.  I think it's kind of fitting that this is a young man who seemed to have an answer to every question, which  is a very comforting thing in this world.  It is appropriate, I think, for me to learn through Daniel's life that there aren't answers to every question, and I'm sorry about that.  

He was a delightful and brilliant young man and I will always remember him.  Thank you for letting me be part of this.  

[ You may have noticed in the video that Brad suggested that Daniel write a book in his spare time over the summer.  We don't know if Daniel acted on this suggestion, or was already working on it, but he wrote a screenplay titled Agent of Freedom, that he later expanded into a novel.  The text of the novel is posted on the memorial website, www.suekayton.com/dan/agentoffreedom.htm]

Michael Barclay:  The next speaker will be my sister, Judy Swartz.  

Judy Swartz    | Top

I'll talk to you all from here.  My knees can't get up there.  Michael and Sue brought Daniel up here [to the Bay Area] when Daniel was seven and Rachel was five, so I only had those few early years with him in Los Angeles.  I am recalling a time that Michael and Sue wanted me to share with you.  He was 3-1/2 or 4 years old, a little guy with blond hair cut like this, almost like a bowl.  I called Mike and Sue and I said, "Listen, the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus is in town, and I would love to take Daniel.  I had picked him up occasionally from preschool, and taken him to McDonald's where he would have a plain hamburger and a soda, but we never told his mother.  Or I would go over to their house.  I was fortunate because they lived right around the corner from me.  I would spend time with them and their ducks.  Anyway, Sue said, "Oh, no.  He's much too young for the circus.  He couldn't sit through it, and it would be much too much noise for him.  Daniel can't handle that."  Believe it or not, Daniel was a quiet child also, until I took him to the circus.  Sue said, "no" so I said I was going to ask Michael.  So I told Michael, "I want to take Daniel to the circus."  Rachel was too little, and one was enough at that time.  Unfortunately I never got the chance to take Rachel.  

Anyway, I picked Daniel up, and Sue had a jacket and, I remembered this last night, there were some baggies.  In the baggies were raisins, and in another we had carrot wedges, and apples, and a little thing of juice with the straw on it.  So I said, "Well, Sue, we were going to eat at the circus."  She said, "He will like this."  So little Daniel gets in the car, in his car seat, and on the way to the circus, Daniel, who started reading at two and shocked me because my children never read that early, is naming the names of the streets for me as we're going down to where the circus is: "Exposition Boulevard."  And he actually asked me to drive a little slower so he could read them.  

Anyway, we go into the circus.  Before we went in, we had time to go into the tents and look at the animals.  Daniel was just in awe of this huge pachyderm [elephant].  Like I said, he really was very quiet and a little bit laid-back in new situations.  So we went into the circus and of course I got one of these seats - on the very front row, you know, where you get all the smells and it's where the elephant poops right in front of you.    So I warned him about this and, I might add, I was very happy I did, because the elephant did.  

Anyway, the circus started and it was three rings and there was a lot of noise.  The kids there were yelling and screaming and I'm saying, "Daniel, why are you so quiet?"  And he was just sitting there.  And he said, "I'm just watching."  And I said, "Are you having a good time?"  He said, "Oh, yeah!"  And I said, "You can yell and scream if you want to.  You can hoot and holler like all the other kids here."  Well, in five minutes, I had a maniac sitting next to me.  The best part is Sue said, "now, we're going to be home all afternoon because I'm sure that Daniel will not be able to last the whole circus, so call me at intermission.  I told her "We're going to be here all day, so don't worry about it."  I called her at intermission and told her, "We're not coming home."  The little guy lasted the whole circus.  

We had a ball.  We got him home and Sue said, "Did he eat his treats?"  And I said, "No."  Sue asked, "Did he have anything to eat?"  I said, "Let me see.  We had a hot dog, popcorn, cotton candy, peanuts, ice cream."  And she's like, "Oh, my God."  So I said, "And a soda."  

I did not have the pleasure of most of you of enjoying Daniel as a young adult.  I moved from Los Angeles to Arizona ten years ago.  I spoke with Daniel often, on the phone when he was home.  A lot of it was just, "Uh-huh."  But the last conversation we had was a very long one for him.  He actually asked me a few questions about how things were in Arizona.  He was a neat guy.  I have a beautiful memory.  Oh, I have to tell you one other thing.  Of course you have to get a souvenir [at the circus].  And they had a T-shirt with a tiger, a fierce Barnum and Bailey tiger.  

It glowed in the dark.  Daniel wore that shirt, of course it was quite large on him, but he wore that shirt until it wouldn't fit on him any longer, then he gave it to Rachel.  And I think when she finished with it, it was rags.  Sheer rags.

But anyway, I love my niece so much.  I hope she'll come back and visit me in Arizona.  We can do some fun things.  I plan to spend some more time up here with my brother and his lovely family.   I know very few of you.  I thank you for coming, and I'm glad that we can remember Daniel on this very lovely day.  Thank you.

Sue Kayton:

The next person coming up will be my father, Myron Kayton.

Myron Kayton   | Top

I am Daniel's grandfather, Sue's father. Twenty-two years ago, a supernova lit up the sky. It glowed brightly and more brightly until April when it flickered out. Daniel then changed from a flesh and blood young man into a legend that will endure among family and friends for several generations. They will remember a super-smart, naive, trusting young man who was curious about so many things and succeeded at everything he tried except boating. Most tragically, I think, we will never know what great things would he have accomplished - this extraordinary young man.  

Sue Kayton:   | Top

Sue Kayton:
The text of my father's speech will be posted on the Internet later for those of you who were unable to hear it, and we will get transcripts of as many of the speakers as we can, who will email me their text.  We will post those, too, as they become available.  

We have another clip to show you from Quiz Kids.  The show has been supported by a company called ACIS that runs package tours for students.  After being on the show for nineteen times, Daniel got really tired of hearing the advertising jingle that they would put on at the end plugging the company that ran the tours.  The announcer would breathlessly announce the fabulous grand prize trip offered by ACIS to our show’s winners.  We hope you enjoy this short clip.

Click here to enjoy this video clip from the show.

  We're going to take a short trip back in time now to when Daniel was in third grade, and we're going to ask his third-grade teacher, Carol Taggart, to come on up and share a few memories.  In addition to being Daniel's teacher, she was also one of his biggest fans.  She came to every single one of his Quiz Kids matches, all nineteen of them, and she's been coming to the ones that his sister has been participating in also.  Rachel was also in her class for third grade.

Carol Taggart     | Top

As a friend of the family, I consider myself so very fortunate to have watched Daniel grow throughout the years from eight years old and on. My husband Bob and I watched him excel so extraordinarily with Menlo-Atherton Quiz Kids. I saw his physical growth at each of the family’s New Year’s parties when a proud father couldn’t wait for me to see how much Daniel had grown in a year. Every time his mom came to our house to help with our computer problems, the first thing Bob and I would want to know was the latest news of Daniel and Rachel. He was my third grade student, and I’d like to add that good fortune came to me again two years later when his sister Rachel also became a third grade student of mine.

I’d like to talk today about my own special memories of Daniel as a third grader. 

I taught in Menlo Park schools for a number of years, and it was in the early fall of 1993, as I was preparing my third grade classroom at Oak Knoll Elementary School for the opening day of school, that a young mother and her eight-year old son came into my classroom to introduce themselves to me. The mother explained that they had just moved, so Oak Knoll was a new school for her son. Her child seemed to be quite shy so I reassured both of them that they would love this school and that the kids here were really friendly. The mother then made herself busy by helping me while her son immediately sought out books to read.

After school opened, I started thinking more about this young boy’s situation. He had just left all his first and second grade friends behind, left his home and moved into a new community, with a new school, teacher, friends, and home. On top of that, he was a shy “bookworm”. There was nothing he seemed to like better than reading books. I worried. How would he make new friends? At recess, I would tell him, “Daniel, put down your books now and get some fresh air and exercise.” Although his love of books and studies was profound, he never argued with me. He always quietly did whatever I asked of him.

I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but it wasn’t long after school was under way, that I heard kids saying things like “Ask Daniel,” or “Daniel knows everything!” I recall occasions where I would overhear Daniel explaining to another child a lesson taught. He did it so well, and added into it his own special brand of humor that made both children laugh. I thought, “Now, that was really good!” It was a lesson with the kind of child-like communication that could not successfully be repeated by a teacher. I stopped worrying.

No matter what Daniel might be doing at the moment, he never turned a child down that requested help from him. He was always willing and pleased to help another, and was exceptionally modest about his intellectual capabilities.

At the third grade level, there is always a substantial amount of teacher’s time spent helping children settle arguments or disagreements. However, in the entire third grade year, I never heard Daniel complain about another youngster, nor did I ever hear another child complain about Daniel. He always accepted his peers for who they were, and took time to help the ones who had difficulty with learning. In sports, if his team didn’t win, there would never be a complaint from Daniel. 

Then, there were the geography lessons. How this boy loved geography! In third grade, children learn the names and locations of continents and oceans, and learn about countries within those continents, and states within our own country. I think in that particular year, the children learned a lot more about geography because of Daniel. He would tell the class about countries they had never heard of, and located and named capitals of our states. It became a challenge – a game of sorts - for the other children to find a place that Daniel did not know. He always took our requests good-naturedly, and usually knew the country or city’s location, and if he didn’t, he’d find out. 

Math came easily for Daniel, but I never realized how easily until one spring day when I was individually quizzing the children orally on estimating answers in the multiplication of double-digit numbers times double-digit numbers without the use of paper or pencil. When I came to Daniel, I knew this would be an easy task, but what I didn’t realize was how easy! He came up with, not the estimated number, but the exact answer! I tried a more difficult equation. He paused, looked at the ceiling for a moment, and again he had the precise number! He was only eight years old, or possibly just becoming nine!

This child had a photographic mind and a good imagination, and had the remarkable ability of remembering lessons after being taught only once; repetitions were rarely necessary.

Daniel’s good sense of imagination and adventure often came out in the stories he wrote. Although I could not possibly remember all of Daniel’s written stories, there was one I could never forget, not only because of the complexity of the story, but the children’s reaction to it. As he read his story to the class, one plot intertwining with another, I couldn’t help but observe the intent concentration on the faces of the other children. When they were told that Daniel’s story would have to continue the next day, they begged him for answers, but typically Daniel took great pleasure on holding off the surprise ending until the story’s conclusion.

All of us have our own special remembrances of Daniel, but we collectively think of a modest individual with extraordinary intelligence interlaced with his individual brand of humor that could make all of us laugh; a kind person who, despite his exceptional intelligence, never thought himself to be better than others. He was compassionate and patient. He was a wonderful human being.

I can’t help but think that if another group of people were gathered 65 to 75 years from now for the same reason we are here today, they would be celebrating this remarkable individual who would have made countless contributions to making the world a better place. Headlines would have been splashed across the front pages of newspapers around the world. One thing we all know is that Daniel Barclay, by virtue of his phenomenal intelligence and talents, was headed for greatness and fame, even though he would never have sought it.

Sue Kayton:  We will fast-forward now from third grade to high school, to Eric Hartwig, who was the principal of M-A High during Daniel's tenure here.  Eric Hartwig would like to speak a few words.

Eric Hartwig  | Top

I don't think anyone here would argue with the idea that raising children and sending them out into the world is probably the greatest joy that is awarded to us in this life.  Similarly, the greatest grief is for a parent to lose a child, and I want to extend my sympathy and my sorrow to the family on behalf of all of the staff and the Menlo-Atherton family who knew Daniel so well.  We're here to share your grief and share your joy today.  

Daniel was one of those very rare people who was so self-realized as a youngster.  As educators, we are used to seeing children in various stages of growth, but Daniel seemed to be done.  He was happy.  He was nonchalant.  He gave, he gave, he gave.  He made being smart hip - a hard thing to do.  He showed us in his very peculiar, very amusing way, how to live.  He put his own personal stamp on M-A, and he put his own personal stamp on our hearts.    In some respects, Daniel was what we all want to be - right - all the time.  We all got Daniel, and we all got to know him.  Those of us in the room, and the extended M-A family, are now a special fraternity.  

It is very fitting that we are all here today in the Menlo-Atherton J-building, one of the last functions before this building comes down to make room for a new facility.  It is fitting that we are here, that the Kayton family and the Barclay family allowed us to celebrate here where Daniel had so many victories, so many accomplishments, and brought so much joy to all of us.  

I suspect, in spite of all of our efforts, and I could name numerous staff here at M-A:  Gregg Whitnah, Bob Hasbrook, the many brilliant teachers who worked with Daniel, that despite our efforts to give to Daniel, that he gave more to the school than we were able to give to him.  I want to thank you all, thank Daniel's family, and thank you, Daniel, for making our lives better.  Thank you.

Sue Kayton:
The next speaker is going to be my twin sister, Betty Kayton Kerns.  Some of you who know me but have never met her before may have come in and thought you saw me being rude and not saying hello, and the reason was, it wasn't me.

Betty Kayton   | Top

Daniel and Rachel have always been very special to me – they're kind of the kids I never had. 

Daniel's always been more than one persona. The one everyone knows is  “Professor Daniel”, the one that had the right answer to every question and knew more stuff about more different topics than any twenty people you ever knew put together. And that is the serious, bookish kid that did so well on Quiz Kids.

But my favorite side of Daniel was the weird, humorous, wisecracking, sarcastic Daniel. He had a really wry sense of humor which is almost British.  I pictured him as an Oxford don sitting in his robes in a room. When he’d get in this sarcastic humorous mood, there was a twinkle in his eye and a wry, kind of lopsided, sarcastic smile, and you knew he was thinking something, and something was going on in his brains.  You'd want to journey with him and enjoy what it was that he saw, that the rest of us didn't always see.  

I don’t know when Daniel started collecting really tacky, trashy travel souvenirs, but any time he'd go anywhere, he would look for the absolute tackiest, worst, $1.95 piece of junk.  He'd bring them back home and we'd all have a good laugh over them. We're going to play a video clip of him on Quiz Kids.  Sorry, it's all Quiz Kids, but  Brad should be proud of that.  This will show some of his tacky souvenirs and we'll talk more about those afterwards.

Click for tacky souvenirs first video clip

Here are detailed views of those souvenirs.  Doesn't the hair look just like his?

 


This is my favorite.  When you open up this Mountie bobblehead box, you see this moose Dudley Do-Right.  It bobbles. Daniel picked it up in Vancouver Canada when he was there for the World Debate Championships this winter. 


Click for video clip of Mountie bobblehead 

This one shows finger puppets of four revolutionaries.  He got this at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC during the summer he worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission.  It shows Che Guevara, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Trotsky.  


[After the memorial service, we found two more tacky souvenirs in his room - a CIA Christmas tree ornament, and a Rosie the Riveter action figure.Since we're Jewish, we don't have a Christmas tree, so that makes the CIA ornament even more useless.]

  
Everyone else comes back from their trips with a sterling silver teaspoon or a little bell, but this was Daniel and his travel souvenirs.  

Daniel's always going to be in our hearts and in our memories. I'm going to remember the joy he brought to all of us – just by being him. He was the serious student, the sarcastic wisecracker, the collector of tacky travel souvenirs …. And above all… just a wonderful, loving man that would have made the world a much better place if he'd lived longer to participate in them. 

Goodbye, Daniel. We’ll miss you.

Sue Kayton:  Now we're going to call up two of Daniel's best friends, who have known him seemingly forever, way back to elementary school, David Lewin-Rowen and Ted Enns.  

David Lewin-Rowen  | Top

Before I begin, I would like to say that one time I tried to compete in the tacky souvenir contest.  I thought I had it won with a Sigmund Freud action figure.  The jury is still out.

I'm David.  I have three stories I'd like to tell you today.  I met Daniel and we became friends during Oak Knoll Elementary School third grade spring semester, at the Scholastic book drive.  About a year later, in Mrs. Arnone's fourth grade class, we were given this assignment - I don't know why we were given this assignment or the circumstances, but we had to make a code.  We were supposed to send a message to the class, the class was supposed to decode it, at an appropriate fourth grade level.  I think our teacher as expecting something like A is 1, B is 2, or, if we were clever, A was 26, and B was 25.  Unfortunately, this was Daniel and me, and we spent the entire afternoon and evening on this.  I'm afraid we also had use of a computer and created an elaborate pattern in which you start in one place, you go through the pattern, and you end up at a letter.  If you should end up off the end of the keyboard, you go back to the other side, and we were sure it would work out eventually.  In fact, we thought that it was such a good idea that we changed the pattern halfway through.  We didn't even remember where we changed the pattern.  When the time came to turn it in the next day, we could remember neither pattern.  Mrs. Arnone - we never told you, but if we hadn't known the answer of what it said, we couldn't have decoded it ourselves.   

The second story of misadventures happened the summer before last.  We were both home from college in June and I had the use of my grandparents' cabin in Mammoth Lakes.  In heavy snow years they are open for skiing until July 4th weekend.  So I called up Daniel and said, "Daniel.  It's June.  Do you want to go skiing this weekend?"  In a fit of irrational thinking, Daniel said, "Sure."  So we set out for a weekend ski trip in June.  About an hour out of the Bay Area, I learned not to trust Daniel's navigational abilities.  About an hour after that, Daniel learned not to trust mine.  We had a division of responsibility - the driver cannot hold the map, so therefore the person in the passenger seat must hold the map.  However the person in the passenger seat must be also be in charge of the music, navigate, and nap.  So we had an unfortunate situation where  the person who knew where we were going didn't know where we were, and the person who knew where we were didn't know where we were going.  This resulted in several unfortunate and adventurous stop-overs in small mountain towns on our way across the Sierra Nevadas.    

We did eventually get there, which resulted in the second adventure on that trip, the more disastrous.  It is known as The Curry Incident.  We needed, of course, to have dinner, and we both felt that being at college had improved our culinary ability.  It has been a tradition in my family on our long winter ski trips to have a curry dinner because it is warm and filling after a long day of cold skiing.  So we made curry and, as with everything, we divided up the responsibilities.  Unfortunately, this left Daniel in charge of the curry, alone and unsupervised.   I will tell you this as a small life lesson - you can take very mild yellow curry and, if you add it in large enough quantities, it will be very spicy.   On an unrelated note, it was delicious and the frozen pizzas we picked up that same evening while shopping came in very handy.

Lastly was an adventure that Ted and I were reminded of last night.  We were over at Shoreline [movie theaters] seeing Pirates of the Caribbean, and we were reminded of an event after freshman year of college.  We were back home for another summer, and we were on our way to what we remember was the third Star Wars movie, but that doesn't matter to the story, so we shall leave that fact out.   Daniel was driving there, and we had a flat tire about 300 yards from the movie theater.   We were faced with - do we go see the movie, or do we change the tire?  The movie started in about five minutes, so we felt that it was a problem best left for the future of Daniel, Ted and David, which would have been great planning, except we were seeing the last movie showing, and it was a long movie.  So at around 2:00 AM, we were now presented with the need to drive home, but we had a flat tire.  In case you've never been in that movie theater parking lot at two in the morning, they decide to shut all the lights off to save electricity.  They conveniently did this in the middle of the process.  So we relocated to the front of the theater, where there was light and a very suspicious-looking vehicle, either very cool people who like to hang out at movie theaters at two o'clock in the morning, possibly drug dealers, or possibly people amused by college students attempting to change tires.  

We were college students, which means that we felt fully capable of ignoring the instruction manual, and proceeded with logic.  This logic was that you have a wheel, attached to the axle by bolts.  Therefore, to remove the wheel, you need to remove the bolts.  Unfortunately, the tool we had for removing bolts didn't seem to work so well, so Daniel went to the back of the trunk, pulled out a wrench, and proceeded to go at the bolts.  A while later, someone realized that he wasn't working on the wheel bolts, but was attempting to unscrew the fake molded plastic bolts on the hubcaps.  Not to be deterred, because this clearly must be the best way to remove the hubcap, it took a while later before anyone noticed that these fake buts were not attached to anything.  It was at that point that Daniel did the only responsible thing that any of us did that night, and called AAA.  in our defense, by the time AAA got there, we had in fact changed the tire successfully, and the AAA gentleman filled up the tire, which was running slightly low on air, and we proceeded to whatever food establishment was open at two in the morning - more like 3:30 - and celebrated our victory.  

These are just some of the memories that I have.  We all have so very many, and some of them have been shared here today.  And I know that in the future, when we think of Daniel, we won't be thinking of today.  We won't think about the reason we are here.  We're going to be thinking of these memories, and we're going to be thinking of all of these wonderful stories people share.  Thank you. 

Ted Enns  | Top
I'd just like to share a few of  my memories as well.  Most of you have talked about his talents, but I also knew him as a companion throughout my childhood, and I couldn't have hoped for a better companion.  From all the adventures we had, from creating nefarious orienteering schemes in Boy Scouts so we could run all the little kids through every poison oak bush we could find, and every thorny bush, to creating an improvised self-made rocket engine in the backyard and nearly burning down my own house.  He was a great companion, and got me in as much trouble as I got him in.  It was definitely his idea that one night to sneak into the History Department and try to dodge all the janitors to get down to the basement so we could watch movies on their extremely big screen television.  

I know that, more than anything else, those adventures, those wonderful schemes we had, will be the things I cherish the most about him.  He will never really be forgotten.

Sue Kayton: I got an email last night from another one of Daniel's friends.  Is Eric Eakin here?  I didn't see him come in.  Eric would also like to speak a few words.

Eric Eakin    | Top

Hi, my name is Eric Eakin. I was very good friends with Daniel for about ten years. We pretty much hit it off the first time we met, and I quickly came to know him as one of the most patient, honest, humble, and self-challenging people I would ever meet.

In fact, I still remember the first day I met him, way back in sixth grade. Our parents knew each other and my dad took me to their house to meet Daniel. I walked in to find him and his friend Ted huddled around a small computer monitor, too focused on the screen to do more than offer me a seat. They were on an urgent mission to clear a cave of orcs in a game called Warcraft. I recall laughing silently as Daniel proceeded to take his whole army and line them up across the width of the cave, patiently advancing each individual soldier one foot at a time until the whole cave was cleared. This method, while very thorough, took him probably an hour when he could have easily been more aggressive and finished in ten minutes. It suddenly dawned on me that his goal was not to just win, but to make sure every computerized soldier made it out alive. That’s just the kind of person he was.

In eighth grade, my family invited Daniel on a skiing trip to Taos, New Mexico. My parents put us in ski lessons for the day while they went off to tear up the slopes. I was fairly new to skiing, so when the instructor decided to take us down a Black Diamond, second only to the double black diamond in difficulty, I was more than a little unsure of myself. After gulping at what looked like a vertical drop off to my eighth grade eyes, I turned back to grin sheepishly at timid old Daniel to find that he wasn’t there. Looking around wildly, I spotted a dot halfway down the hill that was looking back at me. No way, I thought. That can’t be Daniel! That’s someone else that just happens to be looking at me. And waving. And wearing his parka. 

I slowly picked my way down the moguls to him, advancing one foot at a time until I got down. Where most people would’ve given me a “What took you so long?” he simply smiled patiently and turned so I could pass him. I worked my way slowly down the mountain, trailing far behind the rest of the class, except for Daniel. He waited until I bounced over the last mogul before sailing past me down the hill just to make sure I made it out alive. That’s just the kind of person he was.

Of all the people I know, Daniel was easily the most honest. I have yet to meet someone else that I felt I could trust so completely, and I doubt I ever will. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would give you a shoulder to cry on, or convince you that you could do something, but if you needed the truth, he would never lie to you. Not ever.

This one time, he and I were playing a rousing game of crazy eights at my house. At the close of a game when it became his turn to deal, I got up to go to the bathroom. He waited till I got back to deal, and we started the game. I put down a card, and he put down the eight of hearts, calling hearts. I laughed and put down a heart. He grimaced and put down the eight of diamonds, calling diamonds. I laughed and said “You lucky bastard” and put down a diamond. He grimaced again and put down the eight of clubs, calling clubs. I gave him a weird look and said “Wow… get lucky more” and started drawing until I found a club. He put down the eight of spades and called spades. In disbelief at my bad luck, I put down a spade. With a flourish and a grin, he put down the Ace of Spades. Now maybe some of you have figured it out, but let me tell you, it never once occurred to me that this was more than amazing luck on his part. I mean this was Daniel, the most honest guy I’d ever met. Unable to contain his mirth any longer, he started laughing hysterically and blurted out that he had stacked the deck while I was in the bathroom. 

I’m pretty sure I just stared at him in shock. I think I was more amazed by the fact that he had stacked the deck than I was by the fact that I hadn’t suspected a thing. I guess I just figured four of a kind was more likely than Daniel being dishonest. And yet, to this day, I think that was probably the most dishonest thing Daniel ever did: stack the deck in a prank game of crazy eights.

By ninth grade, Daniel was known for challenging himself. He was two years ahead in math, as well as a year ahead in history and science. He had been challenging himself to excel since I had first met him, starting with the simple challenge of keeping every soldier alive, and then of putting a whole year’s worth of math homework on a single sheet of paper. I don’t think he succeeded with that second one, but it was damn close.

By the end of high school, his team was 120-0 in Quiz Kids, he had completed 10 AP tests with a 5, except for a 4 in Spanish, and he was California Math League champion in our school. Each of these challenges was self-imposed, just for the thrill of exceeding mediocre expectations and proving that he could do much much more. Yet not once did he sneer at someone less accomplished, or deny help to those who asked. He worked as a tutor, an eagle scout, and even taught a history class in his senior year.

However the challenge and humility that impressed me the most was when, in ninth grade, Daniel joined the MA Cross Country team with me. We all knew he was a born scholastic champion, but all his hours of studying didn’t exactly prepare him for running four miles a day. Yet there he was, running with the rest of us, completely out of his element but still ready to challenge himself in a way he hadn’t done before. I am still amazed by the humility and persistence it must have taken for him to go from an expert in everything to absolute last place without even batting an eye.

Not once did he complain, not once did he get angry or frustrated. He took the challenge head on and made the best of it. It took him several months, but he kept at it until he could complete the workout without stopping. Our first race, he came in almost dead last. But he had no problems with this. He kept at it for three years, and by the end he had made enormous progress, winning the Most Improved award. While he never made it to first place, he was fine with that. He still enjoyed the struggle and facing something he had never faced before. That’s just the kind of person he was.

Sue Kayton:  When our family still lived down in Los Angeles, twenty years ago, one day my son and I were out for a walk.  He was in a stroller, he was about one year old, maybe one and a half, I don't remember exactly.  I was wearing an MIT sweatshirt because that's where I went.  We were walking along and here comes this other family with their one-year-old in a stroller, and they're wearing an MIT sweatshirt.  So of course we had to stop and talk, and our families have been very good friends ever since.  I'd like to call Maud Naroll to come on up and talk.  Daniel spent many, many happy times with their family.

Maud Naroll    | Top

Thank you.  I remember Daniel when he was two and reading street signs, in LA, but that was not the only activity.  Daniel enjoyed mixing household substances.  Recently, our rabbi's wife, our rebbetzin, told me that when she was little, she and a friend of hers was very bad.  They had mixed, in their case, mustard, ketchup, clippings from an illicit hair-cutting project.  [One time when Daniel was gleefully mixing stuff, I asked him what he was making, and he grinned and said, "Pooty!"]  When I told her that this substance had a name, and that it could be an official mom-approved activity, she was relieved and delighted.   Recently, she and her husband had their first child.  I'm sure that part of Daniel's legacy is going to live on.  High, high up in the nosebleed section of Tahoe, at the tippy-top of Kingsbury Grade for those of you who know the area, someone, with great glee, is going to be making pooty.  And I think she will even let her own youngster help.  I'm going to miss Daniel.  I'm going to miss the little two-year-old, the best friend of my little two-year-old, and the young man that he was.  

Michael Barclay:   | Top

During his first year at MIT, Daniel competed in Quiz Bowl and led his team to a berth to the college national tournament, but then he decided to switch from Quiz Bowl to debate.  Predictably, he ended up at the national championship, and then the World debate championship tournaments which were held in Vancouver , British Columbia , at UBC.  One of his teammates recorded this amusing thank-you speech for his hosts that Daniel wrote and performed.  

Click for video of the rap

He tried rap.  He tried everything.  I'd next like to introduce someone who was Daniel's math teacher for I don't know how many classes, certainly starting, I think, in geometry and going through calculus.  Gregg Whitnah, teacher here at Menlo-Atherton High School [ and former Quiz Bowl coach].

Gregg Whitnah:    | Top

I'm Gregg Whitnah and I had Daniel for three years of mathematics.  In eighth grade, he was what we called a Hillview commuter.  He came over from Hillview to take geometry. in eighth grade, and then later I had him for calculus and stats.  I'd like to tell you how much I taught Daniel, but anything I taught him, I'm sure he could have learned in a few moments on his own.  If anybody was being challenged, it was me.  He certainly kept me on my toes.  

I did teach Daniel one thing, though.  To show all work.  As you heard earlier, he was reluctant to do that, and tried to do all his math on one piece of paper, but I always told Daniel when he took those AP exams, they're not going to know that Daniel was the one who answered all those questions, so he had to show all work.  

I actually got to know Daniel better through Quiz Kids.  I went to Quiz Kids the first couple of years.  Bob Hasbrook, who I considered to be a soulmate for Daniel, was the coach.  Basically, I'm not a trivia person at all, and like Brad said, I don't know the answers to any of the questions, but I enjoyed going and watching on TV, because I just loved seeing Daniel and seeing the team win, and it was so exciting for me.

Then when Bob decided to pass it on, since I was always there in the audience, he thought I'd be a good candidate to coach Quiz Kids.  As you all know, Dan was famous for Quiz Kids.  We were in the San Carlos parade for winning Quiz Kids one year.  Everybody's out there, and the crowd's saying, " Where's Daniel?", Where's Daniel?" , Where's Daniel?"   You saw a picture earlier of us in the car, riding along.  I have a neighbor that, every time I talked to her, she'd say, "How's Daniel doing?" I'm in the supermarket or wherever and little kids come up to me and say, "Oh, how's Daniel doing?" 

Dan was brilliant.  He was amazing.  He was unbelievable.  But he did have a weakness, which we heard about earlier, and that was sleeping.  Many times before the Quiz Kids matches, he would show up half-asleep in a daze, complaining about the early start at 1:30 PM, and I was a little bit worried.  But he was always totally awake and alert when it came time to compete.  I have a couple of things I remember most about Quiz Kids.  [Everyone on the team and on the show knew that Daniel knew all the answers to the academic material, but didn't watch TV, listen to the radio, so he knew nothing about pop culture.  So I was astonished when, on one show, Daniel buzzed in early with the answer to a question about Britney Spears.  Afterwards, I asked him if he had changed his spots and decided to value pop culture, but he said, no.  He'd been reading People Magazine so he could help the team earn a few extra points in a category they were weak in.] Brad got pretty frustrated with Daniel answering all those questions and wanted to kick him out so quick.  I always remember when Brad went like this and held up that blank card to his forehead and challenged Daniel to answer the question.  

We fortunately got to go on two trips, my wife Margie and I.  Daniel won four trips for M-A and we went on two of them.  First, we got to go to the British Isles, and there I got to know Daniel better, how much he knew about history, telling us about Hadrian's Wall, and the history of Britain.  At William Wordsworth's house in the Lake COuntry, there were 200-year-old newspapers plastered on the wall, about a battle involving Napoleon.  Dan wanted to stay and read every word, and we had to practically drag him from the room.  

It was also there that we learned about his affection for cheap souvenirs.  We just had a grand time there with Daniel.  Later we got to go to Costa Rica.  It wasn't Dan's forte to go to Costa Rica, but we had a great time seeing monkeys and crocodiles, and sloths.  Dan got to ride horses, and had a grand time.  I think the thing that got Dan's attention the most was one morning he had a howler monkey outside his window.  Since two of the Quiz Kids were unable to join us for the trip, it was just me and my wife, Dan, and Amelia Drace and her family.  For a while, it felt like we had a second son.  

Daniel didn't need this, but for Quiz Kids, we practiced twice a week.  His mom, Sue, wrote about 2000 questions every year and we ran through them at practice and it was there that Daniel's sense of humor came out and he made our sessions very entertaining.  I really enjoyed that.

Daniel had a wonderful human side.  He was a kind, gentle soul, wanting to help others, modest yet competitive.  When I saw Dan last September, he looked great - a handsome young man, talkative, happy, and looking forward to returning to college.  He was the most brilliant student I have ever had in 36 years of teaching.  I am not capable of even understanding the depths of his intelligence.  

And I think that the thing I will remember the most is Daniel's father, Michael, out there in the audience at Quiz Kids, and he was holding up that sign very proudly and you know of course what it said - Dan the Man.  I just want to say goodbye to Dan.  

Sue Kayton:  our last speaker today is going to be a woman who was like a second mother to Daniel.  You met Ted Enns earlier, who came up here and spoke, one of Daniel's best friends.  This is his other mother, Ted's mom Marcia, and her husband Rick.

Marcia & Rick Enns    | Top

We are Rick and Marcia Enns. Daniel was like another son to us, and like a brother to our children.

We will remember Daniel for his brilliant mind, unique sense of humor, adventurous spirit, and kind heart. We will also remember the smaller things about him, like how much he loved chocolate milkshakes and how much he loved staying up late. But what our family will remember Daniel for most is for his friendship. 

Daniel was the best friend that anyone could possibly wish for. He would be amused by your follies and forgiving of your faults, and he always stood by you. If you had Daniel as a friend, quite a lot of other things might go wrong in your life, but you would still count yourself as lucky. 

When Daniel went to MIT and expanded his circle of friends, he did not drop his old friends. He continued to treasure them, as they did him. We are so grateful to have had Daniel in our lives.

I know that our friendship with Daniel still continues in many ways beyond memories. I myself converse with Daniel and will be conversing with him at moments throughout my whole life. I talk to him in my mind, and he answers me in my heart.

Michael Barclay:  | Top

Thanks again for coming here today.  You have now heard from many people about our son.  His intelligence and sense of humor were remarkable, and they were coupled with a view of the world that was quite unique.  To paraphrase a slogan of one of my firm’s more notable clients, Daniel thought differently.

Shortly before April 8, Daniel told one of his friends that he was going on an adventure.  We will never know exactly what he meant by this.  But without telling anyone, Daniel decided to set sail somewhere in the Boston area on a small boat.  We are quite sure he intended to return.  But he did not plan on the unfortunate accident that occurred.

While there are many things about Daniel that we will love and remember forever, there are also many things that we will never understand.  For example, he left no clues anywhere about his boating adventure – he did not tell his friends what he was doing, he did not exchange emails or instant messages about it with anyone, and he left no other trace anywhere in his personal possessions or on his computer.

But knowing Daniel, he had truly planned a great adventure of some sort.  If he had succeeded, his adventure doubtless would have astounded us.  Knowing Daniel, he had planned something truly different and extraordinary – something that his mind could imagine, but that is far beyond the imagination or mental abilities of the rest of us.  Daniel’s way of thinking was something that we could always appreciate, but that frequently was a mystery that the rest of us could never hope to understand or comprehend.  At best, if we were lucky, Daniel let us have a glimpse of how he thought every now and then.

Daniel did not finish his incredible life’s journey.  We can all finish it for him, in our hearts.  Thank you.

Sue Kayton:  | Top

It is traditional at such gatherings to pray.  Our family isn’t deeply religious, but we follow the Jewish tradition.  Daniel chose to study Judaism and became a bar mitzvah.  The Jewish prayer that is traditionally said at a memorial service is called “The Mourner’s Kaddish”, and was written over 1000 years ago.   In the Kaddish, you will hear the word “ Israel ”, which does not refer to the modern-day country because it did not exist 1000 years ago.  Instead, the word “ Israel ” in this prayer refers to the Jewish people.  In the Jewish religion it is traditional to recite the Kaddish every day after a recent bereavement, and every year thereafter on the anniversary of the death of a loved one. 

The Kaddish doesn’t mention death, but instead is a hymn of praise to God, showing that we recognize the deity despite our loss.  Judaism does not believe in a life after death.  Instead, we believe that the memories of Daniel will live on in the hearts and minds of his family and friends, and as a legendary figure in the history of the Quiz Bowl and debate communities.

Your printed program contains the Kaddish in both the original Aramaic and in English.  Daniel’s father will read it in English, and then Daniel’s grandfather and I will read the Kaddish in Aramaic.    You are welcome to sit silently and listen, or stand and recite Kaddish with us.

Michael Barclay:   | Top

Let God’s name be made great and holy in the world that was created as God willed.  May God complete the holy realm in your own lifetime, in your days, and in the days of all the house of Israel , quickly and soon.  And say: Amen.

May God's great name be blessed, forever and as long as worlds endure.  May it be blessed, and praised, and glorified, and held in honor, viewed with awe, embellished, and revered; and may the blessed name of holiness be hailed, though it be higher by far than all the blessings, songs, praises, and consolations that we utter in this world.  And say: Amen.

May Heaven grant a universal peace, and life for us, and for all Israel .  And say: Amen.

May the one who creates harmony above, make peace for us and for all Israel , and for all who dwell on earth. And say: Amen.

May the Source of peace send peace to all who mourn, and comfort to all who are bereaved.  Amen.

Myron Kayton and Sue Kayton:  | Top

Sue Kayton:   | Top

We’d like to thank all our family and friends whose support has been invaluable during this difficult time.  We’d especially like to thank these people:

Special thank yous to: our family, the M-A High PTA, Maria Flaherty, Pam Koch, Michael and Eileen Street, Marcia and Rick Enns, Hillary Rowen, Gordon Lewin, Margie and Gregg Whitnah, Elyse Dunahoo, Debbie Verity, Bill and Julie Hooper, Leslie and Tom Rehlaender, Judy Hess, Mary Gilles, Antonia Fore, Cindy Folker, Pam Koch, Althea Tomijima, Don Van Creveld, Ruth Cronkite, David Jones, Leslie Furney-Howe, Cindy Ivy, Mary Etta Eaton, Denise Plante, Hugo Chavez, Brien Oliver, and the rest of the staff at M-A High.

You are invited to stay for a while so you can share memories of Daniel, read some of his writings, write in the memory book, and enjoy refreshments on the patio through the double-doors at the rear.

For those of you who are familiar with M-A High, you might also want to walk over to The Green. Daniel and his friends spent their lunchtimes standing up eating and talking under a grove of redwoods in one corner. Since then, a wooden bench has been installed near where they used to stand. Our family has commissioned a matching bench which will be installed where Daniel and his friends used to stand. We are hoping that this bench will be in place before the beginning of the next school year.

Thank you for coming today to share your memories and thoughts of Daniel, and to celebrate his life.