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"Sad day today. Dan Dechaine (here with me in 2013) passed away. Dan was a gentleman, had a great sense of humor and a great love for beer. Often the lone American on the FIE SEMI committee, he was a constant voice of reason and often one of the few actual engineers on the technical committee.The tie he is wearing in this pic is made from lame material.
We invoke his name here in the shop when we are working on a particularly tough weapon. He was The God of Armourers and a very benevolent one. You'll be missed, Dan."
Dan was a good and kind man.
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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Sigh.
I loved being able to interview. He seemed like from another time and place. He will be missed.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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05-22-2022, 06:37 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-22-2022, 08:47 AM by Drunk Monk.)
I met him when I attended that summer camp at SJSU that changed my life. That’s also when I met Stro, Charlie, Gay, Vinnie & Joy. It’s when Stro told me to come to SJSU and fence because if I went to De Anza as planned, it would eat away at my NCAA years. So I did and the rest is history.
I wonder now … if I never went to SJSU, would PPFY have followed?
Dan led gear workshops at that summer camp. That’s where I first learned to wire blades (something I never got that good at - I imagine the legacy is better than me at that now) and the wonders of dental floss (he used it to repairs masks). I crossed paths with him a few times at tournaments where he was head armorer. I remember one NCAA event, westerns maybe, where fellow epeeisf Tony had a faulty mask and Dan told him to repair it with floss, which Tony found absurd and told Chris, Ben & me that ‘we better have floss’. And I did, telling him ‘mask didn’t pass?’ He was dumbfounded.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
