Burning Man 2012: The Nozzleman Cometh

Besides all the European expatriates and their American friends, our camp at last year's Burning Man had one interesting standout, a guy who had simply showed up and wandered into camp, and had been welcomed from his arrival. He was there already and established when I showed up on Tuesday.

His name was Dan and worked for a Fire & Rescue department in Washington County, Oregon, in the suburbs outside of Portland. His fire company's service area included towns that I knew quite well. He lived on site at the firehouse for three-day stretches at a time, commuting up there from his home along the Willamette outside Salem.

He had originally planned to come down to Burning Man with his girlfriend and two other couples. He prepped his pick-up truck with all the gear he needed, including a large canvas hut and copious food. Then a few weeks before, he had broken up with girlfriend. She backed out of going entirely. He had then showed up at at Burning Man alone at the start of the week. But when he met his friends---the two other couples---they had made it clear to him that he wasn't quite welcome anymore. It wasn't right for the kind of activities they had planned. It might be better if he experienced Burning Man without them.

So he set up his canvas tent right next to Camp Aspen Eurotrash and had wandered in. He was an immediate hit. Everyone loved him. He was well built, and walked around bare crested in shorts with a straw cowboy hat. He had an American naivite about him---it was clear he barely knew what Burning Man was about until he got here, but his heart seemed genuine in wanting to make friends.

Among other things, he made himself extremely useful, cooking and serving us food around our shaded table. He seemed always ready to help out in any situation that needed it, but he was also capable of letting go and partying with us as we rode our bikes around the deep playa late at night. When we were away from booze for too long, he was the first to note that he needed to keep drinking, if he was going to keep being a happy contributor the evening's mood. Fortuantely that was easy enough to do most of the time.

Unfortunately he left on Friday, in the middle of the week. He departed with great apologies, saying he needed to get back to Oregon. It was quite understandable. It had been a big deal for him to get these few precious days off from his job. When he packed up his canvas hut, it was poignant moment of saying good-bye to all of us.

But it struck me as ironic that he had left one evening before the burning of the Man itself on Saturday night. I couldn't help think that maybe he didn't want to witness that, given what he did for a living. But that's just pure conjecture.

When the email list went around to folks about who was going to go to this year's burn, his name had been left of the list. Someone pointed that out immediately. So I dug up his email address from a thank you I'd written to him last fall, to which he had never replied, and forwarded the group message to 'nozzlemanXYZ@XYZ.com'.

In my forwarded email, I added that we all hoped he'd be there, but if he wasn't, he'd be greatly missed. It was a sincere statement.

I'd be quite surprised to hear from him saying he is coming to this year's Burn. It seemed like his one experience was overpowering and moving, that it might well last him his entire life.