From Christina Clements:
When I agreed to write this story of Dave, I assumed that on further contemplation one perfectly Dave anecdote would eventually come to mind. Afterall, I have known the guy for more than fifteen years, alarmingly close to half my life. But the harder I thought, the more I came up empty. There were so many short, important memories of Dave, so many 5 minute thoughts that are precious but insufficient to embody his influence or personality, as the background is muddy and too long to tell.
Dave managed to get my parents to drive 3 hours to Belchertown to see my knighting but to keep everything a surprise he made sure I was so busy and distracted I did not notice my own parents loitering at the event site until after I had received my belt that night. His grin at my surprise was entirely Dave. He seemed to enjoy orchestrating surprises and gifts for other people.
When I got a new car as an idiot 22 year old he checked my owners manual when I had stepped out to make sure it had a tire pressure warning light. His plan, he admitted to me, was if it did he would add the little colored stem caps that alert you to low pressure on tires. I know he would have done it.
He did once tell me if someone ever intentionally left me on the side of the highway he would come get me. I truly spent my entire early twenties believing that if I was ever truly in a bind and needed a no questions asked ride out of a bad situation Dave Hayden would have been that ride. He managed to do the impossible dance of both treating someone like an adult while watching out for them.
A lot of people have said he was the ultimate knight, and obviously I agree, but he was also such an amazing friend. He was the least judgemental dispenser of advice, patient with the errors of youth and inspiration to us all. Mr. Hayden, you will be deeply missed. I hope I never stop hearing your stories or advice in my mind. Thank you for helping me grow up, and I will try to use your example to keep improving on my own path.
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| Photo provided by Christina Clements |
From Pat Bobell:
There are many examples of Dave's strength of character in the context of the Realms, so I'd like to share a brief story about him from outside our community.
Back in January of 2020, I needed to precisely-cut a couple hundred pieces of foam board for a board game prototype. I'm pretty good with an X-Acto knife but am not a masochist, so I asked Dave if I could use the laser cutter at his maker space. Luckily for me, he said he planned to spend Martin Luther King Day working there and said I was welcome to stop by.
When I got there, Dave wasn't working on any of his own projects. It turned out he was there to help a boy (who had been through his own health saga) to make a project he was excited about. Even with everything Dave had on his plate, he was incredibly generous with his time and skills helping both that boy and me with the things that we wanted to accomplish. I'd come to know Dave over the years as a thoughtful, giving person who strove to embody his ideals more consistently than most people I've known. This example of his drive to encourage and work for others, however, stood out to me. Seeing the effect Dave's attention and care had on the boy that day left a powerful impression, and inspired me to be more proactive with volunteering my own time.
That boy and I are just a couple of the many, many people whose lives have been improved by Dave's direct action or indirectly by his example. Through each of us, Dave's light and life will continue to shine.
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| photo by Dustin Mack |
From Kyle Yazinka:
In 2012 I took a Knights of the Realms challenge to general one of the large war maneuver events. I decided North/South War 2013 was where I wanted to complete that challenge. When the event staff asked who wanted to be general, I was the only one who wanted the position. Dave did not think the general spot should be won unopposed so offered a two out of three match against me to decide who would general. After the fights Dave told me he expected the outcome of the fights to go exactly how they did but that he didn’t think someone should be given a spot without any type of opposition. I don’t know if he knew it was my KoR challenge but helped me whenever I needed it throughout the whole weekend. He mentored me to be the best beginner general I could be and taught me numerous things that still help me to this day to be a better leader and role model for our game and in life. Before this interaction I don’t think we had ever had a one on one conversation and I am grateful that he took the time to work with me so I could approve at something that I love. Everyday he showed the characteristics I strive to replicate in my life.
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| photo by Angie Grey |
From Leanne Micciche:
Dave was someone who, no matter what, went out of his way to make people feel included. One of my favorite outings with him was the last concert we went to. He had messaged me online and asked if I wanted to go with him. He asked a bunch of questions about the venue, if I was up on any of the latest music, and such. His excitement was palpable even online. I told him I'd love to, but only if it wouldn't be weird going with a very pregnant woman to a Judas Priest concert. He said he would be delighted to go with me and offered a very surprised and excited congratulations! He went out of his way to make it a fun and enjoyable trip even though the logistics and planning of our very different schedules made it challenging.
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| photo by Robyn Neilsen |
From Matt Brenner:
I wrote this roast for Dave’s celebration of life party a month or two ago. I knew that other people would rightfully want to talk about Dave as a paragon, or Dave as a mentor. That was not our relationship, though. Dave and I joined the Realms right around the same time, and our growth in the community closely mirrored each other’s. I wanted to poke loving fun and share a memory from before we were knights and leaders. Even a paragon starts out as a person with a few ideas and a sense of humor. We all start somewhere, and that makes our growth all the more impressive when it happens.
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So, I am trying to think about what I was going to say tonight, and it was suggested to me that I do a roast. And I was all, “Holy crap, you mean I could stand in front of the room, make fun of Dave, and everyone has to listen? Sign. Me. Up.”
There’s a formula to roasts, right? You need to make fun of the target’s minor flaws and moral inconsistencies, but you never hit the major ones. You want people laugh, but not to go, “Oh no you didn’t!” This is Dave we’re talking about, so I’m thinking damn, I have this so easy. I don’t have to worry about accidentally hitting on any huge moral failings, so all I need to do it pick out the little things that we all do. Awesome.
For example, there is this one thing that Dave . . . no, no. That’s not actually an inconsistency. Instead, let me tell you about the time he . . . shit. That’s not actually bad thing at all. Ok, fine, but there was the one time at my Christmas tavern where . . . fuuuuuuck. That’s actually being a decent person. What the hell am I supposed to do here?
Oh, and by the way, the worst part of trying to put this together? Dave’s the guy who sits so high and mighty with holding fast to his moral compass, and he’s not even going to care that I just used a bunch of expletives. Damnit Dave, that’s a low hanging fruit. People who can take their ethics so seriously should at least be willing *tisk* *tisk* us about our language. Give me something to work with!
By the way, that last bit only worked because I lied. When has Dave ever actually lorded his personal sense of ethics over us? I’m serious. He’s not doing that – that’s us. We’re the ones looking at his standards and going, “Damn, I don’t know that I can live up to that.” Dave’s the innocent one here, we’re the one casting aspersions on ourselves.
Innocent. Hah, ok, finally something I can run with. One thing I admire about Dave is that he is a man who can mildly embrace his vices. The man mixes a damn fine cocktail, and don’t even get me started on his homemade cordials. . . . that’s it. I mean, he can drink and party with the best of us, but I can’t think of a single time that I had to clean up after some sort of physical or emotional mess that he left behind. Looking around the room, that’s a damn sight better than I can say about many of the gentle people gathered here tonight.
On the topic of vices, I wish I could talk more about his poker skills, but I’ll be the first to say that I don’t belong at the tables he plays at. But it’s funny, though, that a man who is so devoted to the ideal of truth is also such a solid poker player. I mean on some level, poker boils down to lying to your friends well enough that you can take all of their money. Now I’m trying to imagine some sort of Star Trek mirror universe where we have Evil Dave effectively bilking everyone out of their hard-earned money while stroking his goatee. You know he’s evil because he has that goatee.
WAIT! Oh my God, Dave, are YOU the evil one? I can buy that this is the twisted, evil mirror dimension – I’ve done my share of doom scrolling over the past few years – but are you the EVIL Dave? I hate to go there but if you’re the evil Dave, what the heck would good Dave be like? Of course . . . Vawn.
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I’m sure tonight is going to have people sharing a ton of Realms memories. I want to share one of my favorites with you. The obvious choice would be to talk about when I got to recognize Dave as a Knight of the Realms, calling out his achievement and bringing him into the highest service order our community has. But no, I want to go a little further back – I want to say it was 21 or 22 years ago at Time Everlasting, the Final Moongate. This was one of those epic quests – it concluded a few years of events in a grand open world adventure where we meet new and alien creatures before slaughtering them mercilessly in the name of advancing the plot. Anyway, during a down moment, out comes Dave in standard NPC blacks, a black domino mask, and a black shady cap. It was the height of turn-of-the-millennium Realms fashion. Anyway, Dave is nonchalantly walking about as some NPC, and eventually a young adventurer stops him and asks who he is. I’m sure he used some flowery language because this is clearly a role-playing NPC, right? When asked, Dave just sort of plainly say, “Oh, I’m the Destroyer of Worlds.”
“The Destroyer of Worlds? Really?” Because this seems pretty dubious, right?
“Yes. Oh, where did you come from?”
“The gate to our plane is right over there past the hill.”
“Thanks!” And so off goes Dave, the Destroyer of Worlds, to the gate that leads back to the Realms.
Now this whole thing just feels surreal, even for an event, right? Like it this a real NPC, or is Dave just f***ing with us? But that’s not my favorite part. My favorite part is that whole exchange is so ridiculous that up storms Lackey – he was playing Subutai at the time, some Mongolian-themed Man-Lion archer with an outrageous accent that was definitely not Mongolian. Anyway, up storms Lacky, screaming at the top of his lungs, “When the Destroyer of Worlds asks where you are from, you DO NOT tell him where your home is!”
The rest goes as you might expect. Destroyer of Worlds get to the Realms, Cecil banishes the Destroyer of Worlds, and the Destroyer of Worlds shrugs and disappears. It actually went on for a handful of events, and that was a fun story while it lasted. It mostly centered around how bad we had screwed up, which is pretty typical for us heroes. But after all of these years, the one thing we don’t know is was this Dave’s grand design from the get go, or was Dave just f***ing with us in the beginning, never once thinking that the heroes would actually find a being called the Destroyer of Worlds and immediately without hesitation show him where we keep all our stuff? I’d like to think that he was just trying to f**k with us, and us heroes on that quest got to contribute in some small way to Dave’s eventual descent into cynicism with the so-called heroes.
I know that there are going to be a lot of heartfelt stories tonight. What I really want to say is that I remember when we were all a lot younger and dumber, and it’s been an absolute pleasure to grow beside you my friend.
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| Photo by Cal Marsden |
From John Rescigno:
My favorite memory of Dave is the one I shared at his party before his passing.
At Feast of Teng Hua, we were all very excited about the Game of Thrones final season premiere, and we’re all itching to get home after the feast.
Dave was in the kitchen pretty much the entire day helping prep food and primarily washing the mountains of dishes from the hundreds of Dangos that we all feasted on over the course of the day.
While we were cleaning up, the only two things on our mind were Dangos and the premiere. To pass the time, we started singing the word Dango over and over to the tune of the Game of Thrones opening song.
Dave’s eyes grew wider than the dish he was drying as of to say “I’m surrounded by crazy people”, but he kept on working and serving.
From Cal “O’Leary” Marsden:
This was tough for me to do; picking and choosing which memory of a friend to share. What story makes me smile the most? Was it the time he led Eagles Rook up a small mountain for a private quest? Was it a dinner party, or meeting up to craft something, or the time he gave me my fireball and said some of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me? How can I pick just one? I put off putting a lot of what I was feeling in writing as somehow writing things down made things much too real and perhaps this was me avoiding the reality of this situation. That a really meaningful wonderful and supportive human being, someone I was lucky enough to call a friend, had passed on leaving a void that can never truly be filled as it is when we lose someone we love.
So, instead of a Realms story I wanted to talk about how Dave, throughout the years, taught me one of my biggest life lessons; something I take into my counseling practice when working with social emotional students. Something I will use throughout my life and something that I try to instill with everyone I work with.
"You are not the sum of your mistakes."
Back in my early years of Realms I started off as more than off putting. I was a divisive player who often put his own fun over those of other players at events. I was quick to do bad things, help villains and laugh it off as evil RP. Due to those actions, often times I left the event feeling great and someone else would leave the event feeling crummy.
Dave was one of the first people to offer me guidance on this. At a time when I was looking to grow I had already burned a few bridges because of some of my more sinister IC actions. When I was looking to change and evolve as a player both by playing New Characters with different Role Playing personalities but also as a player taking on bigger NPC roles to test my theatrical chops, I was reasonably met with hesitation and in a lot of cases had people not wanting to utilize me outside a crunchy role.
I couldn't come to grips with people hating Cal the player because Syruss was a jerk.
Dave was the first person to tell me, "Well, do people ever see Cal or do they only see you as Syruss the jerk?" That profound statement led to me taking more and more on in the community. With the help of Dave letting me be a part of Eagles Rook and getting to play a good guy that led to me having more relationships with the people Dave Role Played with. I started showing up to events early with him to set up and stayed late to clean. He helped me to reach out to the Chimeron crew too so I could help marshal Green and Gold which led to me helping marshal other events and evolved into me loving to Marshal those big events such as North South War (when I wasn't playing) or Queen of Hearts which is one of my favorite things to do. All the while making social strides.
One day when I was picking up pikes from Dave for a What Lurks Beneath event we got to talking about where I was and where I am now, noting that there is always still room for more growth. I thanked him for being so awesome to me over the years and for giving me the push to become better. I told him it would have been easy for him to write me off like others had done and that is when he said those fated words of, "Cal, no one is the sum of their mistakes and we are all capable of change." It was a powerful moment that shaped me as a person.
Through my years of psychology schooling I focused on change and what makes people change and why. There are two things that are present in changing; a person's desire, without this change can't happen and a catalyst for change, something to help motivate and cause a person to want to change. Dave was my catalyst. He never gave up on a friend he saw potential in at a time where it would have been easy and understandable to do. He saw someone capable of more and fostered that and truly helped me grow.
So Dave, on behalf of myself and every student I have had the pleasure of reaching and helping evolve as humans, thank you. Thank you for being not only a kind friend when I needed one but for being my catalyst of change.
