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closeFrom the beginning he was curious, at age 3 peppering anyone and everyone with a steady stream of “What’s dat? What’s dat? What’s dat?” pointing at animals, vegetables and minerals.
The inquisitive little towhead is now dead at the age of 38.
Danny Beck was born in San Luis Obispo on April 17, 1971, to Dan and Carolyne Beck. I met him three years later when Dan Sr., then a county engineer, was building a home on a north Cayucos lagoon called Ruth’s Landing. My wife and I lived next door as caretakers of a down-at-the-heel boat launch.
It was an idyllic existence for the little shaver. He regularly fished with his father and brothers, learning to filet the diverse varieties of rock cod that swam in the waters off their home. He explored tide pools, collected abalone and cockle clams; scuba dived and developed a love for the natural world. His love of the ocean would later lead him work on a fishing boat and as a fish salesman.
As much as he was a waterman, he was drawn to firefighting as a career. So after he graduated from Coast Union High School in 1989, he enrolled in the Allan Hancock Fire Academy. He graduated the following year and began volunteering for the Cayucos Fire Department.
It’s difficult to say why he couldn’t get on full time with a firefighting agency over the next few years.
What is known is that the experience didn’t jade him; in fact, it may have deepened his sense of humanity.
Friends of Danny Beck describe him as someone who had a boundless capacity for generosity, honesty and kindness. He was the first person to be there for his friends if they were in need.
I’d lost touch with Danny over the years, but it doesn’t surprise me that he matured into a good human being: He grew up in a loving family in an environment that allowed free range for his insatiable curiosity. And now he’s gone.
The chain of events leading up to his death is this: After spending several days with his father at his dad’s retreat on the Carrisa Plains in May, he was driving on Interstate 5 back to his home in Ione, a small community in the Sierra foothills, on May 23. He stopped at the Wesly rest stop outside Modesto and there, emergency personnel at the scene believe, he had a seizure and hit his head hard enough to be put in the hospital.
He seemed to rally in the first week in the hospital. He was taken off his ventilator and was sitting up in bed. Then, June 1, he had a massive stroke and was allowed to die on June 5 at the Modesto Doctors Medical Center. Like his sister Gay Lynn, who died prematurely from a brain aneurysm in 1985, his organs and tissue were donated: a final unselfish act.
A celebration of Danny’s life will be held at Hardie Park in Cayucos on Sunday, June 28, at 11 a.m.
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