By Jan Herman
The New York Times finally caught up with us and ran its obituary about David Jiranek.
The Jiranek family put on an unforgettable memorial service Sunday at Lucas Point Beach in Old Greenwich, Conn., where he grew up. Dubbed “The David Show” by Todd Hoffman, one of his four half-brothers, it was both touching and irreverent — so much so that the speakers had more than 400 guests dabbing away tears of sadness while laughing at hilarious stories about David Jiranek’s improbable perfection of life. His many good works were not glossed over, but neither were they dwelt upon.
There were several themes. The most common was the gratitude expressed by everyone who knew him for “making life more fun.” (He was an inveterate practical joker and named his 32-foot sloop “Bouncing Czechs.”) His brothers actually contemplated pulling off a scandalous practical joke at the service because they believed he probably would have thought one up himself to enjoy the scandal. The practical jokes they considered were not revealed — at least not in public. To get an idea of how far “The David Show” might have gone, however, I asked Todd Hoffman what they were.
One joke was to accidentally spill David’s cremated remains on the way down the aisle. Another was to toss his ashes in the air with the purposeful nonchalance of an imitation religious blessing, sort of a Don Novello number. It would have been in keeping with David’s real-life antics. On his sister-in-law’s wedding night, for instance, he got into her wedding dress and traipsed down the main drag of Cold Spring, N.Y., reciting Ophelia’s lines from “Hamlet” in a falsetto voice. Even when the town police stopped him and asked what he thought he was doing, “he never broke character,” Joe Hooper, his brother-in-law, told us.
Did I mention the gorgeous setting? The music of Miles Davis (“Kind of Blue”) welcomed us as we assembled for the service on the beach under three white tents. An ocean breeze came off Long Island Sound. Beneath a vaulting blue sky, sailboats dotted the Sound out to the horizon. Jiranek’s red racing bike and helmut stood near the podium, a reminder of his decade-long devotion to intense, regular bicycle trips with his closest friends.
Todd Hoffman did finally address what he called “the elephant on the beach, what we’ve been doing all this week, this 45-year-old crap.” It was a reference to the fact that David Jiranek died so young, his premature death the result of a swimming accident. “We’re using the wrong measuring stick,” Hoffman said. “He did in 45 years what most of us won’t do in 95 years.” It didn’t erase the pain of losing David. But it wasn’t meant to. It recalled for everyone the pleasure of his company.
