(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 7-21-2013)
The Janesville community
lost a giant last month.
Dennis Vechinsky touched
countless lives in his 74 years on earth. He had a trio of passions -
education, theater and music - and through whichever of those
outlets you knew him, you knew he brought talent, dedication, wisdom
and his amazing wit.
Although he and I were most
connected by our love of community theater, it was through his
position on the Janesville Board of Education that I first met him
when I was the education liaison at Forward Janesville. Before long,
he and I ended up regularly having our own post-meeting conversations
where he would share his unfiltered and often side-splitting
opinions.
I arrived too late to the
community theater scene to witness him playing what everyone agreed
was the role made for him, Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” But I
got a taste of it when he sang his signature song, “If I Were A
Rich Man,” during “Janesville In Stages,” the opening night
show at the new Janesville Performing Arts Center in 2004. (You can
find this performance on YouTube.) My young children were mesmerized
by him and when the DVD of that show arrived in my home, they
repeatedly viewed his performance.
It was during the play
portion of that show that Dennis and I had our lone true stage
experience together. I did not intend to act in that show, but the
opportunity to share a scene with him, just he and I, was something I
was not going to miss. Fittingly, his character was a school teacher,
a job he held and loved for 21 years. A scene where he was conducting
his final class before retiring was a highlight and so typical of the
magic Dennis could conjure. Along with Dennis' dead-on performance,
the young people in the scene rose to the occasion, no doubt because
Dennis had that quality about him, the ability to bring out something
special in you when you were around him. From the comments I have
heard about him as an actual teacher, that talent was not limited to
the stage but also evident in the classroom.
Dennis urged everyone to
“keep smiling,” and he managed to do so, even when incredibly
painful back and leg troubles, numerous operations, and extended
cancer treatments gave him every right to curse the world.
When Laurel Canan was
JPAC's executive director, she wanted to pair Dennis and I up in the
two-man stage version of Mitch Albom's “Tuesdays With Morrie” as
a fundraiser for local hospices. By this time, Dennis' back and leg
issues were becoming a problem, so he joked that the role of Morrie
(a dying ALS patient) was perfect for him because he could lie in bed
for most of the play. We were chomping at the bit and had even begun
rehearsing, but the plan was squashed when we were unable to obtain
the performance rights to the show. It was one of those projects that
we were always going to do “someday.” But someday never came,
which will always be a great regret.
The awful irony is that my
last conversations with Dennis were, indeed, as he was lying in a bed
proceeding toward his death. In one of those hospital visits, he was
unable to communicate much, but he was still Dennis. When I threw a
good-natured gibe at him, he responded with a smirk and a shake of
his fist.
In “Tuesdays With
Morrie,” when Mitch's visits with Morrie came to an end, he would
kiss his former instructor on the forehead for “extra credit.”
That thought crossed my mind on June 14 as I prepared to visit Dennis
at his home for what I assumed would be the final time, only to get a
call that he had already passed away.
So this column is your
kiss, Dennis. Keep smiling, my friend.
