Maine reporter writes his own obituary
Jeffrey Davies Clark, Desmond Funeral Home, Bath, ME -
The advantage of knowing when you’re going to die is that you get to
write your own obituary. For a journalist, that’s the gold standard.
I,
Jeffrey Davies Clark, was born February 8, 1950, in Belfast, Maine, to
Leroy H. “Pete” Clark, of Belfast, and Edith Mae “Di” Clark, née Davies,
formerly of Liverpool, England. I was the oldest of six children. After
a childhood on the family farm in Swanville and a side trip to
Colorado, we moved to Belfast in 1962, where I graduated from Belfast
Area High School in 1968.
After three years at the University of
Maine at Orono, the realization dawned that I was about to graduate with
an English degree, possibly the most useless piece of paper in
academia. Taking a semester off to think things over seemed a good idea
to me, but not to my draft board, so in May of 1972 I enlisted in the
U.S. Air Force. I was stationed at Offutt AFB outside Omaha, Nebraska,
where I literally found the rest of my life. I became a reporter and
then editor for the Air Pulse, the weekly newspaper serving the Offutt
community. And in a cornfield in Cass County I found the woman I would
very happily spend the rest of my life with, Patricia Morris. She has
been my rock and my light and my love.
Pat and I were married
June 21, 1975, in Plattsmouth, Nebraska. In 1979, we returned to Maine,
where I continued as a reporter and editor, first on Sam Pennington’s
Waldoboro Weekly, then at Peter Cox’s Maine Times, and finally on Down
East magazine, where Dale Kuhnert gave me the job of a lifetime
chronicling the people and places of this astonishing state. In 1983 Pat
and I welcomed our daughter, Jocelyn “Josie,” and in 1986 our second
daughter, Erin, arrived. Two more wonderful daughters simply do not
exist in this world, and I apologize to both of them for leaving too
early.
For five years, I served on the board of Maine Rivers, an
organization devoted to protecting Maine’s freshwater rivers and
streams. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Maine Rivers
at P.O. Box 782, Yarmouth, ME 04096 or Brunswick Area Respite Care at 41
Greenwood Road, Brunswick, ME 04011 in memory of my late mother-in-law,
Lillie.
I passed away on August 4, 2015 from complications
related to esophageal cancer... It’s been a trip, folks. Thank you to
all the family and friends and complete strangers who have made this
life so interesting. Now, on to the next one! Until the circle is
unbroken.
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