Roger Craig Day
In Loving Memory
Although Roger and I have long been benignly estranged, the many “enlightenment experiences” we shared decades ago brought me such pleasure and intellectual stimulation that I want to comment on his life from my vantage point, risking dismissal by his family as an unwelcome contributor to the flood of condolences his death has likely unleashed. I hope Julie and Roger’s children will welcome my contribution. Roger befriended me by default. In the 1960s Roger dated my sister; I met him through her. When their romance fizzled, Roger and I continued in sporadic personal contact that involved many cherished experiences. In recalling a few of these experiences, I hope to engage the interest of Roger’s family and many friends, confirming in a few specifics what many already know about him in general. Roger was adept at making connections, an activity that signifies the mind’s worth and purpose. Had we stayed connected, I would have learned more than I can fathom about the imperatives of a moral life. Dialog with Roger made me feel sophisticated and tolerant. From what I recall, Roger’s moral life involved love of country, family, spirited debate, and his natural northern Utah surroundings. He and I took a few classes in common at the Univ. of Utah. Long before the rest of us, he recognized the “bright shining lie” of military strategies in Viet Nam. We were both registered with Selective Service, but I reached the cut-off age for student deferment before Roger and was promptly drafted in 1968. Roger, a proud American, vigorously inveighed against the “stalemate machine” the government and military hierarchs called a war. In early 1970 Roger attempted to stay out of that conflict by applying for C.O. status. His application required supporting affidavits. On his request I, by then an artillery officer stationed in Germany, wrote and submitted to the draft board an affirmation in support of Roger’s application. As far as I am aware, his C.O. status was granted, and he served in an alternative capacity. Despite his aversion to “Johnson’s War,” Roger admired my having served enough to suggest, without rancor, that my military service had in part enabled me to partake in a lifelong dialogue with mainstream America, a place presumably less available to anti-war activists who deserted or who dodged the draft illegally. Roger was connected to his children and taught them to love the Uintah Mountains. I saw this firsthand during a camping and fishing excursion I and my first son, Miles, enjoyed with Roger and Rachel. His expertise as an angler and a camper was undeniable, amid the alpine splendor of northern Utah delivering bon mots, flashes of insight, and humorous one-liners. We should have kept that up, but I spent the most of the 1970s in Viet Nam and in Texas. We lost track of each other. In Roger’s presence I tended to feel a bit diminished intellectually. He was far more alert than insurance commissioners are supposed to be. He was an unfailingly quick thinker, well versed in many disciplines. Conversation with Roger amounted to a journey into moral recognition. He was acutely aware of social ills, banal cultural conformism, and religious bias and was persuasive in recommending solutions. He ruminated on the effects felt by common people. Those who knew him well will corroborate that assertion. On my last visit to his home in fall of 2015 he seemed the usual insatiably curious Roger Day, still inhabiting the middle ground between faith and humanistic values. While we conversed on his back porch, I was reminded that here, incontrovertibly, was an old friend of a certain intellectual caliber, a lucid thinker, commenting liberally on the local political and cultural scene. That day he inquired about the trajectory of my life and the death of my mother, with whom he had a uneven rapport. I read his obituary and felt profoundly remiss that our connection had dwindled, that I had not visited him more often and kept the friendship alive and current.