By John Grindrod
Guest Columnist
As we move into another season’s homestretch, given the wistfulness of this increasingly sentimental septuagenarian, this is about the time I begin to inventory the departing season’s events, both those I consider positive and those anything but. As for the latter, those items often involve those folks who’ve impacted the lives of so many whose linear lines often abruptly came to an end.
It was in late July that one such person’s time here on earth ended, someone I believe impacted countless lives beyond his immediate family and closest friends. While I was not in either of those family or close-friends categories, I got to know Dave Vastano pretty well in the late 1980s around the halfway point of my 25 summers working in Lima’s Parks and Recreation Playground Division.
As a regular listener to sports-talk radio for much of my adult life, I know that one of the go-to topics during the sports calendar’s slow seasons is when the talking heads try to identify the Mount Rushmore four figures who in their prime were the athletic equivalents of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.
If there is such a discussion to be had about our town’s peace officers, I surely think, if a considered criterion is the positive impact someone had on so very many people, especially young people, the man known to children over the years as Officer Dave through the Safety City and the D.A.R.E. programs would be one of those four Rushmore heads.
Justifiably so, Dave’s passing was noted on the front page in a story in my hometown paper by staff writer J. Swygart. Following the customary “Oh no!” reaction when I learn of someone’s passing that I haven’t seen in a while who touched my life, I searched for the moment I last saw Dave.
While I don’t recall the number of years, I remember it was since his retirement from the Lima Police Department, at the Lima Public Library, where Dave worked as a security officer after leaving the force. Once upon a time, I was doing a fair amount of feature writing for the paper and had occasion to use the microfilm of past editions of The Lima News while working on a story. It was there I’d see Dave, of course, always smiling and always engaging, and I would always approach him to catch up and talk about all the things in the this-and-that category and also talk about our shared past as city workers.
As for that shared past, well, by the time we met, I’d already completed my seven summers as a playground leader and had moved into the office as a public-relations and special-events coordinator. It was in that latter capacity that Dave was so very helpful in planning police visits to the playgrounds and helping our programming through both Safety City and also D.A.R.E. I felt the interaction with the police was important for our playground kids to show them the human side of those who were there to protect and serve and to show them that there is nothing inherently intimidating about police officers.
Whenever I needed Dave’s assistance in rounding out our eight-week program, he was there. On numerous occasions, I saw with my own eyes the gift he had in communicating with kids. As a matter of fact, over my 32 years in public-school education and my 25 summers working with the playground program, while there surely were many I considered master communicators and great advocates for young people, without question, I think the best I ever saw was Dave Vastano. He was especially good with those kids whose home lives were less than ideal.
Years ago, I wrote a column on what I continue to see as a safety issue to other motorists and pedestrians and especially to law enforcement, and that is the dark tint of automobile windows, so much so, it’s almost impossible to see the faintest of a silhouette behind the wheel. Face it. When we can’t see others with whom we share the roads to gain insight into their possible intentions to change lanes abruptly or make a sudden left-hand turn, I believe that’s a safety issue of magnitude.
In my preparing to write that column, I wanted a police perspective on what it’s like to make a traffic stop and get out of a cruiser and approach a car without being able to see anything inside. So, I headed to the library, and Dave and I sat down in a somewhat secluded area. And, of course, Dave provided great perspective about the apprehensions of encountering nearly opaque window glass in making a stop and other safety issues with overly tinted glass that hadn’t occurred to me.
When I saw the Swygart story and learned of Dave Vastano’s passing, I first said a prayer for his safe passage to what comes next for him and ultimately for all of us, for we all know how our final chapters will be written.
For Dave, because it’s been a while since I’d seen him, I really don’t know too much about his final chapter. But, my, among the chapters that preceded that last one, yes, indeed, I did see some of those, and they were so very well written by an author that cared so very deeply for people, especially the youngsters.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor and the author of two books. Reach him at [email protected].
