Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Eulogy by Shaun Lee (Dan's nephew)
Good Afternoon All
I just wanted to express my appreciation for all those who have come out today and/or those who have given my family support throughout this week in the passing of Danny Luker.
For those of you who don’t know me, I am Shaun, Romaney’s son and Danny’s nephew. It is both a great honor and indeed a burden that I have been asked to eulogize my Uncle. I debated in my own head throughout the week, on the tone of what the eulogy should express, but kept coming back to one simple conclusion - as my wife Brandi describes me often, I am an ornery Okie, and yes I learned from some of the best, not the least of which my PawPaw Raiford, but from Danny as well, who…let’s just say took being an ornery Okie to new levels throughout his life. The case in point is ask anyone outside of our immediate family about the “Luker kids” and somewhere in the first few words uttered would be “oh, they’re crazy” and soon followed by “and Danny was always the craziest”. Out of the other Luker kids, Danny was by far who I spent the most time with growing up.
Danny and I are roughly 16 years apart, which meant he played many different roles with me; he was a mentor, a big brother, but the most quintessential aspect was he was the cool uncle that got you into trouble as easily as he got you out of trouble. That duality, that dichotomy continues on today. When my mom called me about Danny’s passing, she was of course expressing her grief, but in a moment, that would now serve as the tonal aspect of this eulogy, my mom said “I don’t know what we’re going to do…Danny was the glue that kept the family together…and there was this pause in her voice, and I can’t tell you honestly whether she said it or I thought it out loud in my head, yep he was the glue…and we were all stuck with him - because as I said earlier Danny was as good as getting you out of trouble as he was keeping you in trouble. This is not to disparage my Uncle or anyone else in the Luker clan, because every memory that came to my head throughout this week was of Danny and I pushing the boundaries, but almost always having fun. I good portion of my younger childhood was either spent with grandparent, MeMaw and PawPaw, or with Danny. With Raiford it was usually being at the farm in Bixby or in Broken Arrow at either Tire City or the hardware store or at Farmer’s Wholesale on Admiral. With Danny it was either being in Claremore at Tire City or pulling a questionable car or truck out of Ray’s field, or working on a car on Danny’s sloped driveway of his house. You see, part of being a cool uncle is you have to have a go to, and cars were it with Danny. My first memory of me driving was when we were bailing hay out in Bixby. Danny put the truck in the granny gear and had me feather the throttle enough to keep us moving forward as they were throwing bails in the back. As we would come towards the end of the pasture Danny dive in from the back, upside down on the top of the cab and turn the wheel to go back and forth again.
Danny as I got older always gave me opportunities, as we well call it, to improve my driving skills, and as most in the family who have had the privilege of riding with both me and Danny, our driving style are too far apart…after all he taught me to drive. When I was about 10 and with Danny in Claremore, he got tired of me being in the store, so he threw me the keys to some customer’s beat-up Impala and told me to go drive it around the shop; I think I made it about 5 laps around, which I probably imagined I was driving in the Daytona 500, before I ran out of gas…but I had made 5 laps without hitting anything. Then when I was 13, my real driving test happened. Danny had to get another vehicle to Broken Arrow. So, we hopped in the truck and he said start driving around in traffic so I can see how you do. After making, just barely around some turns and intersections, he looked at me and said two things; there are two pedals in this truck, the one on the left is the brake, try using it every now and then; the second thing he said was see you in Broken Arrow. She he took off in this van, and I took off in his truck - Ole Blue.
Another time, when I was 16, I came over to the house to see what he was up to that day and Danny was working on someone’s Corvette. Now come’on folks 16 years old and staring at a Corvette you know what thought were going through my head…the same ones that would have been going through Danny’s of course; so he wrapped up his work on the Corvette pause but just for a second, and handed me the keys and said why don’t you take it out and make sure everything running alright. And so, for the next several hours the happiest 16 year old, blasting around the streets of Tulsa in a Corvette, courtesy of Danny. As you can imagine, memories like those are seared into my brain, and I would bet many of you sitting here today have some sort of similar story of questionable judgement with any time spent with Danny, but most of my memories where of having fun with him - the quintessential ornery Okie.
We love you; we miss you; rest in peace.
