Dear David –

 

Thank you for this beautiful note about Vic. 

 

We had all lost touch with Vic after our 1983 summer, and I had often wondered what had happened to him.  Then one day in 2017 I received a friend request on Facebook from a Victor Hauser.  Vic!  I immediately sent him a message and a conversation began.  What I learned from him over the coming weeks as we reconnected was profoundly surprising and moving to me.  He described a harrowing journey with cancer and other health issues and how in the depths of his despair, he began to think deeply about the times in his life when he had felt most alive and most connected to others – and in the midst of that darkness, his summer at Winedale began to re-emerge into his consciousness.  He had sort of  “forgotten” about Winedale in the whirl of a busy and challenging life, he said.  “For nearly 35 years, Winedale has faded away in my mind until now I basically have no memories of my time there at all,” he wrote.  “A few misty fragments, but no real memories.”  His request to me:  Help me recover those memories and reconnect with folks from that summer.

 

A month or so later, a group of us – I believe it was me, David, Steve Price, and James – arrived at Vic’s small apartment, where he excited greeted us and then proudly served us a lunch that he had cooked.  He himself was unable to eat solid foods, due to his throat cancer after-effects, and thus had to drink a protein shake, but he insisted that we have second helpings of fettuccine alfredo and garlic bread.  And so we sat together and told stories and caught up and laughingly recalled how our quirky personalities all bumped into one another joyfully and productively that summer of ’83. 

 

Then that July, Steve, David and I were able to get Vic out to Winedale, as Dave recounted.  James and his class sweetly greeted him in the Barn, shared some performances of scenes, and listened intently as Vic told his story of Winedale as a life-changing experience.  He challenged the students to look into the future and see now how special this time would seem decades later.  At the end of his talk, Vic spoke about how excited he was to learn that James had become the second director of the program.  It was almost a Rip Van Winkle moment as Vic connected with the current Shakespeare at Winedale program and stepped onto the Barn stage for the first time in decades.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, over the next five years, the most remarkable element of this reconnection emerged, which was the steady and patient devotion that David showed as he took on Vic as a new friend.  David saw a need and stepped up.  I began to hear about weekly visits by Dave to Vic’s apartment, where Vic would gleefully share his latest musical and filmic passions.  I think Mr. Sharpe, not naturally drawn to bodice-ripping medieval-futuristic television dramas, hung in there with “Game of Thrones” for quite a while until he finally had to beg off – Dave can correct me if I have the series wrong… But as with Rick and Louie at the end of Casablanca, it was the start of a beautiful and unexpected friendship.  None of us had particularly bonded with Vic in ’83; he could be aloof at times, peremptory, comically self-assured.  (Hey, we all had our quirks, as I said earlier…).  So it was a delight to hear about how our Shylock and our Duke of Venice were now hanging out and just being pals.  David’s steadfast generosity and thoughtfulness was an inspiration when the rest of us were too spread-thin with work or family life or the covid pandemic to make regular visits to see Vic. 

 

As Vic’s health declined, it was David who was there to take him to a medical appointment, and to update a group of us by email on how things were going.  And it was David who led those of us who were in Austin last week to a final gathering in Vic’s presence at Christopher House on Thursday night.  For a few hours, Dave, Mark Bouler and I sat next to Vic, retold the old tales, and played music by his absolute favorite singer in the world, Diana Ankudinova.  He would occasionally send us rapturous emails about Diana, insisting that we listen NOW to a new youtube clip featuring her ethereal singing.  In one Vic wrote:  “Diana sings with such passion!  I think that what Diana has suffered in her life gives her a fire that she lets loose through her music.”

                                             

Vic knew about suffering.  My one regret from Thursday night was that I didn’t say out loud to Vic what I felt later:  Thank you.  His courage and lack of self-pity in the past few years was stunning; it’s something I’ll never forget. 

 

David, I’ll always be grateful to you for the privilege of being with Vic in some of his final moments.  If he’d woken up while we were there, I’m sure he would have blurted out, “Mark Bouler!” with a big grin. 

 

I leave you with the Diana A. song that Vic told us was the most “goosebumpy.”  The nurse at Christopher House told us that during the “transitioning” time, hearing is the final sense to go, so I feel certain Vic heard this beautiful song as he slept on Thursday night.  And I know he would have been thrilled to share this clip with all of you. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDPxDSsW7bs

 

Love to all,

 

cs

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Very like a whale….”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: David Sharpe <dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, August 14, 2022 at 8:54 PM
To: Heather Dolstra <heather@democracytravel.com>
Cc: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums <winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Winedale-l] Re: Fwd: Victor Hauser, A Remembrance

Just 14 words in your comment. And yet they speak volumes. Thank you so much, Heather. 

 

On Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 8:45 PM Heather Dolstra <heather@democracytravel.com> wrote:

I mourn Vic's passing as if I knew him.  We are family, after all.

 

Heather Dolstra

 

 

 

Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@gmail.com>

Date: 8/14/22 7:57 PM (GMT-05:00)

To: Shakespeare at Winedale 1970-2000 alums <winedale-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, David Sharpe <dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com>

Subject: [Winedale-l] Fwd: Victor Hauser, A Remembrance

 

 

Forwarding a message from David Sharpe about Victor Hauser.

 

Mike

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: David Sharpe <dpsharpeaustin@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Aug 14, 2022 at 3:30 PM
Subject: Victor Hauser, A Remembrance
To: <shakespeare-at-winedale-email-list@googlegroups.com>

 

Three weeks ago, when Vic Hauser (a student from the Winedale Summer of 1983) was diagnosed with pneumonia, I and those of us from Winedale-'83 who came to know Vic in his latter years thought that this was going to be just another health problem where he and his hospital doctors and nurses would once again do battle to get a medical handle on it. Vic would then return to his beloved Co-op apartment complex in Austin, and soldier on as he had done so often in the past. 

 

In fact, at various times in the last 5 to 8 years, Vic had managed to survive a host of ailments, such as diabetes, throat cancer, lupus, and two cases of pneumonia. He also avoided getting Covid 19 or any of its variants. Vic definitely had a strong will to live.

 

Unfortunately, this time Vic's luck ran out. This time he was not going to win his struggle with his third case of pneumonia, for it was ultimately diagnosed as being terminal by his Austin doctors.. 

 

So after giving the matter serious thought and realizing that being trapped in a hospital bed connected to multiple tubes and bags was no way to live, Vic willingly agreed to transfer to the hospice at Christopher House in Austin. It was a brave decision. Six days later Vic's suffering and multiple battles with his chronically compromised health came to an end. He died peacefully on a Friday night, August 12, 2022.  

 

Given his host of health issues, Vic was never strong enough to make the long trek from Austin out to Winedale to see a play. However in 2018, Vic, along with Winedale friends Clay Stromberger, Steve Price, and myself, made a car trip to Shakespeare at Winedale to visit Director James Loehlin's summer class, which on that day was in the throes of rehearsal. Before the rehearsal began, James asked the class to sit down on the stage in the Barn, and then introduced Vic (Previously, Vic had asked James - another Winedale-'83 alum - for an opportunity to speak briefly to the class). Standing before them, Vic very simply told the students that they may not realize it at that moment, but what they were going through at Winedale that summer was a unique and very special experience, that it would unlikely come again, and that they should take full advantage of every minute while they were there. Now more ever, this was the time to seize the day. Vic spoke a little more and then sat down. 

 

Vic didn't have money to give donations to Winedale - he just had enough money to live on. But he wanted very much to give something back to Shakespeare at Winedale that had given so much to him and for one summer uplifted his life. And going to Winedale and addressing the summer class was his way of giving back. Of course, Vic's message to the students was absolutely true and something that could never be said enough. And in his own quiet but serious way, Vic made his point very powerfully. 

 

David Sharpe

--
Be vigitant, I beseech you!