i met Sasha Clapper in 1977 when I was four. I don’t remember a lot about it, but I have a distinct memory of my mom and his mom sitting in the living room of the rented ranch house on Polo Road in Winston-Salem, talking about who-knows-what, and Sasha and I playing with matchbox cars or something around the foot of the chair that his mom was sitting in. From that moment, we spent more time together than apart. His family lived on Crepe Myrtle Circle at the time, which was close to my parent’s house, and we walked over there many and many a time. Eventually I was old enough that I could walk there by myself, crossing Polo Road being a rite of passage that I did not appreciate at the time. I sure do now.
There were four of us: Sasha Clapper, Daniel Berry, Christy Johnson, and me. We all lived near each other, our parents were friends, and we all played together and went to the pool together and went to each other’s birthday parties. We all had other friends, of course, but the four of us were a unit, a group of friends that hung out all the time at least until we were twelve or so.
My dad had built a sandbox behind our house and a treehouse and a fondly remembered silver-spray painted rocket ship. Many and many were the adventures we had, running around the woods that seemed limitless to a five- or six- or seven-year-old but which in hindsight were likely not more than a half acre deep. Sasha had a treehouse too, and we spent a fair amount of time there as well. As I shake my head around and see what falls out, I have found a memory of being in his treehouse and him quoting Olivia Newton John singing to me “Do you know what I mean?” explaining “ I like to use song lyrics to say what I want to say when I can.”
Thirty years later, I do the same thing. To this day, I quote and quote and quote. Twain and Lincoln and Star Wars. Not so much Olivia Newton John, but that must be where it comes from. I thought him so sophisticated and wise to know the words of pop songs. He listened to Casey Casem, and knew who the hot pop singers were, a talent I still do not have. He used to be able to identify songs from the radio and the people who sang them, which always mystified me. For years I would try to remember to listen to the radio so that I could hear the same magical things, promising myself that I would tune into the oracle so I, too, could deliver the message. Every week I would forget, always lagging behind Sasha.
He was born on January 22 1973, four months before me (I was born May 22 of the same year). Somehow, those four months made so much difference to me, and made me feel inferior in age and knowledge. Again, I still fight this, wishing to be older and more experienced than I am. I am slowly learning to embrace the things I don’t know, but as a child and young adult I strove to be more knowledgeable, older, more experienced, even lying in order to appear that way.
Memories filter in, wheeling around like dance partners in a fevered dream: After Empire Strikes Back came out, there was a mail order offer from Mattel. Two proofs of purchase and a couple of dollars would get you a Boba Fett figurine. This at a time when no one knew anything about Boba Fett, and when he had all of the sexiness that mystique brings. Sasha sent away and got the figure when his backpack still shot a missile out of it. By the time I got mine from the Rose’s department store, the missile (which had been judged a swallowing hazard to young children) was firmly glued in place. Sasha’s had long been lost, of course, out in the yard, and the figurine’s empty backpack was a testament to the coolness of his version of the figure.
We had Cub Scout meetings in his backyard. His mom was the troop leader, I think. I remember filling soup cans with water and freezing them, and then using big nails and hammers to punch patterns of holes in them, so that when the ice melted away, we could put candles in them and they would be like the colonial punched tin lanterns we saw at the local museum. I think Sasha made it to Boy scouts, though he might have dropped out at Webelos. I never even made it that far, my interest waning early.
At some point, I think about when I was six or so, his family moved to Washington D. C., an unimaginably exotic locale. I have no idea to this day why they moved, though I reckon his father got a job there doing something. We went to visit them once, from which I have two memories: One is complicated, but it has to do with him having his fingers in a door frame by the hinges and me trying to shut the door and squeezing his fingers and him screaming like a fire engine and me just trying to shut the door and not understanding that I was causing the pain. The other has to do with assembling a model airplane and painting it and feeling so sophisticated because he did not want to paint it like the photo on the box, so we didn’t. Eventually, they moved back, into a house on Tangle Ln. This was where he lived until we lost touch, where his father told us about landing planes on an aircraft carrier in the Viet Nam war and we ran mission after mission in the woods behind his house.
When we were a little older, I would go spend the night at his house on a weekend and we would do mind-blowingly rebellious things, like watching Saturday Night Live. I never did this at home, not being allowed to stay up that late, but he knew all of the players: Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal. Gilbert Gotfried. Martin Short. This is the last time I watched this show, not really understanding a lot of the jokes but laughing when he did, excited about staying up so late with no repercussions. After Saturday Night Live, the kung fu movies came on, which we struggled to stay awake for, understanding that they were excellent without knowing why. Vivid Technicolor memories of “monkey form” and “drunken soldier form” still wander through my thoughts now and then.
When he and I entered eighth grade in 1986, North Carolina was rated 50th in the nation as far as public schools went. He and I were both in what then were called “gifted and talented” classes, thought the official nomer for us changed many times in our academic careers.
Eventually, we went off to high school. He went to the North Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Math. He had that easy savvy that allowed the “smart” kids to get ahead quickly in North Carolina in the early eighties, as did I. I remember when I realized I had to study in college and how foreign a concept that was for me. Sasha got thrown out of Governor’s School for manufacturing LSD in his dorm room and selling it. After that we fell out of each other’s lives. I heard stories now and then, but did not really follow his life that much. I was getting into theater, and that took too much of my time. I was too selfish to notice that I was turning away from a lot of the things that maybe should have been important.
We occasionally found each other here and there for the next couple of decades. He came to my wedding. He wandered through New York when I lived there. I heard news from my folks here and there, a couple of kids, a move to Alaska. When he came through New York that time, we had a couple of beers. He was a member of chapter 320 of the Laborer’s Union of North America, digging ditches in the summer, and saving money so that he could travel in the winter. We went to my brother-in-law’s birthday party where there was a belly dancer. Someone took a photo of him sitting on a bench smiling. That was the last I heard of him, maybe in 2003 or 04.
Last night my dad called me and told me that a friend of the family had called and left a message that Sasha had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Portland, Oregon. Since then a facebook friend sent me a link to an article in the paper saying that Sasha Clapper, age 36, died in a motorcycle crash at 1.15 am. The person who called 911 said that it appeared the motorcycle was speeding.
There were four of us: Sasha Clapper, Daniel Berry, Christy Johnson, and me. We all lived near each other, our parents were friends, and we all played together and went to the pool together and went to each other’s birthday parties. We all had other friends, of course, but the four of us were a unit, a group of friends that hung out all the time at least until we were twelve or so.
My dad had built a sandbox behind our house and a treehouse and a fondly remembered silver-spray painted rocket ship. Many and many were the adventures we had, running around the woods that seemed limitless to a five- or six- or seven-year-old but which in hindsight were likely not more than a half acre deep. Sasha had a treehouse too, and we spent a fair amount of time there as well. As I shake my head around and see what falls out, I have found a memory of being in his treehouse and him quoting Olivia Newton John singing to me “Do you know what I mean?” explaining “ I like to use song lyrics to say what I want to say when I can.”
Thirty years later, I do the same thing. To this day, I quote and quote and quote. Twain and Lincoln and Star Wars. Not so much Olivia Newton John, but that must be where it comes from. I thought him so sophisticated and wise to know the words of pop songs. He listened to Casey Casem, and knew who the hot pop singers were, a talent I still do not have. He used to be able to identify songs from the radio and the people who sang them, which always mystified me. For years I would try to remember to listen to the radio so that I could hear the same magical things, promising myself that I would tune into the oracle so I, too, could deliver the message. Every week I would forget, always lagging behind Sasha.
He was born on January 22 1973, four months before me (I was born May 22 of the same year). Somehow, those four months made so much difference to me, and made me feel inferior in age and knowledge. Again, I still fight this, wishing to be older and more experienced than I am. I am slowly learning to embrace the things I don’t know, but as a child and young adult I strove to be more knowledgeable, older, more experienced, even lying in order to appear that way.
Memories filter in, wheeling around like dance partners in a fevered dream: After Empire Strikes Back came out, there was a mail order offer from Mattel. Two proofs of purchase and a couple of dollars would get you a Boba Fett figurine. This at a time when no one knew anything about Boba Fett, and when he had all of the sexiness that mystique brings. Sasha sent away and got the figure when his backpack still shot a missile out of it. By the time I got mine from the Rose’s department store, the missile (which had been judged a swallowing hazard to young children) was firmly glued in place. Sasha’s had long been lost, of course, out in the yard, and the figurine’s empty backpack was a testament to the coolness of his version of the figure.
We had Cub Scout meetings in his backyard. His mom was the troop leader, I think. I remember filling soup cans with water and freezing them, and then using big nails and hammers to punch patterns of holes in them, so that when the ice melted away, we could put candles in them and they would be like the colonial punched tin lanterns we saw at the local museum. I think Sasha made it to Boy scouts, though he might have dropped out at Webelos. I never even made it that far, my interest waning early.
At some point, I think about when I was six or so, his family moved to Washington D. C., an unimaginably exotic locale. I have no idea to this day why they moved, though I reckon his father got a job there doing something. We went to visit them once, from which I have two memories: One is complicated, but it has to do with him having his fingers in a door frame by the hinges and me trying to shut the door and squeezing his fingers and him screaming like a fire engine and me just trying to shut the door and not understanding that I was causing the pain. The other has to do with assembling a model airplane and painting it and feeling so sophisticated because he did not want to paint it like the photo on the box, so we didn’t. Eventually, they moved back, into a house on Tangle Ln. This was where he lived until we lost touch, where his father told us about landing planes on an aircraft carrier in the Viet Nam war and we ran mission after mission in the woods behind his house.
When we were a little older, I would go spend the night at his house on a weekend and we would do mind-blowingly rebellious things, like watching Saturday Night Live. I never did this at home, not being allowed to stay up that late, but he knew all of the players: Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal. Gilbert Gotfried. Martin Short. This is the last time I watched this show, not really understanding a lot of the jokes but laughing when he did, excited about staying up so late with no repercussions. After Saturday Night Live, the kung fu movies came on, which we struggled to stay awake for, understanding that they were excellent without knowing why. Vivid Technicolor memories of “monkey form” and “drunken soldier form” still wander through my thoughts now and then.
When he and I entered eighth grade in 1986, North Carolina was rated 50th in the nation as far as public schools went. He and I were both in what then were called “gifted and talented” classes, thought the official nomer for us changed many times in our academic careers.
Eventually, we went off to high school. He went to the North Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Math. He had that easy savvy that allowed the “smart” kids to get ahead quickly in North Carolina in the early eighties, as did I. I remember when I realized I had to study in college and how foreign a concept that was for me. Sasha got thrown out of Governor’s School for manufacturing LSD in his dorm room and selling it. After that we fell out of each other’s lives. I heard stories now and then, but did not really follow his life that much. I was getting into theater, and that took too much of my time. I was too selfish to notice that I was turning away from a lot of the things that maybe should have been important.
We occasionally found each other here and there for the next couple of decades. He came to my wedding. He wandered through New York when I lived there. I heard news from my folks here and there, a couple of kids, a move to Alaska. When he came through New York that time, we had a couple of beers. He was a member of chapter 320 of the Laborer’s Union of North America, digging ditches in the summer, and saving money so that he could travel in the winter. We went to my brother-in-law’s birthday party where there was a belly dancer. Someone took a photo of him sitting on a bench smiling. That was the last I heard of him, maybe in 2003 or 04.
Last night my dad called me and told me that a friend of the family had called and left a message that Sasha had been killed in a motorcycle accident in Portland, Oregon. Since then a facebook friend sent me a link to an article in the paper saying that Sasha Clapper, age 36, died in a motorcycle crash at 1.15 am. The person who called 911 said that it appeared the motorcycle was speeding.
The thing is that I have not known him well for twenty years, really. He may have been a saint. He may have been the opposite. I would not know. Here is what I know: He had two kids. He was a person making his way in the world like the rest of us. He is gone, and that is irreparable. This is where I think a lot about how I regret losing touch with someone who was once so important to me. And where I hope he is resting easy, wherever he is. Here is an obituary by someone who has known him more recently:
Sasha McCarthy Clapper1/22/1973-4/25/2009
Sasha McCarthy Clapper died early Saturday, April 25th, 2009, from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.Sasha was born on January 22nd, 1973, in Columbia, South Carolina and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He attended the North Carolina School of Math and Science and Reed College prior to dedicating his life to adventure. Sasha traveled widely, visiting nearly every continent and all the islands in between. He cross-country skied to the North Pole and rode a camel in the Sahara Desert in full motorcycle leathers. However he considered Portland his home, and had recently returned there after seven years in Alaska. Sasha was passionate about the environment and was currently pursuing an engineering degree in renewable energy at the Oregon Institute of Technology. He loved bicycles, motorcycles, windmills, fireworks, neck tattoos and rock’n’roll (especially ZZ Top). “His mental state was totally related to the working condition of his vehicles,” says girlfriend Sophia La Valley. Sasha was known to express righteous indignation whenever a bar—no matter how fancy—did not stock Old Crow bourbon; he idolized the humble potato—calling it the quintessential food, spoke endlessly of his two treasured daughters, and took darn good care of his friends. The heavily-tattooed vegetarian heartthrob was adored far and wide by both men and women. His big heart, goofy grin and maniacal chuckle will be desperately missed.Sasha is survived by his parents, Jim and Debbie Clapper of Nashville, Tennessee; a brother, Evan Clapper of Moab, Utah; two daughters, Aria Watkins of Carolina Beach, North Carolina and Stella Speakman of York Beach, Maine; his girlfriend, Sophia La Valley of Portland; and several thousand close friends.A private memorial service will be held on Wednesday, April 29th, followed by an open reception and celebration of Sasha’s life from 5-8 p.m. at Plan B, 1305 S.E. 8th Avenue, Portland. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Community Cycling Center, 1700 N.E. Alberta St., Portland, 97211. Tax I.D.: # 931127186. Condolences may be sent to 3826 Brighton Road, Nashville, Tennessee, 27205.
Sasha McCarthy Clapper died early Saturday, April 25th, 2009, from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.Sasha was born on January 22nd, 1973, in Columbia, South Carolina and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He attended the North Carolina School of Math and Science and Reed College prior to dedicating his life to adventure. Sasha traveled widely, visiting nearly every continent and all the islands in between. He cross-country skied to the North Pole and rode a camel in the Sahara Desert in full motorcycle leathers. However he considered Portland his home, and had recently returned there after seven years in Alaska. Sasha was passionate about the environment and was currently pursuing an engineering degree in renewable energy at the Oregon Institute of Technology. He loved bicycles, motorcycles, windmills, fireworks, neck tattoos and rock’n’roll (especially ZZ Top). “His mental state was totally related to the working condition of his vehicles,” says girlfriend Sophia La Valley. Sasha was known to express righteous indignation whenever a bar—no matter how fancy—did not stock Old Crow bourbon; he idolized the humble potato—calling it the quintessential food, spoke endlessly of his two treasured daughters, and took darn good care of his friends. The heavily-tattooed vegetarian heartthrob was adored far and wide by both men and women. His big heart, goofy grin and maniacal chuckle will be desperately missed.Sasha is survived by his parents, Jim and Debbie Clapper of Nashville, Tennessee; a brother, Evan Clapper of Moab, Utah; two daughters, Aria Watkins of Carolina Beach, North Carolina and Stella Speakman of York Beach, Maine; his girlfriend, Sophia La Valley of Portland; and several thousand close friends.A private memorial service will be held on Wednesday, April 29th, followed by an open reception and celebration of Sasha’s life from 5-8 p.m. at Plan B, 1305 S.E. 8th Avenue, Portland. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Community Cycling Center, 1700 N.E. Alberta St., Portland, 97211. Tax I.D.: # 931127186. Condolences may be sent to 3826 Brighton Road, Nashville, Tennessee, 27205.
3 comments:
I'm not sure if you and I knew each other, Zeke, but I was also a friend of Sasha's from formative years in W-S. We went to elementary school together & to summer camp. He and I briefly got back in touch about a year ago over MySpace (ugh).
Thanks so much for your remembrances of Sasha. It reminded me so well of all those things that made Sasha so weird when we were kids and so wonderful when we grew up. Who knew when we were little that being weird (like liking Star Wars, etc.) would make you so cool as a grown-up! And although I hadn't deeply reconnected with Sasha as adults, it sounds like he turned out to be a tremendously cool person.
Thanks again for your post about him; it brought about smiles & tears.
I'm saddened and stunned by his death. He was one of the more intelligent people I've ever met. I loved his craziness and his willingness to do just about anything. We had several adventures in high school that I can't publicly admit to. Did you know he was my junior prom date? That one I can state.
The second time I met you Zeke, Sasha was there. I'm not sure which of you I met first, come to think of it. I remember him in combat boots, the mohawk, and that dangling cross earring. Somehow he's always been that teenager to me.
The last time I spoke with him was in the mid to late 90's and he called my parents house for me - he was trying to find a party. I didn't live there anymore so it was quite the coincidence he got me. I've never been much of a party girl, so I couldn't help him. He rang off to try the next W-S kid.
The world was more interesting with him in it. I'm glad you learned about him from your family. I was a little in shock when I saw a random facebook post about it.
I knew Sasha from Reed, and he was quite a guy. He lived in my dorm freshman year, and he was wild. I was very saddened to hear about his death.
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