3
CRAZY F*****R
Introduction
Before the stunning events of that September morning propelled him suddenly from thislife to the next, and from obscurity to notoriety, Daniel Hidalgo had begun privatelywriting the story of his life in a most unusual style: as though he were sharing hisinnermost thoughts and memories with his psychiatrist.When his personal papers were discovered by his daughter, she writes:I sat down to look at them and found I could not put them down. I stayed there onthe brick floor of his private office for hours, spellbound at what I had
not
knownabout him. Here, in the simple, eloquent language he always used, were eventsand insights he had not shared with any of us. Not with Mom, nor me, nor his brother. As well as we knew him – and he was a frank and candid man – none of us, I think, really knew the inner devastation and turmoil, the inner battles andvictories that had shaped and formed the empathetic man I knew as Dad.Because the revelations are so personal, so frank, it would be many months before shewould bring herself to share them with his brother, then his wife, and ultimately with theworld.We present them here, mostly as he had recorded them. The work is unfinished, just ashis life ended, unfinished. Little editing has been done, except occasionally where hismeaning was obscured by certain affectations of style which only his closest family and Icould decipher, or where the true name of another living person might be embarrassing tothem or their family. And while it appears that he never intended them for publication,he organized his recollections and insights into "chapters" which flow back and forthacross the fifty-six years of his life. We have preserved these "chapters" as his daughter found them, even to the numbering scheme.Finally, a personal note. I knew Daniel only professionally. Our friendship was based onwhat he referred to as "the doctrine of mutual usefulness", a phrase he attributed to hisspiritual leader. He and I had been working on a college textbook for Wiley Brothers, heas author and I as editor. But in all aspects of his public life, he made himself accessibleto others. Honest and real. And that was the Daniel that I had come to know and respect.So when his daughter brought me these papers and asked my advice on how they should be disposed, I found them a door to an inner man whose unusual depth I had appreciated but not really understood.Some things shocked me. I had not suspected them. Many things amused me. He wascapable of intimately funny insights and self-disclosure. But mostly these writings mademe appreciate my own life, my own struggles, losses and triumphs. I hope that when Iam 56 I have a similar enthusiasm and passion for life. So I urged her to let me share
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