January 2017: Acts of Kindness featuring Tom Ryan
Remembering Professor Dan Regan – “MANOA ROAD MEMORIES”
Six Villanova University, Class of ‘71 roommates made donations to BWSF in Dan's memory to the Blue White Scholarship Foundation. Tom Ryan ’71 put together their memories of Dan as his next-door neighbors and Villanova graduates in 1971. Here is their story:
Eight of us were roommates in a house on Manoa Road in Havertown, right next door to Dan and Dottie Regan's house. Six of us, and our spouses, are still in contact and vacation together annually. We rented the house at the end of our Junior year so we were basically occupying it from May 1970 through graduation in May, 1971.The previous owner of the house sold it to an investor whose only interest was renting it. Dan and Dot were not aware of the fact that the investor would be renting the house or that the Landlord believed, the highly fabricated statement from us, that there would only be four of us living in the house, when actually eight of us were occupants (Our names at the time were Big Rick and Little Rick, Henry, Porky, Murph and TR as well as Duff & Day Hop). Nonetheless, we moved in and had eight cars park not only on the short driveway but also scattered all over the yard. We remember that within a day or two of our settling in, as very studious Seniors, Dottie came to our yard and told us that they had four children. The kids were very young at the time and they were Paula, Danny, Matthew and Katherine (Katie). Dottie made it very clear that her children were her first priority and that she would keep an eye on all 8 of us... and our comings and goings... to make sure that we remained "good neighbors".
Over the years when we returned to Villanova we always made it a point to stop and see Dan and Dottie and we met with them several times over the past 45 years. We were saddened when Dot passed away. In fact, we were down for our 45th reunion in June, 2016 and we made it a point to again have dinner with Dan. We would meet him at his house and have a cocktail and then go out to dinner. That, in fact, was the last time that we saw Dan in June 2016. At dinner after patting ourselves on the back for our VU NCAA Victory, we chuckled at the fact that Dan had just retired and that he still had his office. He told us that he was getting a bit of pressure to clean up all his stuff and "don't let the door hit him in the rear end" on the way out; however, he did tell us that Father Peter told him to take his time and move from his office at his own pace. We also reminisced about the fall of 1970 when he came over and asked us to rake the leaves not only on our lawn (that endeavor would never have crossed our minds) but also to come over and play with the kids and rake the leaves off their lawn as well. This was kind of a "bribe" because, in return, Dottie would be very lenient about the tiny bit of noise that might possibly emanate from our Manoa Road multi-occupant house on the occasions of our numerous parties. Of course this brought up all six former occupants of Manoa Road clearly recalling our phone ringing anywhere from 1 o'clock to 2:00 AM by Mrs. Regan asking us to please ask Dan to come home. Of course, we were puzzled by this because all that we were doing (and 40+ attendees) was talking about Dan's courses in Philosophy and how that would impact our lives after we graduated and began our various careers. We do not think that Dottie, seeing several kegs of beer being brought into the house earlier that evening, had any impact on her calling and wanting her loving husband to immediately re-treat from our home to theirs. They also had an outdoor dinner bell that Dottie would ring to bring the kids in at dinner time. And, on more than one occasion, in the early morning hours as we partied, we would hear the dinner bell go off... and somehow... Dan would immediately excuse himself from our gathering. Henry and Little Rick also remembered about playing flag football with Dan and his buddies one Sunday. The hangovers we had sort of negated our age advantage. The entire Regan family was great and all six of us recall playing football and baseball with the kids, shoveling their driveway and raking the leaves in return for them permit-ting us to party (or at least... not call the cops) and we all have many very, very fond memories to this day of Dan and Dottie and their lovely 4 children.
Sincerely,
Big & Little Rick, Porky, Henry, Murph & TR
(Big Rick - Rick Perna; Little Rick - Rick Eberhardt; Porky - Ed Naughton; Henry - Hank Schoeler; Murph - Pat Murphy; TR - Tom Ryan)
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