I did not know Dan.  I was helping clean out my grandmas apartment. (She’s 86 and can’t live on her own anymore) and I found a small little photo album with a collection of clippings from the San Bernardino Newspaper of stories from “Dan’s slice of wry”.  I don’t know who kept these. I think it was my grandpa papa gee who died years ago and was from Indiana. 

Nonetheless whoever in my family that kept these clippings  had a closeness to Dan and his writings. 

The Sun published a news obit about Danny.
https://www.sbsun.com/?s=dan+hendricks&orderby=date&order=desc

Dan lived in his late mothers mobile home right across the street from me I liked him a lot he was always friendly and very kind especially when my husband passed away! He is missed!

What a great guy he was. I was so sorry to hear he'd died and pray for strength and peace for his family and many friends. 

My favorite memory of Dan was from 1982. I'd just started working at The Sun and I was a newlywed. While chatting about men's clothes, I complained about one of my husband's suits to Dan and Doris, my fellow news assistants, because the suit was a very light tan, almost white, and seemed out of style and I couldn't convince my husband to stop wearing it. A few weeks later, Dwight came into the newsroom to see me for some reason and he was wearing the suit I hated. Danny saw him from across the room and exclaimed -- fairly loudly -- "Look, Cindy! It's the Good Humor man!"

Dan and I were best of friends from the day he started working at The Sun. I came over from Inland Printing and Engraving about the time he became an apprentice so we learned the trade together. 
He loved playing pranks on his fellow workers. One of his favorites was taking the hand ink roller from the proof press and putting a thin layer of black ink on the black phone earpiece and laying it down on a table and telling someone they had a phone call. The poor unsuspecting slob would put the phone to his ear and when he discovered nothing but a dial tone, he would hang up and return to work with a black ear.
Dan was in his glory the night he pulled this trick on one guy named Steve who couldn’t hear anybody on the other end of the call so he moved the earpiece from his left ear to his right, leaving him with two black ears. 
He also loved to smear black ink on the back of locks on the employee lockers so after the unsuspecting guy had scrubbed his hands clean and went to open his locker, he would wind up with inky hands all over again. He also loved doing this to employee's car door handles.
I think Dan moved to the editorial department when they phased out hot type because he feared for his well-being after all of the pranks.
Dan and I were roommates for almost ten years and we joked that we lived together longer than we did with our wives.
He also loved lame jokes and we would go to a bar on our day off whenever he had a groaner and tell it to Bill the bartender who was king of the groaners. They had a competition.
Dan suggested I come to the retirement mobile home park where he lived when I retired to look into buying a home. I visited the park, fell in love with the area and bought a home there.
I will miss him as well as the many friends he made here at the park will.
If there is a life after this one, have a good one, Dan.
--- 30 ---


It’s impossible to think of Dan without smiling. What a gift.

So sorry to hear the passing of Danny. We worked together for 6 1/2 years at The Sun, and in that time, I never knew Dan to have a bad day. Always friendly, always kind. Just a real good man to have as a friend. All the best to his family and I'm left with nothing but good memories of a kind, warm-hearted and talented human being. RIP my friend.

I worked with Dan for over 36 years at The Sun. When we were both apprentice printers we were always pulling practical jokes on each other.   One day he was attaching a sign to the front of my car when two women were
walking down the sidewalk and they asked him what he was doing. He told them it was just a joke on a guy he worked with. He asked them why they were asking and one of them said because that is my son’s car. So to get back at Dan I put marbles inside of of his hubcaps so he thought a wheel bearing was going out and when he stopped at the corner of 4th and E street his wheel was making so much noise everyone was looking at his car as if the wheel was going to come off.  Working in the composing room was more fun than it was work. Oh how I miss those fun times. Test in peace my friend. 

My condolences to Dan's family and close friends, including his many co-workers at The Sun, whom he regarded as family. The last time I saw Dan was at Stater Bros. in East Highlands before the pandemic started. He was in some pain but like always he flashed his smile and had something funny to say. I always enjoyed being in his company at the office or at an editorial get-together. Every time I see "slice of wry" in The Sun, I think of Dan. May he rest in peace.

Yes, indeedy, Danny did yank me out of a raging river. Of course, I had to go to physical therapy for three months afterward to repair my sore shoulder, but he did rescue me. I remember many fun Sun parties in his backyard and rides on Rosemary’s boat. Mostly, though, I remember watching his back from where I sat in my cubbyhole at the Sun. His whole body would bounce as he talked on the phone and laughed or shared a Dannyism with a co-worker. Then, he’d spin around on his chair and share a joke with the cubby mates.  Good times. Once, someone had sent the newsroom a bustier (I think that’s what it was) with fake boobs. Danny put it on and paraded around. Alas, the photogs were all out. Danny was a generous soul, who would help with odious tasks like moving, kind, and a lover of all things hilarious. I agree with a previous writer that he is now flitting around, causing all kinds of havoc, in angel land.

When I started at the Sun-Telegram in 1976, Danny had already been there 12 years, and was on the road to finishing a legendry 44-year career. He was a survivor. He wasn't a quitter. No sir. He outlasted 4 owners, 7 publishers and 10 editors. Early on I was told that if I wanted to know how things worked at the paper, that Danny was the go-to-guy. They said that he knew where the skeletons were buried because he had helped bury some of them. He mentored me. He showed me the ropes. He had a good handle on office politics. He told me who was in charge and who thought they were in charge. He introduced me to all of the single women, at least those he didn't have his eye on.
   Danny and I bonded because we were both Army veterans who were drafted about the same time. We had lots of good times. But to maintain our friendship, we had a rule that we wouldn't discuss politics, because he was a conservative and I'm a liberal.
   He loved the outdoors, especially the Colorado River. He organized houseboat river outings with coworkers. He wore a captain's hat and wouldn't let anyone else touch the wheel. But he proved his nautical skills every time as he always easily maneuvered the big boat up and down the river and safely back to the dock. 
    I went to visit Danny on the day before he died, but they wouldn't let me see him at the skilled nursing home in Loma Linda due to Covid-19 restrictions. So I left a message at the front desk for him to call me, and he called right away. He was coherent and he knew where he was. When he asked me to come get him and take him home, I felt terrible when I had to tell him I couldn't.
   Because of the backlog of burials due to Covid-19, he's on ice at the mortuary. But you know Danny, he would find some humor in the situation. I know that he would say that it's better to be in a cold place above ground than in that hot place below.
  Rest in peace, Big Guy.

Danny and I shared many good times after we met at the San Bernardino Sun. We hiked to the San Bernardino Mountains several times to see the quaking aspens and then enjoyed ham sandwiches that I made. Danny said they were the best. :) We took Island Packers Cruises out to Santa Cruz Island, went on trips in Rosemary's boat, and attended a wedding in San Diego on a military base. He also saved Margo Wilson from a raging stream during one of our hikes. What a hero! I am enclosing a photo of Dan and I,  along with Margo, and her late husband Mike.  I will never forget Danny. RIP.   My condolences to his family. Carla Wheeler 

Like others, I remember Danny as a fun loving guy. He was a lot of fun to be around. I also remember a long hike with our kids and Danny in the local mountains. Our boys were pretty exhausted by the time it was done, but we all had a good time. I just remember I had to carry one of our two boys by the time we were finishing. So I was pretty worn out too. Danny will be missed. He was always a fun presence in the Sun’s newsroom.

One of my favorite memories of Dan was in 1981 when I was a copy editor at The Sun. I had a photo of my then-fiance  on my desk, shot when we were on vacation at Morro Bay. When I returned to work after my honeymoon there was a photo of a man in the same gold windbreaker in front of a giant rock, striking the same pose. But it was Dan, not my husband. I noticed right away. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to replicate the photo. Of course I was not amused, at least not until I got the original back. The editor at the time, Wayne Sargent , was laughing because he'd won the pool Dan started based on how long it would take for me to notice the switch.  It was a minute, but the memory has stuck with me for 40 years. Dan will be missed.

"Danny was a fun guy -- everybody enjoyed being around him and had a great time with him. He was also a funny guy -- hilarious because of the jokes he told and the things he did. Life around him was never boring. Danny was a good time waiting to happen."
Rosemary McClure, friend and former Sun co-worker 

To Danny's family: I am so sorry for your loss of Danny. He was such a character: annoying, irritating, but lovable. There will never be anyone quite like him. I know he will be greatly missed by everyone who knew him, but he will always be in our hearts and in our memories. And speaking of memories, I could write volumns! I pray that God will send a  host of angels to surround you with comfort, love and peace of mind knowing that he is causing chaos and driving the angels nuts. God Bless  you all.

With Love,
Doris 

Having known Danny for 46 years (gosh! I can't believe it's been that many years!), it's hard to know which memory to share since  I have an abundance of them. One that irritated my kids to no end was when I came home and the kids came running up to me yelling, "Mom, Mom! We won the Publishers' Clearing House contest," handed me their lists of all the things they wanted me to buy for them and said, "Listen to the message on the answer machine." So  I pushed the button and listened and then had to announce: "That's not Ed McMahon, that's Dan." You can imagine how upset those kids were, but for me it was just another day in the life of knowing Danny. He drove me nuts, irritated me to no end, but I loved him like a brother. We could fight like siblings, too. I can't believe he's gone, but I knew something was not right when he didn't answer or return phone calls, voicemail, text messages and emails. I have already had a sign from him that his sarcastic spirit is still hanging around. He used to love to see me cry at sad movies and one of the ones he tortured me with was "Where the Red Fern Grows." So, what did I find at the store the other day? Yep! I know Danny put it there just so I could get that lump in my throat one more time. Of course I bought it and will be watching it.  

OBITUARY

Daniel Ray Hendricks

October 9, 1943 – February 2, 2021

Montecito Memorial Park and Mortuary

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