Stuart Daw: Individualist, Objectivist, Friend

When I set fingers to keyboard last night, my intent was to sculpt a blazing editorial against the erosion of individual liberty, the lack of initiative so many of us demonstrate in protecting it, and the sorry belief that tolerating the intolerable is a virtue (thank you, Bob McCann).

We’re celebrating Independence Day under the heaviest yoke our government can devise, and our leaders are getting more creative by the day.

I planned to write about the effect that Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged had on my life, and to give a nod to my long-ago friend Terry Bass, now a networking guru in Chicago, who suggested I read it when I was in high school.

I had my copies of Atlas Shrugged, We the Living, The Fountainhead, and Anthem all turned to appropriate pages of reference, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal standing by for good measure.

Before I got started, I wanted to reach out to a fellow Objectivist, Stuart Daw, a man who came here from Canada, ran a successful international business, and helped further the cause of liberty by chairing the Tampa Bay (FL) Objectivists many years ago.

Stuart was always up for a chat about individual liberty, how to diligently protect it, and what it means to live free in an increasingly collectivist world.

Work and life changes pulled me away from the Tampa Bay Objectivists, but every so often I’d need a hit of reason, and I’d always turn to Stuart for a quick “fix.”

I called him a couple of years ago. One of those sudden bursts of curiosity about a friend I hadn’t seen in at least a decade. We thought it was about time to revive the Tampa Bay Objectivists. Stuart came to a storytelling program I was hosting and we stayed afterward to brainstorm our strategy.

We talked and traded e-mails for a week or two, but somehow never scheduled a first meeting. Again, we fell out of touch.

Till last night, when my fingers itched to type one of Stuart’s pithy comments in defiant defense of the ideals that gave birth to this nation. I climbed online to find my old friend and discovered that he hadn’t responded to my “friend request” on Facebook from a couple of months ago.

“Still busy,” I thought.

I looked at the clock. It was too late to call, so I decided to see if Stuart still wrote his blog. Couldn’t remember the name of it, so hit a search engine and was instantly rewarded with the link to “Individuals for Freedom.”

But wait.

Two entries down was a link to a news report: February 12, 2010. “Industry Loses Coffee Service Pioneer Stuart Daw.”

“No,” I thought. “That can’t be.”

But it is. My occasional friend Stuart, a man who was a steadfast beacon of reason in an ever-darkening world, had moved forever beyond reach.

Stuart won’t see our nation’s current crisis play out, but his legacy in support of liberty will continue, “in the name of the best within us.”

Rest in peace, Stuart.