Posted by: John_Hamilton on 04/26/2013 10:09 AM
Updated by: John_Hamilton on 04/26/2013 10:10 AM
Expires: 01/01/2018 12:00 AM
:
Celebration of Life for John Laughton Dawson, April 27
Murphys, CA...John Laughton Dawson...On March 10, 1940, in Liverpool England John Laughton Dawson was born to Ivy May and Thomas John Dawson who had no idea what they had unleashed on this tiny world. No idea that this wee little one would become such a huge and wondrous personality. During the war in England. John’s father worked at the docks and a bomb hit the side of their house and detonated in the yard. When there was an air raid they would have to hide in an Air Raid Shelter in their yard and wear gas masks...
After the war, the family boarded an English freightliner for America, where they first landed in Boston on December 31, 1949 and eventually relocated to Inglewood. California in1952.
Johnny the Fonz and his pompadour graduated from Inglewood High School in 1957 and soon found himself on a blind date with an impressionable high school senior & dancer name Eileen who was thoroughly impressed with this Liverpool Lad and his surfing abilities, and of course, his taste in music! John swooned this beautiful spitfire for a couple years before they married on January 7th, 1961.
They set up their first home in Inglewood and their son John Brian Dawson was born July 17th, 1961. Unfortunately JB lost his battle with cancer last May.
John’s first job was for Sprague Engineering in Gardena where he did Quality Control.
Later he worked managing and scheduling Kelly girls which got him into a bit of hot water when he had to make an appearance at a Parent/Teacher conference to explain why little JB had told someone “my Daddy Rents Girls”.
But John continued renting girls for Kelly and then a couple other Temp agencies where he would steal girls from the competition by offering them more money so he could get the positions filled.
Then they moved to San Diego where he worked in Boat hardware. And in the 70’s they moved to Cupertino where John had to travel a lot and sold drugs for Hudson Pharmaceuticals.
In the 80’s, John’s Fireman friend Tom Marinkovich taught him to work with Redwood and that’s when John started his own business, Sow’s Ear Construction building Fences, Decks, gazebos and the like.
He retired Sow’s Ear Construction in the 1990 when they were drawn by Eileen’s brother Curly Middleton to Calaveras County. They bought the property in Murphys Pines and rented a house while they built a Barn for all John’s restoration trucks & cars, and they added a living area to the back of the barn, until they finally finished their current home on the property. If you knew John, you know that he never took himself or anyone else seriously…..and as such, he sometimes had an unusual way of developing a project,……this included the construction of their home. Apparently construction of the Master Bedroom, walls and all were built around and came some time after the toilet. But he did get it done!!
While building their home and restoring his precious cars, John worked for some of the local wineries such as Black Sheep, Stevenot, Chatom, and Beckman Vineyards, always making himself available for whatever needed to be done. This is also where his Idea for Havnoux Vineyards was developed. If you have not tried this once highly sought after product, you should see the display here while you can.
Among John’s favorite jobs was of course his position as Santa. This began in Mountain View. His friend and current Santa for the local Moose lodge came down with the flu so the Lodge offered him all the free scotch he could drink if he would do the gig. Well how could he argue with that???
At a restaurant with Dinner reservations for Claus party of two, someone from the Stanford University staff noticed him and asked him about it, and was soon very impressed with his knowledge of Santa’s world history, and from there he did a few Santa gigs as well.
Once in Murphys, with his natural Santa like beard, Marty who was the current Mrs Claus for Murphys recruited him to fill in for another local Santa who was retiring for the Murphys position. In 1992 John noticed an ad for a paying gig for Santa and Mrs. Santa in Sonora, went to Eileen and said “Why Not?” They went for an interview and got the job, and as we know, were absolutely the BEST SANTA and Mrs. Santa EVER!
Through the years John was also very involved in the National Alfa Romeo Association for whom he was the Club President for a time, and for many years wrote a column for their magazine.
John also loved to sail his 24 foot islander and 16 Foot Hobie Cat and took many, many tours and road trips in his Alfas. But his Most Inspiring passion was to Live, Love, Laugh, and to make EVERYONE
around him Laugh. You could not have a conversation with John without incurring really big smiles!!
Thank You John!
And Thank You to his Family for Sharing him!!
– Dec 14, 2012
|
