The Three Hearts of Alan Coon
by Peter Bradford

Rhinebeck has Alan Coon to thank for restoring the extraordinary Doughboy statue to the center of town life, and for renewing the Civil War monument. The springtime flags that blossom in the cemetery to celebrate veterans are also his doing, as are the two new monuments he's planning. He's the first to say he isn't alone in his caretaking, but his motives surely set him apart.

Alan, how did all this monument stuff start anyway?

"You know, I wonder about every name I see on a war memorial. All of them, especially the ones who were killed. They all had families, they all had a life. What would they be like now? I feel . . . all kinds of emotions"

But, so much time and effort . . .

"You probably don't know this, but I've had two heart transplants."

What?

"And the town, the whole town really helped me. This is payback."

Payback? Alan, can we go back a bit?

The family Coon has been omnipresent in northern Dutchess County since 1710, first in Clermont and Elizaville, then Red Hook. Alan was born in Rhinecliff in 1946. "A war baby, I guess. After high school in Rhinebeck, I went into the service, then off to Vietnam. I came back, wangled my way into the plumber's union, which was a father-son deal, you know, and . . ."

Wait. Hold it. Vietnam?

"I was a Seabee. Naval Construction Forces. I took one of those tests in boot camp and rated pretty high in the mechanical part. I was one of the few they took. It's a very tight outfit, you know, like a union. In thirteen weeks they turned me into a plumber. I went off to Vietnam and they sent me way up north, close to North Vietnam. For a year and a half, we built base camps for the marines in three different areas. There was . . . a lot of action. In fact, we saw more combat than any Seabee battalion since World War II."

You carried a rifle.

"Yeah, oh yeah. And a shovel in the other hand."

Then you came back and wangled yourself into the plumber's union.

"Well, I liked plumbing. I like making things work. Still do today."

He gestures around us. The rooms in the Coon cottage are snug and fairly hum with good order. Alan sits at ease at the kitchen table, no hurry in him, speaking with economy, watching me through wire-rimmed glasses.

"After working eighteen years with C. B. Strain in Poughkeepsie, I got sick. I knew something was wrong before that, but in December, 1986, I went to Albany and the cardiologist there said I had congestive heart failure. I had a virus in my system, and it just destroyed my heart. I needed a transplant.

"After Albany everything really snowballed. They put me on a list and sent me to Pittsburgh, the closest place for transplants. My heart was so bad they said I couldn't go home. They did the blood and tissue work, and five days later I got lucky. Bing bang boom. I had the transplant. I woke up hooked to machines and ten million tubes stuck in me. I didn't feel all that different, and the odds were so against me surviving, I didn't have hope for quite a while. But five weeks later I walked onto a plane and came home."

"I didn't have much rejection for a while. You know, from your body fighting this constant battle against a strange thing in there. But then, after six years, the big arteries around the heart started blocking up and the heart began to die. They told me I had to have another transplant."

"Alan did not want to do it," his wife Patricia says. "Because of the financial part, the pain of it, for lots of reasons. But his doctor, Dr. Yerry, he looked Alan in the eye and said, 'What are you thinking? You have a young family you have an eight-year old daughter. You have to do this."

"I almost didn't," Alan says. "These are tough things to go through, not just physically, but emotionally and monetarily. What kept me going was my daughter, Allyson. I made a vow to myself to see her as a teenager. I owed it to Ally and my wife to try a second time."

Pat smiles. "We raise the bar on Alan all the time. Allyson is like a carrot, and we just keep moving that carrot. You've got to be here Alan, we say, to teach her to drive, to see her first boy friend, then to see her graduate. Now, it's college, then marriage, then grandchildren. Nothing's impossible."

"The second transplant was a real long shot, I knew that," Alan says. "Maybe two million to one. I went on that list again, this time in Hartford. I'm the luckiest guy on earth, I guess, because in 1993 on Memorial Day, the same day as the first transplant six years before, I'm out mowing the lawn believe it or not, and they call and say 'get to Hartford in four hours or less.' Another motorcycle accident. So, we drop everything and off we go again."

Scary.

"Oh, absolutely. The first time was bad enough, but the second time I knew exactly what I was in for. There were problems with a virus, but I gradually improved, and I've been flying pretty good ever since. Still, I have to be careful. I have to stay away from crowds and infections, but I'm sort of a stay-away person anyway. I have medication to take and I've had about eighty biopsies over the years, but so far so good."

Expensive, these operations.

"Nobody knows how tight it was. Then, the town got together on it. I went to high school with Jim Closs, he was at the First National Bank here in Rhinebeck, he started a fund for the first transplant. The fund caught on. It just caught on and everybody pitched in. Overall, I think the town raised about $40,000, so I could take those trips back and forth to Pittsburgh."

Lots of pancake breakfasts.

"Yep. And spaghetti dinners, and raffles, and everything else you can think of. It was just amazing. Actually, I felt sort of embarrassed about it."

Now you want to give something back.

"Yes, I do. I've always been a volunteer, so I volunteer."

As a navy man, didn't you hear you're not supposed to volunteer?

"Yeah, I did hear that." He laughs. "But, I'm not going to sit here at home like a vegetable. And, I enjoy it. I volunteer at the American Legion, at the VFW. I do the flags, maybe 1500 of them on Memorial Day, in all the cemeteries near here. I've been doing that with Gary Roome for thirty-five years."

The flags are one thing, but the Doughboy project . . .

"My wife, she volunteered me for that. I don't beat around the bush about that, I got pushed. It was my wife. But, she knows I like that history stuff. And, thanks to her I got to do what I thought should be done anyway. Maybe I went around the edge a little bit, but that was because of my own family history. There's been a Coon in every conflict going back to the early 1700s. I want to carry on, perpetuate what my ancestors cared about.

"Every town around here had a central place for veteran memorials and we didn't. There's a Civil War monument, but nothing for World War II, the World War I plaque was behind a door in Town Hall, and there are a few signs for the Revolutionary War in the Post Office. We had a valuable piece of sculpture, the Doughboy, but it was stuck in a corner near the firehouse. I've said for years we really should bring them all together. Isabel Coryat at Coryat Casting got it going, she came to the town and proposed restoring the statue. My wife works for the town, she said I should get involved, so I did."

So, you moved Doughboy and gave Rhinebeck a town common.

"Yes. Not that some people didn't object. It's like moving the Statue of Liberty to another island, they said. But, now that it's up off the ground, and it has the World War plaques, framed by the park, people seem to like it. Still, we aren't finished. We have the Korean and Vietnam War memorials to do. Two bronze plaques mounted on slanted stones and placed on either side of the Doughboy. Nothing too high, nothing obtrusive. Each plaque will be about the same size, so the setting will appear symmetrical. Dave Cohen at Kol-Rocklea Memorials in Red Hook can do the work, he did the plaques on the Doughboy. It will cost about $6000, but $1000 is left from donations to the World War II plaques, so we need $5000.

$5000 by when?

"Well, in the next few months. The whole thing will take time. The plans have to be approved by the Village, we have to inform everybody, and get the names of the veterans right. We collect donations, order the stones, and choose the dedication day. Veterans Day would be good, but it'll happen when it happens. Nothing is cut in stone. So to speak." He smiles.

In Alan's house, I feel a frisson of affection, a bonding of three people who have dealt together with long shot chances and know it. The faith and gratitude they feel is palpable. There are indeed three hearts in Alan Coon's life: three hearts in his past, and the trinity of hearts in his home now.

It looks like you're going to be around for a while, Alan.

He looks wistful. "Yeah, well, I don't think about that too much. As long as I can get out of bed and the sun is shining, I'll do my thing. I want to make sure the Doughboy keeps looking good, I want to get the new plaques done. Then I'll find something else to do. Those Revolutionary War names in the Post Office now, who sees them? They're not even alphabetical. . . ."