Hero Would Have Loved His Parade

The Fourth of July was going to be Curtis Hadyen’s day.

As a volunteer crossing guard at the local elementary school and Santa Claus during the Christmas season, Hadyen had won the hearts of this rustic canyon community and was being honored as grand marshal of the annual Independence Day parade.

But one day before his big day, the retired merchant marine died suddenly of an apparent heart attack--stricken as he rode his motorcycle to Emory’s Community Store for a cup of coffee.

But the love the community felt for him was evident Wednesday as residents dedicated the parade to his memory.

“We could not even think about replacing him,” said Christine Baker, who has organized the parade for the past 10 years. After handing out awards to parade participants, Baker invited hundreds of teary-eyed observers to join her in remembering the community hero.

Posters bearing the message, “In Memory of Curt Hadyen, Our Grand Marshal,” were attached to a gleaming red Chevrolet truck in which Hadyen was to have ridden. Instead, the truck was filled with children and decorated with American flags.

“He just loved children,” said Peter James, who along with Hadyen was a member of the “Chicken Lips Coffee Club,” a group of men who gather at Emory’s each morning at 6:30 to drink coffee and shoot the breeze. “Part of the canyon is gone.”

The area where Hadyen, 62, normally sat in the store was roped off with a banner and filled with several of his personal effects, including his coffee mug, the crossing sign he used to signal motorists and a picture of him in his Santa Claus suit.

Store owner Gary Emory said Hadyen, who loved to watch auto racing, ride motorcycles and have coffee with his friends, was loved by everyone in the canyon. Hadyen owned 13 motorcycles at one time.

“He’s the local hero,” Emory said. “He was here every morning at 6:30. He said jokingly last week that ‘one of these days I’m just going to get sick and die.’ ”

Roger Bloxham, a marine consultant who had known Hadyen since 1953, called him a “marvelous man. He would (work in a) pit for me while I was racing. He never raced himself. He liked pits and loved to go out to the races. When he turned 62, that supplied him with (Social Security) so he could play with his toys and spend the time that was important to him with the children.”

Hadyen had just left his house early Tuesday morning when he collapsed on his motorcycle, said longtime friend Robert Williams, also a resident of the canyon in South Orange County.

“I think the heat may have gotten to him,” Williams said.

Born Nov. 1, 1927, in Columbia, Mo., Hadyen joined the merchant marine at 16 by lying about his age, his friends said.

“He was in the merchant marine on and off for about 30 years,” younger brother Marvin Hadyen said in a telephone interview from his home in Missouri.

Friends say Hadyen had lived on and off in Trabuco Canyon since he bought his home there in 1969. Never married, Hadyen also worked as a part-time salesman at a Long Beach sporting goods store for several years. He volunteered as a crossing guard five years ago when the county failed to fund the position for Trabuco Elementary School.

He quickly became a fixture across the street from the school, a jolly, rotund man always ready with a quick smile and wave for those passing by.

“We’re going to miss him,” said Kathy O’Brien, a canyon resident for the last four years. “There’s not enough good people like him in the world. He knew all the children by name. It wasn’t just a job to him, he was involved in their daily lives.”

When a crossing guard was hired this year, pupils at the school presented Hadyen with a scrapbook filled with hundreds of drawings and a huge banner bearing signatures and brief messages from the children. One tribute from a young girl said: “For a great crossing guard. Sorry you don’t get paid.”

Nicknamed “Grizzly,” Hadyen was perfectly bald and had a white beard, giving him the appearance of being the Santa Claus that several Trabuco Canyon children knew him as.

“He was our Santa Claus 365 days a year,” said Flossie Weber, a member of the local women’s club. “He’s going to be really, really missed.”

Funeral arrangements were incomplete late Wednesday, although his brother said he plans to have Hadyen’s remains cremated and flown back to Missouri.