ENFIELD, Conn. (WWLP) – Family and friends will gather Wednesday to say their final goodbyes to the postal truck driver from Enfield who was killed in last week’s crash in Longmeadow.
Daniel Nacin was killed when a pickup truck collided head-on with his postal truck in Longmeadow at the end of a police pursuit that began in Connecticut.
Nacin was 59-years-old and had been working for the postal service for 40 years. WWLP
Alex Nacin and I lost our dad this week. He was killed in a horrible, senseless car accident, hit by a suspected drunk driver while just trying to do his job, delivering the mail in Enfield, Connecticut. He was 59, far too young.
Dan Nacin was a letter carrier, following in the footsteps of his late father. He worked for USPS for 40 years, starting weeks before his 19th birthday, in Queens, where he grew up. Just last week, he received a certificate to celebrate his four decades of federal service.
Our dad and stepmom Tina Quarequio recently started to plot his retirement, probably for a year or two from now. My aunt and uncle are postal workers too. It’s kinda the family business. It never occurred to me that any of them would fail to come home one day.
He was a selfless public servant, union officer, huge New York sports fan, coach, longtime Deadhead, a loving husband, and an exceptionally proud father. He taught me so much, and I had so much more to learn from him. He instilled in me a sense of duty, a curiosity for the world around me, my sense of humor, a love of seafood, and a weird ability to remember numbers and exact dates of past events but never where I put my keys.
He was always full of energy, had this infectious laugh everyone knew, and made friends with everyone he met. Those friends have all come out of the woodwork these last few days. The outpouring of support so far has been amazing.
Dad once saw me give a conference talk. In what will be no surprise to anyone who knew him, not only did he make fast friends with my friends, he then proceeded to enlist them in gently ribbing and heckling me from the front row.
It was a running gag. As a teen, when I’d be umpiring baseball or refereeing hockey games, my dad would recruit coaches, parents, and scorekeepers to whisper an in-joke in my ear, between innings or even during play, just to get me to crack a smile.
It wasn’t unusual for people in town to see his postal truck parked at the local rink on a cold Saturday afternoon, my dad inside catching one of his sons on the ice. The postal truck he died in.
He coached hundreds of our teammates across dozens of our baseball and hockey teams. He was almost always an assistant coach; he joked he never wanted to need to deal with the politics. He just wanted to work with the kids. He was so incredible with kids of all ages. In recent years, I was looking forward to seeing him as a phenomenal grandfather one day, and spending more time with him again. I’m crushed that’s been taken away.
Our hometown friends are devastated. Many knew our dad since they were little, first as Coach Dan, later jokingly as Big Nacin (as my brother was Little Nacin). He kept up with our friends, sometimes closer than we would.
It’s perhaps fitting that some of my dad’s final text messages with me were play-by-play, not because his beloved Yankees were playing, but because one of our childhood friends was pitching against them.
I hope to keep telling his story far and wide. For now, I’ll just say we’re heartbroken, in shock, and struggling to find the right words. I love you, dad. ?
There will be a wake on Wednesday, August 28, from 4–8 p.m., and services on Thursday, August 29, at 11 a.m., both at the Leete-Stevens Enfield Funeral Home, 61 South Road, in Enfield, Connecticut. https://memorials.leetestevens.com/daniel-nacin/3955268/
My dad would want you to donate to your local hospice or to the Postal Employees Relief Fund (http://postalrelief.com) in his memory. He’d also ask if you’ve ever signed up to be an organ donor, or if you were a regular blood donor. He donated his AB+ plasma as often as he could.