YOUR SPACE: Big Dan takes big gulps of life

Meet Big Dan.

He’s a burly, balding 41-year-old with a smiley face and squinting bright-blue eyes.

He lives alone with 5,000 pens, 300 carpenter pencils, 37 tape measurers, 591 jumbo plastic soda mugs and thousands of Slurpee straws.

The colorful 64-ounce mugs line the walls of his apartment.

“This is how I decorate the house,” he says with an abundance of pride.

He wears a watch on each wrist. Rings of keys jingle from his belt. He keeps a few dozen pens in his shirt pocket at all times.

“They call me Big Dan the Pen Man,” he says. “I try to be the helpful man to everyone.”

He often sports a Junior Police sticker badge given to him by his friend, Springs police officer Tom Stevens.

Stevens told The Gazette about Big Dan, whose real name is Dan Maas.

“He’s kind of a gentle giant,” Stevens says. “In spite of his circumstances, he’s cheerful and happy in his own right. He has less advantages than the general population, but he does his best to plug along and be part of the community.”

If not for seizures and Asperger's syndrome, Big Dan might have a real badge, but not necessarily a better life.

“When he’s in a good mood, he’s a walking party,” says his mom, Linda Maas.

His quirks are part of his autism, she says, but he isn’t a cliché. “He’s not ‘Rain Man.’”

He meticulously keeps track of the pens he mail-orders by the dozens, numbering each pack he stores in plastic bins.

“If you take his pens away, he feels he can’t communicate. With a pen he can write. If he gets stressed he can’t talk,” his mom says.

Big Dan’s big hands produce eloquent handwriting on paper and beautiful music on his electric organ keyboard. He taught himself to play hymns, flawlessly.

Those same big hands are adept with ropes. “Ever since I was 4 years old, my dad taught me how to be a roper,” says the son of a cattleman.

Unlike his dad, Big Dan has a hard time holding a job. His niche is doing volunteer work.

He’s a homebuilder with Habitat for Humanity and a lot attendant at First Presbyterian Church. He rings a bell for Salvation Army.

“We say that he is earning his disability check by doing volunteer work and that way he is contributing to society,” his mom says.

Big Dan lends a strong hand to neighbors moving in and out. “I tell people if they need my help, let me know,” he says.

He was married for five years. “I miss having a wife,” he says, “but I think I’m better off single.”

That’s where the soda-filled mugs come in. “That’s how I tell girls I stay so sweet,” he says.

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