Thank you all for coming today to celebrate my Dad. I wanted to take just a few minutes to talk about my Dad and share with you some of our thoughts and memories about him. Many of you knew my Dad. Some better than others. Some of you knew him as an acquaintance, or a good friend. Some as a brother, or brother in-law, some as an uncle, and of course a loving husband. My brothers and I knew my dad simply as Dad.
There are many words you could use to describe my dad. All of them true. He was a very generous person. He was a loving father and husband and a provider for his family. He was smart, hard working, gentle, and creative too. My Dad was all of these things and I am thankful to have such a great role model to guide me in my life.
There was one particular quality of my dad that I always admired. I remember my friends in high school used this word to describe him. They always said, "your dad is so cool." Now I don't think they meant Fonzi cool or Miles Davis cool. They meant cool headed. And they were right. I have numerous stories of my dad keeping his cool. I'd like share just a couple right now.
My earliest memory involves spending time in the basement with my dad, with a nail and an electrical socket. I was about 3 at the time and was doing what 3 year old little boys like to do. I shoved a nail into the socket and it got stuck. As I tried to get it out, I suddenly got a huge jolt and flew backwards across the floor. Dad rushed over to see what happened. He quietly examined me and could see that I was basically ok. Then he wanted to know exactly how I was sitting when it happened and did I have my opposite hand on the floor. I was ok so there was no need to panic. He remained calm and started his root cause analysis.
Later, in high school, I was on a weekend beach trip with a few friends. We were staying with various friends but on our last night, we did not have a place to stay so we slept in the car. After about 2 hours of sleep, we awoke and although the car belonged to the father of a friend, I was behind the wheel so I drove. As we made our way back home, my fellow passengers were all asleep. I guess I decided to join them and I dozed off on the highway. I slowly veered off the road before I awoke to some honking of another car. But not before I slammed into the guard rail. I had smashed up the car pretty well and my friend was not happy and almost left me on the side of the highway. We drove to the next exit and got out of the car. I called my Dad on a payphone. Remember those? I always could count on my dad in times of crisis. He was my go-to guy. I told him what I had done. I said I had done something stupid and had fallen asleep behind the wheel and smashed up my friend's car. My dad's reply was simply this. "Is everyone ok?" I told him yes, everyone is fine. Then he said, "Is the car drivable?" I told him yes. Then he said, "well, come on home then."
My dad was cooler than Miles Davis, cooler than Fonzi. He was a loving man who provided for his family and was always there for us in times of crisis, keeping his cool, solving problems.
Also, besides being cool, my Dad's generosity should not be understated. My dad was not only a provider for us, he also did things for people in need outside our family. He volunteered on several committees at church for many, many years. He taught Sunday School. He took pictures of new members at the church. I often accompanied my dad to the store to buy the poster board that he would use to create new member posters to hang on the church bulletin board. It is those little things that he was always doing behind the scenes that might go unnoticed-unrecognized. Yet he continued to do it. He liked giving his time and talent-contributing to the greater good.
I had the great fortune of working with my Dad at the Transportation Research Board at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC. We drove into upper Georgetown early in the morning. He had these great routes to get to and from to work. He taught me the way home so I could do it on my own when we had different hours. I remember he would say, "once you get here, just follow your nose." And you know what, that actually worked. Years after I had left TRB, I found myself on one of his routes and I just followed my nose and got to where I needed to be.
When I worked at TRB with my dad, we would arrive very early in the morning well before anyone else showed up. We would open up the office and the first thing by dad would do would go to the supply closet and fill up all the copiers and the 2 or 3 laser printers in the office with paper. That way no one would have to ever interrupt their work day to refill the paper. They would not have to fool with, what was then, new technology. To everyone else, it must have seemed that there was an endless supply of paper. More than likely, no one thought about it at all. No one realized that my Dad was working behind the scenes. In fact, I am willing to bet that after he retired, people were not sure what to do when the laser printer flashed LOAD LETTER on the display. I can hear a young engineer saying aloud to the office, "What does LOAD LETTER mean?" Someone would figure out that meant load paper and then they would say, "Well where to you get it." Eventually they would figure it all out but they would wonder why they never had to do that before.
As my brother Erik recalls, Dad was always working on projects in the basement, listening to classical music on his radio that he built. The radio could play two stations at once for those special simulcasts that were often broadcast back then. He fixed nearly all the household problems that would crop up. He helped us build pinewood derby cars. And he used his precise engineering brain to design and build useful things. When Erik went to college, he brought ridiculously huge speakers with him for his dorm room. Dad built him a custom set of shelves to hold his albums and act as speaker stands. For some reason they were painted bright yellow. But they worked like a charm and provided Erik and his friends the joy of rocking out.
Dad knew when to be precise and when to be less formal. I remember working on a project with my dad in the basement. I can't remember the details of what we were working on but I had gotten some experience in shop class and drafting class and wanted to help out more than simply holding the light, or holding the wire as he soldered something which are things I did for many years as a young boy. I can still picture those evenings helping him with all his projects.
For this project, I offered up my knowledge-using a square to make even cut lines on some boards. Dad said, "I think we can just eye ball it." And then he proceeded to draw a straight line on the board with no ruler. And it was straight and after the cut, it was all square. He was always doing that kind of stuff. He was quite skilled and could have been a craftsman. I remember a time when I was helping him nail some things and I bent the nails up pretty good. I pulled them out as he had taught me and was going to through them away. Well, my dad did not grow up with the luxury of disposable income. He had learned to reuse out of necessity rather than to be green for the sake of being green. He quickly took his hammer, straightened out the nails, and re-used them. I was so impressed but back then, I did not even realize how cool that was. I am sure there are not many people who would bother to do that today in our disposable economy. But my dad was resourceful in the true sense of the word.
This next story comes from my older brother Erik. My dad fell in love with soccer. We used to watch Soccer Made in Germany on PBS. My dad wrestled in high school. In Iowa non the less. I doubt they had soccer in Iowa when he grew up. But he became fascinated with the sport and was an overnight fan. Now there comes a time in many a father's life when he is called upon to coach youth sports. My dad was called upon to coach Erik's youth soccer team. So he read up on it, organized the practices, and became the coach of a team in Vienna Youth Soccer. All was going well until the first game. As Erik tells it, my dad would get so nervous watching Erik play that he could hardly bear to watch. In fact, he often could not watch and had to walk away from the field. He was so anxious about it that he LITERALLY could not watch. So coaching really did not work out for him.
But that did not stop him from making huge contributions to Vienna Youth Soccer. Like Jim Pugh before him, he volunteered countless hours as the VYS commissioner so everyone in the community could experience the joy of organized youth soccer. And he worked hard behind the scenes, in his spare time. And he did not simply do all the administrative work of which there was much. He and his very good friend Dick Lefrancious did a lot of hard work to layout and cut the fields, deliver goal posts, nets, uniforms, and field chalk. Delivering chalk had to be done very late in evening after all the teenagers had gone to bed. Otherwise they would disturb the chalk before the fields could get lined. He and Dick would make late night runs to the town yard to pick up the chalk in the soccer truck and deliver it to the fields all over town. I accompanied him on many of these trips and it was a great bonding moment for us. Also, my dad designed the VYS patch which was in use for many years. If you played VYS travel soccer in the 70s, you exchanged many of these patches with teams from all over the east coast.
My dad also knew how to have fun and he enjoyed music immensely. My brother Tom is quite musical himself as some of you know. He asked me to highlight my Dad's love of music and its influence on all of us. Tom recently recalled a story to me that my dad had told him. As I mentioned, my dad grew up poor. He and his friends would go down to the local concert hall and sit, stand, or lie down outside the venue and listen through the walls because they could not afford to go to the concerts. He learned to enjoy music any way he could get it. Later in life, when he had an established career and was a family man, my dad always made sure that we all had quality sound systems to play music on. From the early radios he built himself to Hi-Fi, to modern component stereo that he provided for each of us, my dad wanted to make sure we had a means to listen to any kind of music we wanted to listen to. Again, he was a giver and a provider. More than just food, clothing, shelter, education, and all the things a good mother and father provide, he provided us with culture as well. We heard a huge variety of music. Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennet, Bing Crosby, Glen Miller, and the list goes on and on.
And not to be outdone by the younger generations, my Dad loved Dire Straits, a rock and roll band and even went to see them in concert. In fact, there is a good story about Dire Straits music and billiards that I am sure my brother John remembers very well. John and Dad played pool almost every night after dinner. Dad of course had a special setup so he could listen to music while he played. Now believe it or not, John is a pretty darn good pool player and when he and my dad played, they would trade games of 9 ball. Sometimes John would win, sometimes Dad would win. They kept score on the chalk board hanging on the wall. Well, if you were playing my dad in pool and you wanted to win, you better not let him put Dire Straits on. Because when the song Walk of Life came on, my dad was unstoppable. Like a scene from a movie, when that song came on, Dad would dance around the table with his pool cue, saddle up to the cue ball and make shot after shot, often running the table, all the while dancing to Walk of Life. I think we will all hold that memory in our minds and hearts. It was my dad having fun, relaxed, dancing, bonding with his sons. We couldn't help but smile. Thinking about it always makes me smile.
Something else my Dad loved was photography. My dad took tons of pictures. Not just member photos. He was the master of the timed family portrait. It was the ultimate selfie really. Before that term was even created. And although he was a great photographer, he always seemed to be saying the CH in cheese when the automatic timer snapped the photo of our whole family. My dad used photography to document events. He took pictures of snow storms and workers taking down trees in the backyard. He took pictures of Craig replacing the insulation in the attic. He just loved taking pictures of anything and everything. He would attend our soccer games and try to take pictures but get too excited to snap the shudder. So then he just came to the games. Even when we became adults, he and John would come to the games. Sometimes Erik and his wife Melissa would be playing an amateur adult soccer game. The players would be there along with the ref. And two spectators. My dad and my brother John. He was always supportive of us even into his old age.
And I can't leave out another interest. Computers. My dad became fascinated with computers and made sure that we all had access to one. He provided us with the latest and greatest tools so we could learn and further our education. Although he did not really seem to trust them all that much. He was fond of printing out all his emails. He printed emails from family, friends, acquaintances, and even that guy from Africa who's holding a million dollars for him.
Dad was a hard worker. He liked raking leaves and chopping wood. Even towards the end of his life when he perhaps did not have as much strength and stability as he used to, he still helped Erik rake and bag leaves in Erik's yard. He liked to keep busy. He did not really watch TV. Growing up the only thing he watched was the occasional sporting event, All in the Family, and later in life Seinfeld. Most of his leisure time was spent either reading the paper, fixing things, working in the basement, raking leaves, chopping wood, and of course cleaning up the kitchen. He took it upon himself to make sure the table was always scrubbed clean after dinner.
My brother Erik recalled his first rock concert. Dad took us to see Kansas. As I said, he was supportive of us and that was the band we were all into at the time. Remember that this was the 70s. When the lights went down and the ubiquitous marijuana cigaret was being passed around., someone handed the joint to him. My dad was a student at Berkley in the sixties so it was probably not the first time this had happened so he knew what to do. He simply passed it over to another row, skipping over his teenage sons. He kept his cool about it of course. Thankfully for all of us, my Dad was a busy engineering student at Berkley and never fell into the counter culture. Interestingly enough, one particular phrase that came out of the counter culture was, "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem - man." As you will hear next, my dad was an activist in his own way.
Some of you may not know this but my dad gave his time and expertise to help others who were less fortunate than him. And he did this when it was not popular to do so and faced criticism for his actions. But he continued. Perhaps he remembered what it was like to grow up poor. Whatever the reason, my Dad worked hard to find shelter for poor people and helped feed and clothe them. During the Civil Rights movement of the sixites, my dad was an active participant. He did not hold picket signs and march on Washington but he did provide food and clothing for those who did march. My dad worked for CHO and Lutheran Social Services for many years. When he was delivering prepared foods in his truck to poor people, sometimes there were not enough meals to go around. Because my Dad could not turn those meals into more food like in the parable of the loaves and the fishes, he did the next best thing. He used his own money to buy McDonalds so no one would go hungry that night.
I could go on and on. I could tell you about him buying 3 identical blue Honda civics from Hokie Honda, a 1984, 85, and 86. I could tell you about the time he braved rough current in the ocean to come to the aid of my brother Erik who was struggling in the surf. I could recite all the phrases he used to say like, "This is dinner, not dinner theater." Or, "you can't get something for nothing." And one of my favorites, "I am good at math, just lousy at arithmetic."
Let me just conclude by telling you that I loved my Dad very much. It was only in later years that I learned how to tell him. I am so happy that I learned to express my love for him while he could still understand who I was and what that meant. My dad taught me so much. He taught me how to be considerate of others and about the value of hard work. He never lectured me about these things. He lead by example and I did not even know I was being shaped my him. I can honestly say that my Dad was a great man. Together, hand in hand with my Mom, he helped raise us and mold us into the people we are today. Everything that I have accomplished or that I ever WILL accomplish I do so standing on my Dad's shoulders.
We all loved you Dad. May you rest in peace.
