My Father's Eulogy

Here is the eulogy I gave at my father's funeral in January 2020.

People don't remember facts, they remember stories. So I think the best way to remember my father, is to repeat some stories he told me, and to tell some stories about him, because they reveal what kind of person he was.

Story 1

Growing up during the depression wasn't easy. My father's childhood home, which is still standing and not far from here, had a coal-burning furnace, and my dad told me he would walk along the railroad tracks and look for bits of coal that fell off the trains because it meant free heat.

Story 2

One of his favorite money-saving meals was lard sandwiches. Spread some leftover lard on two slices of bread, sprinkle a little sugar on top, and call it a meal.

Story 3

When my dad was young, he had a dog. He told me a story about how one morning it ate his bacon and eggs, drank his tea, and chewed all the butter out of his toast, spitting the bread back onto the plate.

Story 4

When my dad was 18, he joined the army, during the Korean war. He was an anti-aircraft gunner, and learned how to maintain and repair RADAR systems. That was a new-fangled technology back then, so the army wouldn't send him to Korea. The Army stationed him in the UP at Sault St. Marie. He told me he felt really guilty about it - that other people were getting shot at while he was safe here in the U.S.

Story 5

One night, while stationed at Sault St Marie in the winter, he watched "The Thing From Another World" a movie which John Carpenter later re-made as "The Thing". For those who don't know, the story is about a group of soldiers and scientists at remote research station in Alaska being stalked by an alien monster. During the whole movie, the base is dimly lit, and you can hear the hum of the power generator in the background the whole time. After the movie ended, he had to stand guard outside all night, in the snow, listening to the hum of the base's power generator. He told me he spent the entire night jumping at shadows.

Story 6

My father loved classical music, especially late 19th and early 20th century composers like Grieg, Holst, Ravel, and Debussy. He told me a story about how a crate of his favorite classical music albums went missing, only to discover that his teenage nephew Skip had taken them, and a shotgun, and gone skeet shooting. My father forgave him.

Story 7

He also enjoyed the popular music he grew up with. Big band music like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman, and Crooners like Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. I remember that on Christmas Day, in 1995, I was at home watching TV, and learned that Dean Martin had died. Then my dad, who had just woken up, walked into the room and said "I usually don't remember my dreams, but I dreamed that Dean Martin was singing 'Memories Are Made of This', and it was a version that I had never heard before." Maybe he heard the TV in his sleep and dreamed about it, I don't know.

Story 8

After the Army, he used the GI bill to get a degree in electrical engineering from Lawrence Tech. His first job after completing college was with Chrysler, but not making cars. Chrysler had landed a contract to work with former Nazi scientists and build the Redstone, the first nuclear missile, in a top secret project known as Operation Paperclip. My father was the technical writer on the team and wrote the operations and maintenance manuals for them. When I asked my father if he worked with Werner Von Braun, inventor of the V2 rocket, he said "Yeah, but mostly with his brother Magnus." When I reminded him that a modified version of the Redstone was used for the Mercury program, and that he was indirectly involved in the U.S. Space program, he grumpily replied "I wasn't a rocket scientist, I just wrote the instruction manuals!"

Story 9

My dad felt awkward in social settings, and to help overcome that he took public speaking classes, read a lot of self-help books, and practiced making himself look ridiculous in public so he wouldn't feel embarrassed. When I was cleaning out his papers, I discovered that he had hand-written a draft of a self help book he titled "The Inner Island". Some time in the near future I'm going to read it, and if it's any good, I'm going to type it up, and least post it online. I've had a few books published and nominated for awards in the hobby game industry, and although my dad never really understood what I was doing, I knew he was proud of me for doing it.

Story 10

For a few years after my father retired from General Motors, he and my mother went to Burger King, every morning to get coffee. Every morning they would see a much older man there in a torn-up light-weight jacket, eating a sandwich and drinking coffee, even in the middle of winter. One day they approached him and asked "Why are you wearing a ripped up coat? Do you not have the money to replace it?" The man said "I could, and I probably should, but I don't have a lot of money, and I'd rather spend it to come here and eat breakfast every day. It keeps me active and gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning." So my father took off his own coat, and gave it to the man, and he said "Then you keep spending your money on breakfast."

Because that's the kind of person he was, and I'm going to miss him.

His Favorite Classical Music

• Camille Saint-Saëns
• Claude Debussy
• Eduard Strauss
• Edvard Grieg
• Gustav Mahler
• Gustav Holst
• Igor Stravinsky
• Jean Sibelius
• Maurice Ravel
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
• Richard Strauss