A Profile of Quiet Courage
Hope is found in everyday heroes
Friends, it’s been a strange and difficult few weeks. My father passed on November 29, a man I am deeply fortunate to say was my personal hero. All my life he set an example of working for the greater good, perseverance and selflessness that would make the world a better place if more people lived with his integrity. I haven’t processed the grief yet — my mother is the priority — but know the pain I will feel is commensurate to the love I have for this man.
Therefore, I haven’t published since November 25, unusual because four times a month is my goal, with more occasionally when I can. Incredibly, the last article I published, Finding Truth in Dystopia, quickly became my most read article ever and garnered well over 200 new subscriptions in my absence as I dealt with this crisis. I am deeply gratified by your response, and hope my words continue to find a wider audience as some of the most unenlightened people to ever walk the planet grab control of the US government in just weeks.
When I started this project over three years ago, it was to learn and communicate about climate change, a present and existential threat to human life on Earth and the lifeforms we see and admire as well as the ones hidden to us or not pleasing to the eye. All evolved exceedingly slowly compared to our limited perception of time, and we have exceeded the planet’s limits. Overshoot, which I wrote about here, is real and dire, and climate change is just one piece of a wider set of interrelated problems that humankind must address if we are to avoid extinction. We are promised technology will save us — a delusional idea at best — and possibly a malevolent one at worst. We would be far better off if we had not discovered fossil fuels, as we have proven far too immature and primitive to use them wisely to build a future. Rather, we have used them to consume indiscriminately and destroy each other and the very health of a functional planet, whose slow workings represent a wisdom we fail to grasp.
My father was neither rich nor famous, just an ethical man who believed in the power of education and lived selflessly. He was an everyday hero, and that’s what we all must become at this moment, because from genocide in Gaza to the climate change deniers about to seize Washington, bad people are leading us to oblivion. They intend to dismantle social welfare programs including Medicare and Social Security to fund tax cuts for the one percent (yet again), control women’s bodies, persecute the LGBQT community, and ram their narrow religious views down our throats, which they exercise with the greatest of hypocrisy. There is nothing Christian about a fascist Christian. This is the kind of righteousness that leads to exterminations. They intend to dismantle every environmental protection ever won, and green light corporations to finish the planet. We have been and will be evermore abandoned. This is a fight or die moment. As so often demonstrated historically, we peasants must rise up.
My father’s was an everyday hero. We all must be such now, fearless and fighters. This is why it’s appropriate to share my words for him, with you.
The words for my father’s memorial
My father’s story can’t be summarized in the few words I am about to speak, but perhaps they will give you, his friends, a few new insights into why he was the beautiful man, we knew.
Like all of us, my father was shaped by his upbringing, in his case and my mother’s families struggling to recover from post depression era America. He was born in 1937, the second of five children and started working at just age twelve, his first job as a pinsetter in a bowling alley.
His father, Elmer, was a quiet man who worked tough jobs all his life, his wife, Lois, often working alongside him. For a while, they owned a service station; however, an employee my grandfather grew to trust without reservation came in the middle of the night and stole the cash and every tool and piece of equipment in the garage, never to be caught, destroying the business. My grandparents’ poverty at that time was such that in at least one frigid Indiana winter, their “car” consisted of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with a sidecar.
A few decades ago, I also had a motorcycle, and decided to take a long trip. I crossed the state of New York starting in Albany and rode to my parent’s house, then in Grand Rapids, Michigan. From there I went south into Indiana, the state where I was born, but lived only briefly as an infant, to visit my last remaining grandparent, Elmer. Together we combed through old photo albums, generations of curling cornered moments caught in sepia aged black and white snapshots, lives lived and likely forgotten with the passing of friends, children and grandchildren across time. I have often found such albums in antique shops and wondered who would buy the memories of ghosts they never knew? I have felt the fleetingness of life in those moments, and understood the humility with which we should live.
What struck me as we thumbed through these albums wasn’t the pictures, though, it was the yellowed clippings from the Fort Wayne Sentinel newspaper. Every one of those kids, my aunts and uncles, my father, were featured in the paper repeatedly for scholastic achievements and participation in school clubs. The poverty they experienced didn’t stop them from growing. Something important took place in that household, spite of the hardships they endured.
My father’s dream was to be an artist and a teacher. I don’t know where his love and talent for art came from, but do know it was passed on to me, and my daughter, Claire. He knew his family couldn’t afford to send him to college, so his bowling pin money became the start of saving for higher education, and a keen sense of responsibility. Although my mother’s financial circumstances were somewhat better, her parents didn’t own a home until they were in their 40s. Both grew up with a strong sense of right and wrong, strong work ethics, and the wisdom of self-sacrifice to achieve goals together, and lift others. They knew each other from age 14, were dating by 19, and married in 1956.
Dad’s dream was long deferred. Wanting to paint and teach gave way to the reality of a world that often demands dealing with bullies and liars. Coming to Chagrin Falls thanks to the recommendation of good friends was perhaps the best decision they could make in retirement. This beautiful community has embraced them both and given them fulfilling lives here. I thank all of you for being part of that.
After decades of being pushed up the administrative ladder by circumstances created by people with low standards, my father and mother landed in this close community that has given them rest and reward after paying a high price for having unshakeable integrity. Time after time, my father wouldn’t sacrifice what he believed to be most important as an educator, the welfare of the students, and the job security of the brightest and most energetic of the faculty whose positions were often in jeopardy for possessing those essential qualities.
My father never strove to be an administrator, but because of so many negative experiences he became the head of a graphic design programs at the University of Ohio in Athens, Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, Head of Fine Arts at the University of Cincinnati, Dean of Arts and Humanities for Buffalo State College, followed by presidencies of Kendall College of Art and Design in Michigan, and Columbus College of Art and Design, once again back in Ohio, in an effort to achieve better outcomes.
Moving often demanded much of our family. Building new lives in new communities, isn’t easy, but doubtlessly the pressure was far greater on my father as the provider of our security. The work ethic and drive instilled in him from growing up in a poor household landed us on our feet every time, and along the way he paid off his parents’ property when they were in trouble, and provided a home for my mom’s mother when my deceased grandfather’s pension was running out. My father was compassionate, selfless, and protective to his core.
He gave us many gifts. For me, it was his example of courage and perseverance, and lessons of how difficult the world can be when we refuse to compromise our principles. Another great gift was his and my mother’s library, graced with many of the best writers of their generation and previous ones, important writers who have had the clarity and courage to communicate the eternal absurdity and cruelty of the human condition. From the earnest observations of John Steinbeck to the absurd irony of Kurt Vonnegut, I was given an education that in many ways surpassed my formal one. It’s only from experiencing struggle and pain, or at least recognizing the struggles of others, that we can achieve wisdom and compassion, essential qualities seemingly in retreat in the world today.
At one school that he was hired, he chose to invest in an inexplicably non-existent and badly needed computer lab for the students, 30 years behind the times, and a huge raise for the janitor who needed three jobs to get by. Need I tell you the latter decision wasn’t popular with the wealthy board of directors? That was my dad. He was about doing right by others in the face of risk.
These words have been serious so far. Let me lighten up. Remembering my father should bring joy, not just tears. His time here made the world a better place, and that’s cause for celebration. Also, as his kid, I have some grudges to get off my chest!
My father taught me to play chess, starting at age six. For the next six long years, he beat me every time. He spiked my king and danced around. He stomped on my pawns. Okay, I may be embellishing. At age twelve, I finally beat him and chose to retire from competition as champion. To this day on the rare occasions I play chess, if I’m losing I get shaky from adrenaline. Surely, this is a lingering sign of sadistic parenting.
Another thing. We often played Monopoly. Not my mother. Smarter than the rest of us, she sensibly disliked this incredibly annoying game. Rather, the games featured me, my father, sister, and whatever unfortunate cousin was on hand for his diabolic scheming which always ended the same; selling all of his properties to my sister for one dollar when he was losing so she could kick my butt, another scarring experience I carry to this day.
Another thing. Ah, how we children remember every parental misstep. Rest assured, yours remember, too. Always working, dad did freelance illustrations for a graphic design company on the side in Peoria, Illinois for many, many years. At about the age of twelve, he began having me ink the illustrations for him. I thought this was an honor. I believe he paid me a nickel for each completed illustration. In hindsight, I have little doubt this was retaliation for toppling him at chess. I’m pretty sure this was in violation of minimum wage standards at the time and child labor laws. Nice dad.
Last, most embarrassingly, when I became curious about alcohol, I chugged a coffee mug full of vodka one night. That was really bright of me. Maybe the apple falls far from the tree after all. I wanted to know what it was all about, in a hurry. I got caught as I prayed to the porcelain toilet god twenty minutes later, slurring my brilliant defense horribly, and experiencing my first and possibly most brutal hangover ever. The next day, dad made me mow the lawn, a long and hilly job in the smothering summer heat of southern Ohio. Did I have it coming? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t still be talking about it if the experience wasn’t horribly scarring. Just sayin’.
As everyone here knows, my father was an extraordinary artist, but his greatest gifts as far as I’m concerned were his selflessness, courage and constant effort to improve opportunities for the people around him. He understood that only by giving can you receive. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been blessed to have this special man as my father. I think all of you felt his inherent goodness, and am thrilled you are here to honor and celebrate his life in this community art center that became so integral to realizing his artistic ambition, getting back to teaching, and enjoying happiness in the third act of his life. Thank you for being part of this day, and his joy. I invite any of you who wish to share memories, to speak them here now.
What a beautiful tribute to your father. It is wonderful when family members cherish each other, and it sounds like there was much to cherish. My condolences.
Thank you, Mary. I was without a doubt extremely fortunate to have such a father. The dysfunction of children not loved properly results in tragedy for everyone, as we see at world scale. It's such an obvious problem on the surface, but seemingly without any easy remedies. So glad you get something worthwhile from my work.