I remember when I was a kid riding in the car with Dad and he stopped to pick up a young kid hitchhiking in the rain. He told me after he drove the kid home to never pick up people hitchhiking. “But that kid looked miserable,” he added. He always had a soft spot for those less fortunate. He was the one providing compassionate care for the family pets at the end of their lives. 

He invented a game called “Get Lost” and would drive the family station wagon at night after a dinner out with the family. With Mom riding shotgun and the boys in the backseat we each delighted with our turn to tell him which turn to take in the hopes of getting us lost as we tried to find a highway or bridge to take us far from our home.

He liked smoking his pipe in his study which was filled with odd things that spurred my imagination. I remember a large poster of the Guernica painting by Picasso, another poster that said “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind what is the sign of an empty desk?“, cans of Captain Black tobacco, pipe cleaners, an assortment of pipes and all sorts of papers and a plastic purple bug that sometimes wobbled and stood on top of his desk that was called the Watergate Bug.

Every Easter he wrote a series of riddles on notecards which were clues that led to the next notecard riddle and finally to the Easter Basket. He did these for each of his 3 sons every year when we were kids.

For several years after he finished working as a professor at SMU he would do consulting work and sometimes not get home until midnight or later. His goal was to put his 3 sons through college. He paid our way through school and gave us almost anything we wanted and never complained or held that over our heads. 

I remember when I was kid he walked up the steps every night to kiss me goodnight on the forehead.

When Mom had breast cancer he made a deal with God he would never take off his wedding ring if she lived through it.

When he first bought a new car, a Honda accord, he wanted company as he drove it around and said I could listen to one of my cassette tapes in the car. I brought the Doors Greatest Hits. He liked the song Riders on the Storm which had the sound of thunder and lightning in the background. I remember him driving his new car that night and listening to that song along the tree-lined backroads from South Dartmouth to Westport.

One Christmas our next door neighbor’s the Whites got us a Pet Rock and he laughed so hard as he read the Pet Rock instructions. “Your new rock is a very sensitive pet and may be slightly traumatized by all the handling and shipping required to bring you two together…”

I remember as a small child I got so tired hiking up to Lake Blue in Colorado I ended up getting my first view of the lake riding on my Dad’s shoulders. 

I had every chance to see and do whatever I wanted but I knew I was welcome to return home whenever I wanted.

Looking back on it I think his life as a father to me – all that he gave and provided – was the greatest gift anyone could hope to receive.

Love and miss you Dad.

See ya 

Dan