Eulogy for Dad

Here We Are

I want to give you my impression of my father’s life.  As I wrote this, I found myself organizing my thoughts the way I’d write a scientific talk:

·      give the conclusion
·      give the evidence and interpretations,
·      give the conclusion again.

So bear with me, here goes. 

I am who I am because of my father.  He raised me.  He supported me.  And in the last phase of his life, we became true friends.  He loved me, I loved him.

I want to talk briefly about the events, phases, and meaning of Dad’s life.  I promise not to go on too long.

Events

My father lived from 1929 to 2025.  Think for a minute about some of the events he experienced:

·      Great Depression + New Deal
·      World War II + start of the Cold War
·      Rise of the American military/industrial/academic complex
·      The age of American’s abundance and wealth
·      End of European colonialism, more or less
·      Korean War and the threat of nuclear weapons
·      Civi Rights Movement + Vietnam War
·      Reaganomics + AIDS Epidemic
·      Neoliberalism and the rise of late-stage capitalism
·      The Internet and personal computing
·      Gulf Wars I and II
·      COVID + Black Lives Matter
·      Whatever the hell the present moment is

Wow, That’s a lot for one life.  In some ways, maybe he moved on just in time. 

So those are some events – there are many more…

Phases 

When I was with Dad at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, I could not sleep at all one night.  In all honesty, I was trying to decide whether to increase his level of palliative care - morphine.   A choice about compassion and mercy.  Well, my struggle with this isn’t the point.  I mention it because I thought about my father and his life.  It seemed to break out into six parts.  Later, when we were cleaning out his apartment, I found a talk he’d given about his life when he was in his 70s. At that point he identified the exact same first four phases that I’d articulated. 

Thanks for that Dad. 

So, six phases.  These would be:

Phase I: Childhood – Young Adulthood in Grove City PA – public school, Grove City College, and summer vacations at the Chautauqua Institute – music and arts.  Fascination with flight.

• Phase 2: Leaving Home – serving in the USAF in NM, NV and Pacific, and early work in higher education in TX

Phase 3: Marriage and Fatherhood – Dad met my mother Martha in Lubbock Texas, and they were married in 1958.  By the time my sister and I were around, we’d settled in Bethesda, outside Washington DC, where Dad had a long career in the Department of Education.

Phase 4: Retirement – Dad and Mom stayed in Bethesda after he retired in 1982. He began a long series of activities.  He was:

1)     a docent at the National Air and Space Museum and the National Postal Museum;

2)     a volunteer staff aide at the National Archives;

3)     a supernumerary in 20 productions at the Washington Opera;

4)     a volunteer at thirteen National Folklife Festivals. 

5)     a serious cyclist – 7 charity rides, over 4k total miles per year

We were all surprised by his activity level – he was suddenly much happier and clearly enjoying life.  We all thought, where did this person come from?

Phase 5: Caregiving – My nephew Nigel – Dad’s grandson, was born in 1993 and my niece Elsie – his granddaughter, in 1996.  While Dad continued his activities, he and my mother also helped care for their grandchildren.  This was a rich addition to their life.  This led to their move to Harford County, and eventually to Avondell.

My mother’s health began to fail early in the 21^st century, and my sister received a cancer diagnosis in 2003.  Dad added caring for both of them, in addition to the grandkids - both in terms of time and resources.  Eventually, my niece and nephew grew up.  My sister died.  My mother died.  This led to the final phase of Dad’s life.

Phase 6: Avondell – if you live at here, you know what I’m talking about. Dad was very active here:

1)     the Avondell Choir;

2)     directing the Avondell Players;

3)     painting and art class;

4)     Wii Bowling;

5)     volunteer work on the Veterans and Holiday Fund committees;

6)     serving as Resident Ambassador for prospective residents;

7)     volunteering at the Cancer Center at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center;

8)     regularly watching the Metropolitan Opera, or the Orioles, or British TV dramas while making latch hook rugs, and

9)     cycling, swimming, all the activities offered by Avondell.

 He also became remarkably social.  I thought to myself, who is this person?  Was this inside him all this time?

So that’s six – Childhood, Leaving Home, Marriage/Fatherhood, Retirement, Caregiving, and Avondell.

Meaning

OK, that’s all the evidence – what does this mean?

Really, you all can decide for yourselves – you all knew him in different ways than I did.  I’m not coping out; I’ve got four lessons:

1)     First, and least profound, for god’s sake be organized for the sake of your heirs.

2)     Positivity – he had a phrase “things always work out” which drove me crazy at times as it seemed too pollyannish.  But I realized this wasn’t a passive statement – it was the ability to take actions, but then accept and detach from outcomes.  I need to remember this one. 

3)     Stay active – mentally, physically, and spiritually.   CoK thing

4)     Always keep becoming - I hope you can see how Dad changed and adapted in each phase of his life – his actions, his values, and his beliefs.  He never stopped growing.  I firmly believe he was the truest to himself at the time he passed.

So let me end how I started.

I am who I am because of my father.  He raised me.  He supported me.  And in the last phase of his life, we became true friends.  He loved me, I loved him.

Thank you.

 

A Gibb River Video!

Paul attached a GoPro to the roof of the truck, thus documenting the whole Gibb River drive in time lapse photography.  This is the result.  The last couple minutes are post trip, but include such wildlife as kangaroos, echidnas, and Australian children.

Sabbatical XVIII - Enough Already - Geology Digression, Final Travels, How I Wrote This, Was It Good?

Geology Digression (skippable) - I’ve been asked about this numerous times; last week’s earthquake swarm in the Ridgecrest area of SoCal was dramatic, but not particularly surprising in its geography. 

The San Andreas Fault system defines the boundary between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate.  The Pacific Plate is moving northwest relative to North America, but they are jammed together, and the intermittent jerky motions as they slide past each other are what we experience as earthquakes.  Anyway, depending on the interpretation, on 75%-90% of the relative plate motion occurs along the SAF.  The rest takes place along the Eastern California Shear Zone, basically an oblong blob running from west of Death Valley NNW up the east side of the Sierra Nevada (through the Owens Valley), dying out (at present) at about the latitude of Reno.  

Why?  If you look at the map below, the SAF is the thick orange line (the red lines are other major faults).  Notice that it bends north of LA: this is not a happy plate boundary.  What’s probably happening (and has happened in the past, several times) is that the boundary is gradually jumping inboard to east of the Sierra Nevada.  So in five million years or whatever LA won’t be off San Francisco: most of the motion will be further east.  Maybe.  Check back with me then.

The tight cluster of balloons on this map shows all the seismicity associated with the Ridgecrest event as of Sunday.  They occurred on several of the major lateral faults that transfer motion from the SAF to the ECSZ.

Bottom line: if you live in the Bay Area, worry about this instead. 

And find where you live on these maps.  And get ready.

Yes, this the level of information I used to torture my UCB students.

Thursday July 27 – Thursday July 4 – A pause in Walnut Creek.  I arrived the previous evening after a long night flight, only to have it be night again.  I tend to have really bad jet lag after long eastward flights, and this return was not anomalous.  So during this travel parenthesis, I:

• Unpack, do laundry, wear different clothes.
• Hire a plumber to replace my leaking hot water heater. 
• Trim the pomegranate tree, and do enough other yard work to make my house looked lived in.
• Sleep when I can, within reason, drifting when possible towards Pacific Time.
• Yoga.  Taiji.  Meditate.  Gym.
• Write.  Triage DSLR photography.
• Catch up with friends and family.
• Five books, three movies, four whole issues of The New Yorker
• Go walkabout or runabout, often before dawn.
• Run a 4^th of July 5k race, and do my first sub-eight minute mile since knee issues:

 

Friday July 5 – Button up the house, and off again, to OAK this time.  A delay, almost expected for an end of day Southwest flight during the summer weather season.  My app says that my flight to Portland is this 737’s eighth segment of the day.

So, I do my usual several laps of the terminals; about a quarter mile:

Warmed up, I watch the tide rise:

Observing and trying not to judge how different this domestic traveler crowd is from what I saw in Sydney, Auckland, Brisbane, Perth, Singapore, Seoul, and SFO.  More people dressed in fashion-inspired clothes that don’t fit well.  Or in pajamas.  I want to say there are lots more high-BMI Americans waddling around, but I don’t trust my biases or travel impatience.  It could just be my ongoing perceptual adjustment; I unconsciously expect to be around a lot of Koreans rather than the broader spectrum of Americans.  I will not miss dreaming in Korean, i.e., people saying things I can’t understand.

A plane, the usual super-efficient Southwest transition (allowing for pre-boarding of seven wheelchairs and three “companion” animals):

North, late afternoon over the Coast Ranges and Central Valley.  Hazy, but not much fire smoke.  Yet.  Eventually over the Cascade volcanoes.  A nice well-behaved chain at a convergent plate boundary, compared to the complexity of the Taupo Volcanic Zone.  Crater Lake from 32k feet:

PDX.  Portland seems minuscule after Seoul and Singapore.  Budget gives me a Nissan compact, which while brand new, seems to have had its engine transplanted from dear MG back in Auckland.  I fear accelerating, as I head southwards on I-5.

First destination is Salem, and an overnight visit with my friends Daisy and Bruce.  We catch up some before jetlag flatlines.  I taste a chocolate peppermint stout.  It is not awful.

Saturday July 6  - A morning walk with Daisy, Bruce, and Ollie, their Jack Russell terrier:

Not posed, thanks to Daisy for the picture.  

No dust, no flies.  There are flowers:

Away, further south on Eugene.  I’m impressed all over again at how wide the Willamette Valley gets.  This compressional plate boundary, defined by the Cascadia Fault Zone off the coast (as due as the San Andreas for a major event), is mashed up the edge of the continent, forming the high terrain all the way from the CA/OR coastal ranges to the Olympics; the Willamette Valley and the trough up through Puget Sound are an area of downwarping behind this.  The Willamette was further carved by the numerous Pleistocene glacial floods.  The Valley narrows as I go south; more faulted blocks of volcanic rock poking up through the alluvium.

I guess I haven’t explained this segment of my trip.  I am going to the “Even Decade Party”, a reunion of the West Coast part of my family:

Seven birthdays with ages ending in zero, ranging from my father at 90 to cousins at 10.  Clever.  I didn’t think of it.  Anyway, spending time with family – arguably the wing I see the most and am closest too – seemed the right way to conclude the sabbatical travel phase. 

So up the McKenzie River drainage, Springfield, Walterville, and to Leaburg.  My cousin Charis rented a house, which I will share with her, her boys, and boyfriend.  I am happy to sleep on the deck, with a view of the Goodpasture Covered Bridge (one lane, wooden):

I am not sure where the pasture is, presumably further up into the national forest. 

It’s sort of a weird house, in terms of layout.  It’s three stories but narrow, built into the cut bank of the river to maximize the views:

Lots of stairs.  Lots of decks.  It functions well for family gatherings.

We’re on a narrow reservoir behind a small hydroelectric dam in Leaburg.  The water is cold, and full of anglers:

I enjoy the view and the forest before the remainder of the immediate family arrives:

We have a barbecue and reacquaint:

I subject interested parties to descriptions of my trip, with maps.  They don’t hate me. 

Sleep, eventually.  Today would have been my sister’s 56^th birthday; being with family is a good way to remember her, although she is always with me.

Sunday July 7 - Morning runabout, eight miles on the Leaburg canal:

This prepares me for the main event:

I've been hanging out with this part of my family for four decades.  There is now a whole generation younger than me. 

I estimate 36 immediate family members attend, and another 25-30 friends.  I talk to almost everyone.  Sore from my run, I still can’t resist playing frisbee for an hour plus.  Too much cake, pie, cake, and blueberries:

It is not too hot.  There was a fly.  There is some dust, but it smells of conifers and volcanoes.

I am tired.  Sleep.

Monday July 8 – Good bye to family, good bye to river house.  Before I even leave in the morning, Southwest lets me know my flight is behind schedule.  Same parameters as before.  I must have picked evening flights for some reason, I forget what it was.  No matter, more time to wander north.

Route 126.  This one minor two lane road in Oregon is in much better conditioned and better constructed than most of the roads I drove on in New Zealand.  I tire of I-5 quickly, so abandon it at Corvallis, which I’ve not visited since the 1980s.  I can’t find a coffee shop, so I continue north through Monmouth, Rickreall and Amity. 

Rural Oregon.  Working lands, a true jumble of vineyards, orchards, horse farms, tree nurseries, and other agriculture.  Sort of like North Island, only less organized in its diversity.  There are also many more pockets of wild flora, another jumble of native and non-native species at a variety of levels of maturity.  It’s kind of ugly.  I know there is plenty of rain and the soils are great, but I don’t like looking at it.  Not the narrow band of variety in the Kimberley or in Queensland, where I could make sense of the transitions. 

McMinnville.  Quaint, definitely in wine tourist country.  I eat at a diner where the server calls me “hon”.  I came here to visit the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum.  You know by now I can’t resist a good museum; this was more on the way the than Portland Gallery of Art.

I explore two large spaces full of lovingly restored machines, ranging from a Wright Flyer to a 21^st century Air Force drone.  The main attraction however is the Spruce Goose, the giant flying boat built by Howard Hughes in the 1940s.  It is too big to photograph in toto, but I try:

The interpretation is good.  Each aircraft has a general history, and then a specific provenance description for that particular flying machine.  The space exhibits gives a good overview of machines and people off the planet; it’s even-handed and not focused on American exploits.  I get a tad artsy:

Evergreen is an interesting contrast to all the art and history I saw overseas.  Most of the other visitors are guys (largely older) who clearly love planes, and their patient families.  

My admission included an IMAX film, a National Geographic production called “Living in the Age of Flight”.  I thought this would be corny and lightweight, but it is quite impactful.  Seeing how flight and air travel have changed the world and our perspectives on it, as well as many familiar things – the show is partially filmed at SFO and on a Qantas 747, and goes to many places I’ve been – times my time over the past couple months together.

A final museum done, I head to PDX.  Portland rush hour: it takes me 94 minutes to go 23 miles.  No rush, my end of the day Southwest flight is delayed.  Plenty of time to hand off the Son of MG to Budget, walk a couple miles in the airport and eat at my favorite airport restaurant .

A final plane.  A final airport.  My car, not a bus, train, shuttle, or Uber.  My house, finally, and I’m really done.

How I wrote this blog - for the curious

It was fun.  I liked the creativity.  I didn’t know in advance how much I’d write, but I got into it.  The positive feedback helped.  Thanks for that.

My main steps: 

• I wrote observations, thoughts, and ideas down as possible during the day, i.e., not much on the Gibb or in Korea.  Ink memory is good, particularly when there are lots of new experiences.  I consciously avoided being guided by the motivation of “oh, this would be good blog material”.  
• I wrote a draft, pretty much chronologically but digressing as observations and interpretations gestalted.  Usually this was pretty close to final; I mentally organize pretty well in advance. 
• I gave the draft one good edit. 
• Uploading and inserting pictures:  I mostly used pictures from my phone: while the CCD is at least an order of magnitude smaller than my DSLR, it was much more convenient due to Google Photos.  Some photo editing as needed.  Picture insertion was often the most annoying phase; getting the formatting to play nice over a wonky internet connection made me want to bite people. 

I tried to simply describe my experiences, thoughts/interpretations, and feelings.  I rigorously avoided adding other information, other than looking up the occasional place name.  I was not interested in telling necessarily coherent stories.  Perhaps the material organized itself that way, given this was kind of a daily log and the proclivities of the human frontal cortex.

I discovered that when I wrote, or organized my observations and thoughts to be written, it helped me comprehend my experience better.  Maybe stay fresher for what was next; there was always a next.  I suppose this should be no surprise, I’ve kept a journal for almost four decades; this was it for the duration of my trip. 

Was It a Good Trip?

Friends have asked me this question.  I of course think about this but am confounded.  A lot of stuff happened.  I went unknown places, saw new things, new rocks, met people.  I was away, out of routine and comfort zone.  The trip was so diverse, and no particular goal, like all my past research trips.  So I have three answers.  First, these experiences that sift to the top of my mind:

New Zealand: running on the beach at Paekakariki, hiking at Tongariro, White Island

Australia: Charnley River Station, driving on unsealed roads

Singapore: the bachata 

South Korea: the art museums, led by the Samsung

Maybe this is an answer.

Second, I’ll invert a quote from Marvin the Paranoid Android (Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe):

“The first day was the best.  The second day was the best too.  After that, things went into a bit of an improvement”. 

Finally, a more personal answer.  As alluded in Blog I, chunks of my reality got blown away due to family losses in winter 2012-13.  Grief and loss are part of life, but they suck.  Since then, I have felt like I’ve been inhabiting my life rather than living it.  Early in this trip this shifted, I think on the drive from Hastings to Ashhurst in NZ.  The loss remains, but having travelled, written way more than expected and taken a lot of pictures, I know I’m alive again. 

Sabbatical Maps - New Zealand and Australia

These maps might give a sense of where I've gone, for the geographically oriented among you.  The color coding is just Google indicating traffic.

New Zealand Route:

Australia Route: large scale map for orientation, detailed maps with place names:

Sabbatical VXII – The Final 31 Hour Day

Wednesday June 26 – Last morning in Seoul.  I clean the apartment, including an expedition to the recycling/trash depot on sublevel 4.  The attendant is delighted to take my debris.

Somehow fit all my stuff back in my bag.  I didn’t buy a lot in Korea, but still, it seems tight.  Feels heavier too, but then I haven’t picked it up for a while.

Still feeling a bit run down.  I’m drinking lots (including a Japanese equivalent of Gatorade, called Pocari Sweat -not recommended) and taking my anti-cold herbal supplement.  No matter how I feel, I’m having a day, going to Incheon, and going home.

While I am looking forward to having a rest in familiar surroundings, I am also sad at the end of this trip.  If I had a next stop, and it was a serious few days of R&R, I could keep going.  But I’m not.  I planned what felt like enough, in terms of experiences, time, and costs.  Plus I have a family reunion to get to in Oregon after I get home.

So goodbye to the Kings Garden.  I have time, so one final experience, visit a jjimjilbang: a traditional Korean spa.  Onto the subway, two transfers later I arrive at Yongsan station.  A major nexus with the national train system:

I’d decided to go to the Dragon Hill Spa.  It was near Yongsan, it seemed foreigner-friendly, and it had a gonzo variety of things to try. 

I drag my bag to the entrance, past tacky Chinese statuary, an artificial stream and bamboo grove, and along irregularly laid wood blocks.  It’s so overdone that I’d run away if it weren’t for the many positive recommendations.  The interior is even more crammed with about five too many of every time of Chinese good luck and health symbol.  This lack of restraint is very unusual for Seoul, but I persist. 

Store my bags.  12,000 won gets me a key, electronic bracelet and spa clothing (shirt and shorts).  First task: store my shoes in the right locker.  I find it, but the key is square – it fits in the lock four ways.  Well, I try four times, and it finally works. 

Elevator to the men’s floor.  Find my locker.  Third try works.  First step is to get clean.  Like Japanese onsen, jjimjilbang cleaning stations (showers or stools) and hot tubs are used in the buff.  Doesn’t bother me.  Clean, over the next hour I try five different temperatures and flavors of hot tub – more than the average onsen.  In between soaks, I take cold soaks, which keeps me awake. 

Soggy, I get dry and put on my Dragon Hill costume, which almost fits:

Fifteen minutes in a massage chair.  Good.

I leave the men’s floor (yes, there is also a women’s floor) and try out the saunas and the ice room.  I’m relaxed, so a nap in the communal sleeping room.  Just a space full of mats, sparsely occupied in the middle of the day.  Then finally, a real massage.  Ouch.  My masseur seems intent on making my shoulders relax. 

Three and a half hours have passed quickly.  No time to use Dragon Hill’s gym, outdoor swimming pool, video game arcade, restaurants, or get a pedicure.  A plane to meet, so back to Yongsan and a 75 minute train ride to Incheon International Airport.  This is tons easier than the bus. 

Goodbye to luggage.  I had bought an upgraded ticket, so hello to the Asiana Airlines Business Class lounge, where I proceed to eat myself into a post -spa, end of trip stupor.  Not really, I’m too wired before flying to get sleepy.  But good food, good wireless, not awful coffee.  Lots of fluids. 

Eventually, a plane:

A new Airbus 350-900.  Priority boarding, lots of leg room.  Nine seats wide in my class.  This is so worth the extra cost. 

Take off roll, and we begin the 11 hour flight to SFO.

 

The plane is kept dark.  I sleep fitfully once my body realizes it’s going to be in a seat for a long time.  A decent Korean dinner of ssambap (with instructions on how to assemble the ingredients):

Sleep, or not. 

I’m a little put off by the plane and the flight attendants.  The whole vibe feels kind of formal and overly organized.  I flew exactly the same kind of plane on Singapore Airlines; the décor and seats on this Asiana plane are less comfortable – for one, the headrests don’t move up as high.  Singapore is my favorite airline, so I admit to possible bias.  Maybe it’s the tan color scheme as well.  The attendants do their jobs well, but some of them seem vaguely put out at having to provide service during the flight.  No question it’s a first class operation well deserving of its very high ratings, but maybe I’ll try Korean Airlines next time. 

Sleep, or not, more.  After a Korean breakfast, I use my upgrade toothbrush.  Bliss.

There is land, finally. A sense of descent and a broad turn:

Almost there, then touchdown.  Hello to baggage.  I blink and customs is done.  No beeping attachments.  A real cold brew coffee. 

BART seems small and dark compared to Seoul.  I think the cars really are smaller; most of the system is certainly older than the lines I rode in Korea.  In my one car, I see more Latinx than I recognized during my whole trip. 

Walk home.  

I am done - for now.