Eulogy

If you've had Laphroaig Scotch you remember having it and that means you have an opinion about it. There is no middle ground on this one. It is either the worst thing you've ever put in your mouth or the nectar of the gods. Being aware of this reputation, a couple of years ago Laphroaig commissioned an ad campaign called Opinions Welcome where they had people send in their opinions - good or bad - and used them in print ads. There were a lot that were pretty normal - it's horrible or it's amazing - but there were also quite a few creative sentiments that really capture the nature of the whisky. Like:

It's like French kissing the burning blowhole of an emphysemic killer whale. In a good way

or

It tastes like licking an empty ashtray on a Sunday morning and enjoying it

or

It tastes like the sweat from a Greek wrestlers jock strap

The point is that it's possible for things to both seem incredibly horrible while still actually having goodness.

If I were to write an Opinions Welcome statement for my dad it would be:

He was a rage filled insecure man that would fight a grizzly with his bare hands to protect his family and I loved him.

Growing up around him wasn't particularly safe. He was a ticking time bomb switching from jovial to enraged over what sometimes seemed like the littlest things. I learned to live in my head since speaking seemed to be the thing that set him off. Thankfully, we had mom around who took most of the shrapnel from his unforeseen explosions protecting us from the worst of it. Honestly, it might be a better use of our time to honor her as our protector and the one who mollified him and made him palatable to the rest of the world.

He really wanted to be a good dad. He tried hard even if his inner demons would all too frequently win out. He wanted to teach me all the things, but as it turned out I wasn't the son he needed, to be that kind of dad. But that didn't stop him from trying. I remember when I was about 8 years old seeing some kids playing with an orange and black soccer ball. I knew nothing about soccer other than kicking, but being a Biddeford kid through and through I knew I needed an orange and black soccer ball.¹ So that Christmas low and behold there was an orange and black soccer ball waiting for me under the tree. Later, while we were at Memere's for Christmas, dad decided he was going to teach me about soccer - keep in mind that at this point he knew as much about soccer as I did. He put the ball down on the ground and told me to walk back 10 feet from the ball and he did the same. Then we were supposed to both run at the ball as fast as we could and whoever got to the ball first kept possession. Note this is not how soccer games start, but neither of us knew that so I took him at his word. He said go and we both ran our fastest - me in my 4 foot nothing 70 pound body and him in his 6 foot 210 pound body - towards the ball. I'm not sure how it happened but we both got to the ball at exactly the same time. Physics tells us that two physical things cannot occupy the same space at the same time and when they attempt to do that there is an outpouring of energy - a.k.a an explosion. Well my nose exploded into maybe the worst bloody nose of my life and it hurt like hell but we were both laughing.

Dad was either a really terrible hunter or just had the worst luck of all time - or possibly both. I never took to hunting, but dad tried to get me into it. But because of his lack of success at hunting our outings would frequently end up as walks in the woods with loaded rifles. They'd be long walks, because he always got lost. (Ask me about the Montana fishing ~~boondoggle~~ trip) I think dad shot his gun twice in all the times that we went hunting - once at a squirrel and the other at a porcupine, so never the big game he wanted. While we were wondering around the woods he would tell me about the trees and point out tracks that were somehow never of what we were hunting. These walks are some of my favorite memories of my dad. I still love walking in the wood - albeit without the rifles.

Dad was always protective of his family. There are some good explanations for why this is, but this isn't a history or psychology lecture so we'll leave it at his childhood taught him to value and protect family. When I was a senior in high school I was looking for ways to pay for college. We weren't independently wealthy so I was going to have to rely on grants, scholarships, and loans to get through a four year degree. As many kids in that situation do I explored going into the military - in this case the army. Dad always insisted that I didn't have what it took to be a Marine, so the army would have to do. I talked with a recruiter at school then talked about it with my parents. We prayed and thought about it and decided it wasn't the right path for me. After a few days the recruiter called me and asked if I'd made my decision. I told him that I'd talked about it with my parents and we didn't think it was a good idea for me. This yahoo then says to me, "well when you grow a pair and stop letting your mommy make your decisions for you, give me a call." For those of you who didn't know me in high school or just don't remember, I was a massive band geek. Being called names was nothing new to me. You'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to come up with a name or taunt that really bothered me. This yahoo calling me a mama's boy was weak, so I politely hung up phone and chuckled at his stupidity. Dad happened to be sitting right next to the phone during this interaction and he asked me what was so funny. I proceeded to tell him about the call and what they guy said to me, then I turned and went to the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Next thing I know I hear the screen door slam and the gears grinding on my parents car as my dad started speeding down the road. How a person of his size and fitness level moved that fast is still a mystery to me. Mom was in the garden and heard all the noise so she came running in and asked what was happening. I told her the whole story. At this point I want to remind you that my mom is a really sweet person who has cussed less in my whole life than I do on any given day. Her face went pale and she said oooh shhit. She proceeded to call the recruiting office and did something else she almost never does, she spoke fluent military. The translation of which was something like you need to put that guy behind a very strong door because my husband is on his way to cause him bodily harm. As dad told it, they put the guy in a locked office and two other recruiters restrained dad long enough for him to get his wits back. Now, we should never glorify violence and dad was clearly unhinged at this moment, but the feeling of support knowing this guy was going to stain his shorts when my 200+ pound former Marine dad came at him was really gratifying to me.

I wasn't the son he hoped for and he was probably not the dad I needed, but we figured out a way to make things work. College was a thing he never had the chance to pursue, but it was always my destiny so when I headed off to college it was weird but special to him. I remember the day he and mom dropped me off. We were walking across the quad at Houghton college (now university) over to the finance building when dad stopped me and with tears in his eyes told me just how proud he was of me for taking on that challenge. In that moment the earth shifted on its axis and something changed about our relationship. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but things would always be different from that point on.

For a man who far too often allowed his inner demons to win out against his better angels, when he allowed his better angels to win he could be a pretty great guy. In death our demons die with us, while our better angels become myth. These are the myths I will pass on to my children and I hope they are the ones that stay with you when you think of him.