To talk about our dad, I have to start at a time before I was born. His generation was defined by World War II. Dad fought that war in the Merchant Marine. When he reported to Fort Schuyler for training, it was already known that the Merchant Marine was suffering the highest casualty rate of any branch of service during that war. But that's where he went anyway. Those casualties almost included dad, who slept through a dive bomber attack on his ammunition ship in Antwerp harbor right around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. Fortunately, Hitler missed. Any of you around then who remember the ammunition ship exploding in Halifax harbor can imagine the results if that hadn't been a miss.

That wasn't enough for him though. When Richard was in Operation Desert Shield 45 years later, and dad learned that Richard's ship was crewed by the Merchant Marine, Dad tried to reenlist at the age of 65. If the union hadn't objected, he would have gotten back in.

He remained in the merchant marine after the 2^nd World War, which is why I was born in New Orleans. I remember him taking me to one of his ships when I was two years old or so. By the time he left the service, he had his captain's papers. He also had the respect of his coworkers. 30 years after he left there, the harbor pilot for San Juan still remembered his name when I happened to meet the guy in Puerto Rico.

That's where he picked up his love of astronomy. We remember him sitting out on the picnic table at night with his sextant. Suzie remembers his futile efforts to show her Leo the Lion (her zodiac sign). Rich remembers him telling the story of driving cross country along Highway 40 to see mom in Kansas City and getting turned around somewhere near St. Louis. He didn’t get straightened out until he got away from the city lights and could see the stars.
He also was at home with numbers. He loved seeing/finding numerical relationships and oddities. As recently as two years ago, well after Alzheimer start to effect his brain, Kat was able to call him to get help with quadratic equations. I also remember calling on him a few years ago for help with a complicated math problem that had me stuck. The MCI employees' whose paychecks came out right because of that appreciated his assistance even if they didn't know about it.

His transformers contributed to the space race. To the best of our knowledge they are still used on the gantry that moved first the Saturn V-Apollo craft to the launch pad and now moves the shuttle. He also has a number of patents on transformers used in the nuclear power plants that General Electric built.
He played as hard as he worked.

Many summer nights he would take us to the Highland Pool so we could swim while he dived. He tore an Achilles’ Tendon attempting a double back flip. He was in his early 50's at the time. After it healed he was back up on the board. The only adult in a long line of kids.
He also played volleyball every Thursday night at the Wienhiemer building, not just to stay in shape but because he enjoyed it.

He had a beautiful bass voice. Suzie remembers that he named our cat Figuero so he could stand at the door and shoot “Figuero, Figuero, Fiiiiiiiiiiiiguero!” Mary Lou remembers him singing Old Man River while shaving. Rich's memory is of him singing “Sweet Chariot”. My early painful memory was of his trying to get the whole family to sing Christmas carols while he taped them.
He also had a good sense of humor, and was bonding towards the end with his grandchildren like Kat whom he was able to recognize and remember despite his illness. A few days before he died, when I heard that he had a large oxygen mask in place that would prevent him from talking on the phone, I wrote him a letter. Mary Lou passed me the word that one of the nuns at the hospital read it to him, and he was able to have a long cogent conversation with him then about his family.
And he supported his children. He wasn't demonstrative, but he was there when you needed him. Like Jim says, “When you were down and out, when something came up, he was there.” Even if you weren't down and out, but just confused, he was there. When I was finishing high school and unsure of what I wanted to do, but thought that I could save the environment by being a forest ranger, he talked me into giving programming a try. He argued, correctly, that if I wanted to be a forest ranger I could go to forestry school later with the money I made in computers. He was right, of course, and 10 years later I told him that I had saved the money for forestry school. Of course by then, I had also figured out what he knew 10 years earlier, that you don't save the environment with a degree in forestry, you save the environment with a degree in political science. And when I was finishing computer school and announced that I wanted to go to New York to work, he's the one who had the confidence to encourage me, while providing me the help and advice I needed to land on my feet in the big city, not unlike the help and advice he gave his little sister when she left home to work in Washington DC in the 40's. I'm not sure how well I would have managed the first few weeks in New York City without his preparation, advice and support. As a 19 year old who already knew everything there was to know, I count myself fortunate to have listened to him and paid attention for a change. That he got me to listen was a tribute to his skill.
But that was Dad, ready to help when you asked for help. John and Richard remember him working on the cub scout Pinewood Derby cars. He also taught Rich to solder when he was attempting to build a radio. Not quite the level of skill needed when designing a Saturn V rocket or nuke plant, but still a skill needed by an engineer.
He was also proud of his garden. I didn't fully appreciate the amount of work that went into that until 15 years later I tried to emulate his big garden at my first house. That garden is now an apple orchard. He played with his food, sometimes successfully. Sometimes not. One year he tried to fool the strawberries into a second crop by digging up the plants, controlling the light and temp they were in (they even spent a short stint in the freezer) and then replanting. That didn’t work. He is however the only gardener in Highland who successfully convinced some beach plums that they were still on Long Island, successfully growing them from cherry tree roots in Holiday Manor. His other claim to fame was his tomatoes, successfully grafting together beef steak and cherry tomatoes, yielding something the size of beef steaks with the taste and quantity of cherries.
Then there were our summer vacations. Every summer, in late July or early August, he would load the eight of us up in the ‘65 Dodge station wagon with no a/c  and a luggage carrier on the roof, and head off to Colorado, New York, or wherever else mom decided she wanted us to go. We’d be crossing Western Kansas in 100 degree heat and we didn’t thing we were crowded or uncomfortable. John remembers him having his left arm heavily tanned or burned from hanging out the window while his right arm was still relatively pale. Rich remembers sitting behind him leaning on the back of the seat and talking with him as we crossed Pennsylvania or someplace at 3 a.m. while everybody else slept. Rich also remembers my being highly impressed when his prediction of our ETA at grandma’s house was on the minute when he was taking us there for her funeral. In retrospect we perhaps shouldn't have been so surprised, since he did the same thing with much larger vehicles for many years before we were born.
And while he was opinionated, he raised free thinkers. We can disagree about politics but still respect each other. Mom and he often voted differently. He had as all convinced to back Goldwater, and Mom was for LBJ. As a result, his children cover the political spectrum and still talk to each other. Rich remember him making a sizable donation to John Anderson when he ran as an independent for president in 1980. He voted for Reagan, but he felt that the things John Anderson was saying were important enough that they had to get out there to be debated. Similarly, he and mom were among my top three contributors when I took a shot at the US Congress 12 years later, although my opponent was probably much closer to him in the political spectrum.
That was our Dad. Supportive of his family. Quietly brilliant at work, and at his hobbies. Ready for any challenge, whether it was complicated dives at the community pool in his 50's, or trying to go back to war at 65. We're going to miss him until we connect up with him again.