January 4, 1948 – March 31, 2013
Born in the boom just after World War II, my dad grew up in rural Pennsylvania, the son of a seamstress and Navy serviceman. Unusual for the time, he learned how to sew and cook, but also played football and read everything he could get his hands on. He lived in science fiction stories, and attempted to blow up nearly everything in the school Chemistry lab.
Growing up it was clear I was my father’s daughter. I not only inherited his horrible eyesight (and good button nose), but I got his strong-headedness and lack of patience. I knew my father. He knew me. He humored me as a quite impressionable child, he tolerated me as a stubborn-know-it-all teenager, and recently we got to know each other all over again as adults.
After college, I moved to the left coast, but in the last year, I spent most of my time in Texas, going to Whole Foods every day to pick up fresh bread with my dad, stopping by SBUX for a decaf Americana (sometimes on ice) times two, and chatting with all the people that he regularly talked with – from the baristas, to the wine stockers, to the beer gurus, to the bread makers. My dad was friends with everyone.
My dad was the kind of person that if you were standing behind him in line to get coffee, or seated next to him on the plane, you would know everything about his family. He was *so* proud of his daughters and their accomplishments. As a people person, he found a way to connect to everyone, going out of his way to share experiences around those connections. He would bring back beer bottles from Japan for my cousins, Chris and Brian. He would call Brian from airports telling him which new exotic beers he was trying, and once he even stopped in Philly to have a foo foo European beer with Chris. He was a collector, both of hobbies and things, and he liked to share all of it – his love of SBUX, sand from beaches all over the world, coins, and bier deckels. While he was visiting my aunt and uncle, Steph & Rich, they went up to the the North Fork Brewery, Wedding Chapel and Beer Shrine for pizza. While there, he noticed the proprietor didn’t have a Rolling Rock pony bottle in the beer bottle collection displayed around the restaurant. He got in touch with the owner and sent the bottle up to WA to be added to the collection. This story typifies how Mike had interests as broad as daylight, an ability to strike up a conversation in person or over email with just about anyone, and took things seriously enough to follow up, as with a new beer bottle for the collection in a brewery in a godforsaken area of Washington.
Beer was obviously an important theme in my dad’s life, but it wasn’t the only one. In my childhood, he spent endless hours with us working on the dollhouses and miniature creations. He took pictures and memorialized family trips, moments and people. He will, amongst other things, be well remembered for his large camera lenses and quick flashes.
While I was in high school, he became obsessed with Jeeps – we had three in the family and I think that’s where it all started. He collected and traded and sold toy jeeps, took pictures of the Jeep everywhere we went, posted pictures, and made friends with similar interests, this time online! He also sought out others with his same name and we even met a daughter of such an acquaintance in Hawai’i, Laura Albright.
Outside of having numerous hobbies and interests, and keeping everyone up to date through the web, he also held down a very important job. He was dedicated to his work and making sure everyone had top customer service. Although he originally got into chemistry to “blow shit up”, he ended up devoting his life work to creating and training medical professionals and researchers on how and why to use medical imaging equipment. He even spent some time working on oncology research, publishing three papers on 5-FU, a chemotherapy drug he actually ended up taking to battle his cancer. So when I say my parents knew a lot about the cancer and treatment my dad was going through, I mean they knew a LOT.
Stories and thoughts came flooding in even before I asked people to share thoughts to include in this eulogy. Besides the stories above, my dad will be known for camping, Germany, computers and new tech gadgets, sending packages, sharing spices and peppers, and of course the infamous fireworks caper of 2006 in St. George Utah. Incoming plane! *Run*, I think that was the cops!
This Easter Sunday, we all lost. We each lost something unique and different. For me, I lost a friend, an adventurer, a financial consultant, a house handy-man (even in my house on the other coast!), an instructor of arts, science, and household plumbing, an inspiration to life-long learning, a lover of books and sharing stories, a fast-flashing photographer, and… my dad.
We are now the only ones bound by time and body, but until that time comes for us, our memories of him will live on.
SPREADING OF ASHES
Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. --George Eliot
Today, we remember my dad, Mike - long before his time should have come, long before we wanted to say goodbye, and long before we had opportunities to make all the memoires we wanted. We are here on the hike and bike trail that has deep meaning for this family. My dad and mom took many walks here with their devoted black lab, Samantha. They watched this path as it was built, they meet the path regulars, they know the neighbors that live along these shores, and loved the food from the businesses nearby. In the coming months, we hope to place a thinking spot here in memorial of my dad – a bench in a place that means much to all of us.
Dad, I hope you are listening… I hope this new adventure takes you far. You will be and are greatly missed. With part of your ashes, we are delivering you back to the earth, here, in each of the places we remember you fondly and know you took enjoyment in visiting - Flour’s hike and bike path, the Grand Canyon, and the beaches and cliffs in Kauai. We will see you again one day.
OBITUARIES
The Star-Ledger (North Plainfield NJ)
The Express-Times (Easton PA)
The Evening Sun (Hanover PA)
The York Times