Thank you for being here. You all meant a lot to my dad, and he appreciated your presence in his life.

Waiting for a phone call that will never come is hard.

After his cancer diagnosis, my dad called my sister every day without fail. 7:00 am, except for holidays and weekends. Then 8:00 am. He wanted her to know that he was okay and not to worry. He was a very thoughtful and reliable man; you could count on him, and he loved his family.

For years, he would call me on Sundays. As men, we had mastered the manly art of saying a lot with few words. Hence, we just needed the one call a week.

When he was teaching college, we would talk about our classes and students.  We’d also commiserate about meetings and how they should have been emails. He was a great teacher. Whenever I went anywhere with him, we’d run into former students and their faces would light up, so I knew he had made their lives better.

One reason I became a teacher was because of him; like him I want to help make people’s lives better. He was good at math and even better at teaching it in ways students could understand. I could never do that, so I teach philosophy. Math is hard.

We would also talk about our dogs, sharing stories of the crazy things they had done that week. We both agreed we had the smartest, best dogs in the world. And we were right.

As I got older and started talking about “back in the day”, we’d reminisce about our adventures together. One of his favorite stories was about the insane number of fish we caught on an ice fishing trip; the flags were popping up like it was a parade and we went home with more fish than bait. Another was when we went smelting and I gave up on the net and jumped into the water and started grabbing them with my hands. It worked. Really.

My dad preferred  fishing with a pole, and had extensive fishing wisdom, such as his saying that you  “can’t catch fish if your fly is out of the water.”  He loved going to Tim Pond, and introduced my sister and her husband to the place. When they couldn’t catch anything while he was reeling in his limit, he shared another bit of fishing wisdom, saying, “that’s why they call it fishing and not catching.” 

As a boy he dreamed of owning a hunting camp in his hometown of Norway. That dream came true when he and his father built it. His best friend, Don Soler, helped him build an add on to it, and they spent many deer seasons hunting from there. My sister and I would sleep in the loft, with Beth asking him and our mom not to tell the bears they had children.

Beth survived the bears to work at L.L. Bean. Her most important job was advising him on which new Bean flannel shirts to buy, although his closet was already full of them. But you can never have too much flannel.

Before her passing, dad would tell me what his wife Carolyn was up to. This usually involved Roger’s Farm. A place she loved and where she practiced her role as a master gardener.

When Nancy Blanchard became part of his life, he’d tell me about their week together. Every Friday they went to Pepper’s Landing. Nancy always had the same thing, which is something I can relate to. Once you find something good, you stick with it.

Another bit of wisdom my dad liked to share is that “Every day is good, some are just better than others.” While today is a sad day, it is good that we are together and thinking of him.

I’ll end this as I did our phone calls: I love you dad.