Lessons My Father Taught Me

Eulogy for my Father:

John Adams McDowell

September 6, 1922 – July 10, 2022

Written by John Adams McDowell, Jr. 

and shared at his father's Graveside Funeral / Lakemont, New York

July 15, 2022

 

One of my first jobs, an important one, was learning how to stand on a cold winter night with a flashlight, holding the light at the point of work. Focusing! 

Making sure who you were helping was able to see the screw, or the hose, or the whatever in the cold of December under the hood of a car.  However, when the co-worker was your father, John McDowell, you damn well needed to keep that flashlight steady.

 

“John stop shaking and direct the light to the point of work!” 

 

“John you are not paying attention and you have moved away from the point of work. The center beam should be directly on the point of work, let me show you!”

 

“John, right here, see where my finger is, shine the center of the light here!”

 

And so, I have already begun sharing with you all the intricate, often complex, stunningly amazing, amusing realities of being John Adams McDowell’s son. 

 

Or more simply stated: the lessons my father taught me.

 

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By the way, I am also, really, really good at holding the ladder. That was another job I mastered early in life, and I excel at. 

Never was I considered spry enough to climb up the ladder and clean out the gutters, nor strong enough, or flexible enough to paint the trim, and by the time I was about 45, I realized I did not need to try and prove that I could otherwise, my job was to be steady and hold the ladder.

I had come to accept that I was good at holding the ladder and no matter how good I was, and how often I tried to avoid it; I was re-instructed on how to hold the ladder every time, and most every time, retold how to brace my legs firmly apart and how to distribute my weight against the ladder in case it kicked out. 

 

“Steady!” 

 

“Don’t get distracted!”

 

My legs braced to support an un-expected deficiency in perhaps the best quality Sears and Roebuck’s ladder money could buy and assuring that your father would not fall to the ground. Never happened. I excelled at holding the ladder. 

 

And just once he let me climb up onto the roof with him. But carefully assuring, that I did not get too close to fall off. 

 

Second lesson, focus on the work at hand, be steady, and plant yourself firmly to help others.

 

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Much later, as Dad aged, and I was home in the Spring, he’d want help lifting or maneuver some large and awkward piece of porch furniture out of the barn. He’d stand frustrated, when I did not follow his instructions and placed the chair in the tractor’s wagon. To his astonishment, I’d walk straight to the house with it, regardless of his very clear instructions on how we were going to load the wagon up so everything fit. 

 

“Geez, you are strong!” 

 

I would listen and then just pick up another piece. What I realized was his explanations were more about how to keep going, the tricks and resources he had learned to stay independent. How he kept getting stuff done with his aging body. 

 

Another lesson, strategize and think ahead on the work at hand to save steps and not hurt yourself. 

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But back to that best-in-class ladder, also a project, a study in comparisons, a long-drawn-out process. Back in the days, before Consumer Report Magazine and there was no internet. His analysis included a yellow tablet, sharpened pencil, and many trips to Sears, then the local hardware store and perhaps Korvette’s and, after his naval retirement benefits, the Navy Exchange. Saturday afternoon trips to make the best decisions. Do the work, analyze the options.

 

When it was time to buy a new appliance or wall to wall carpeting or a car or a suit of clothing; the challenge was to study, compare and make the most practical, best quality choice.  Other children went to the playground. Carol and I went with Mom and Dad and got to play on the rack of carpet samples the year the beloved Karastan blue carpet was bought. The salesmen were skilled in patience. And you know what, that was a well-educated, mastery of comparative study. That carpet stood the test of time first in our house in Long Island and as many of you know was moved to Lasata, recut, and laid back down and damn, that quality analysis worked, and the carpet outlasted him. 

 

The lesson: Buy Quality. Buy the best you can afford. It may cost a bit more, but in the long run, you will save money. Oh, and buy American!

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Dad taught us to have fun. Trips to Jones Beach when we were young, but always very strict about not bringing sand into the car. He’d carefully and thoroughly wipe Carol and I off, sometimes twice before we were allowed to get inside.

 

Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes, sailing in the sunfish, in Hempstead Harbor, the big, tall ships during the Bicentennial, a three-month “trip of a lifetime” to see National Parks, Disneyland, the Pacific Ocean, Sunday's at New York World’s Fair and camping trips to New England and Nova Scotia.  He was a big fan of the $1 movie theater. 

 

Family visits to North Carolina, when he’d drive Mom, Carol and I down on a 

Saturday and catch the bus on Sunday morning to be back at work in New York on Monday. Only to return two weeks later by bus on a Friday overnight bus trip, to arrive on Saturday and then drive us back to Long Island on a Sunday. We'd play Barnyard Poker and the Alphabet Game as we drove down the highway. 

 

And of course, visits here to Glenora, hikes to the Glen, swimming to the float and standing at attention when the flag went up. He loved all his nieces and nephews. He loved his brothers and missed them greatly as they, one by one, passed away, and the legacy of the families he grew up with. 

 

When the circus came to town we’d go. Museums, concerts in the park with a picnic dinner, Long Island Islander games, when the firm’s tickets were available. And so much more. He’d take us sledding and ice skating and tried to teach us to ski and he loved to take us on bike rides, through East Williston. And he’d come into the living room and sit and listen to us practice the piano.

 

On day long drives to North Carolina, Mom and Dad would plan lunch breaks in Washington DC at one wing of Smithsonian Museum, or one of the National Monuments just so we would learn and see what a great country we lived in and how lucky we were to be free.

Have fun, do different things, just remember “if you have a good idea, so do a whole lot of other people.” A favorite statement he’d say, when suddenly stuck in the middle of a crowd or a traffic jam.

Love your family, have fun, honor your country. More lessons. 

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My father taught us about the value of money. Saving and being thrifty.  His first job was a paper boy delivering the Star Gazette in Elmira, New York. He worked hard to assure he paid off his mortgage as soon as possible. Much later offering to match our contributions to our first IRA fund and encouraging us to go to the best colleges we could go to, and he paid the entire bill, leaving my sister and I student loan free to start our adult life. This he felt was his responsibility. 

 

On Friday night when the Long Island Trust Company started staying open. He’d walk the dog and ask if anyone wanted to accompany him to the bank, encouraging us to go with him and to put some loose change into our own savings account. 

 

Save and make frugal decisions.

 

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His curiosity amazed me. When we traveled through Europe together, he’d see something only an engineer noticed and exclaimed, “Look the Metro in Paris is on rubber wheels.” Others go to Paris and come back and talk about the fashion, the Eiffel Tower, the food. Dad talked about the rubber tires. Constantly observant, constantly noting how things were put together. 

 

“I have the perfect part in the basement to fix that. Just the right thing” ….and he usually did.

 

Be observant and be curious and figure out how things are put together. 

 

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On that same trip to Paris, he started to cry as the city bus tour we were on, looped around the Arc de Triomphe, I reached out and held his hand, and he said his father often spoke of his time in Paris during World War 1. 

 

My father born in 1922, arrived soon after the World War I ended, and grew up in the depression. College years were war years and every male anticipated and strategized around military service. Dad served in the Second World War as a SeeBee, the Navy’s Engineering Corps, and they sailed into Tokyo Harbor an hour after the Japanese surrendered, to help rebuild the country. He shared that the day he returned to the United States, "on a naval war ship sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge back to the land of the free" was one of his most memorable days in his life. The GI Bill came along and allowed him to chase the 20^th century with a Harvard MBA and the dream that followed.

 

My Dad taught us a sense of patriotism. He’d bring out the American Flag the night before a national holiday and tell Carol and I that in the morning we could watch him raise the flag in honor of our presidents, or our veterans or our independence. And when he would hear the piccolo solo in Sousa’s Stars and Stripes, he‘d tell us that the piccolo solo was his part in the high school marching band. 

 

I fly my flag on all national holidays in Seattle and just like Dad, I get my flag out the night before and put it near the door. And each morning as I unfurl the flag, I think about my dad. And I cry when the piccolo solo starts during the Sousa's Stars and Stripes.

 

Be curious, love and honor our country. And enjoy a good John Philips Sousa March.

 

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While other Dad’s watched football, on Saturday afternoon, Dad listened to the Texaco Metropolitan Opera Broadcast. Every Friday night during Opera Season, he’d review the small strip of paper, safely hidden between the Hi Fi stereo and the side of the stereo cabinet with the annual full season broadcast schedule, carefully cut out from some newspaper or magazine into a conveniently small piece of paper and tucked next to his Hi Fi. I looked at it once and did not put it back in the correct place. He was less than happy, but we found it and he could anticipate that Saturday performance like any other early Saturday.

 

What do I remember most about Saturday Opera broadcasts? The castles and the forts on the living room floor, built from my wooden blocks, while the melodies of Wagner, Puccini, and Mozart were amplified out into the living room over his collection of speakers, he’d stop often and just listen. Often a fire crackling in the fireplace. Dad never had enough speakers, the bigger the better. 

But the castles he built in front of the fire were wonderful! These were special afternoons, when he stopped and would say "listen," he'd tilt his head and just listen to a beautiful melody, an aria or a stunning duet. 

He loved that I grew to love opera and we shared a 4-day adventure attending Wagner’s Ring Cycle in Seattle one summer. He was always so excited when I told him about some performance I saw in Seattle. 

Find passion in the arts, pause when a beautiful melody begins, imagine big with just a small set of building blocks and your collection of Matchbox cars and make sure the fire in the fireplace is put out before you go to bed.

 

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Simpler lessons. 

• All Chocolate is a delicacy.
• There is never enough Peanut Butter.
• Every dinner my Mom made was the best.
• Scott Joplin’s ragtime piano was wonderfully fun.
• Scotch was an acquired taste and well worth acquiring it.
• Keep a "To Do" list and if you do something not on the list, add it and then you can cross it out. 
• Every man should know how to tie a bowtie.
• And polish your dress shoes.

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Yet other lessons, were learned indirectly, observing and recognizing, what Dad did, you should do just the opposite.

 

But they were still lessons.

 

Now this will shock you all, but my father was perfect!  PERFECTLY IMPERFECT.

 

He was his own worst enemy; idiosyncrasies, stubborn, stern, he taught me not to slam my bedroom door simply by removing the door from the hinges. He’d show up at college with a mismatched shirt and jacket and always wanted to eat in the cafeteria to experience what our experience was. His way of doing things was clearly well thought out and why question it. 

“I have control, let me control.” 

 

But one thing I always knew was that he loved my mother, and my sister and me. Sometimes maybe one of the many dogs came first, perhaps he loved his dogs just a bit more, his childhood friend Andy, and later a Cocker Spaniel named Cindy, a Cairn Terrier named Pepper, and then the Goldens: Tobie, Cash and Colby. He enjoyed his evening dog walks around the block by himself, but was just as happy if you tagged along. 

 

He’d get involved at church or community events and often got disappointed, discouraged, and even disgruntled and tell others they didn’t know what they were talking about, when the committee or board did not agree with him. 

Yet every night he came upstairs and laid by my side on my bed, and we sang our prayer to God. 

 

He did the best he could. His life was focused on how he could make things better for us. He did his best he could to provide. And he did that quite well.

 

And as he got older, and lonelier, He consistently broke one of his most important lessons, one that was a theme throughout his life. It is odd, because in his loneliness he often lost sight of it and talked too much and didn’t listen. He always coached us and say: 

 

“Let the other person talk, ask about their day, how they are? It is how you 'win friends and influence people.' You listen.”

 

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And in the last decade he often forgot how to listen. Perhaps it was his hearing loss, perhaps he just wanted to be acknowledged, but if we take that flashlight back out and shine it on the point of his life’s work, we’d clearly see how simple his life work was, where his heart and soul were. 

And we would remember, how he’d reach out with both hands to grasp your hands and pause and ask you how you were and then ask, “what can I do today to help you?”

 

Be passionate, be quirky, hold that ladder firmly for someone else, focus, enjoy life, have fun, invest wisely, love our country, eat chocolate, love your friends, dogs, neighbors and your family, and just ask, the simplest question when you see a friend. 

 

‘What can I do for you today?”

 

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And so that is my request as we say goodbye to Dad on this

glorious day. Get past the curmudgeon, the lonely old man wanting to be heard and remember one of his most unique qualities. A lesson he has taught all of us. And I am betting we've all experienced it.

 

Honor my Dad today and every day into our future, by getting out your flashlight, focus, stand steady and point that light on your neighbor, your family or even a stranger.

“WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU TODAY?” 

And know that Dad will be smiling.

That’s a lesson I still need to do better at… in fact we all do, but it was taught to me by a very simple man, my Dad.

 

Thank you for honoring and celebrating my father’s life with us today.