My Remembrances of Dad……Jeff

(Al and Jeff in 1943)

My Remembrances of Dad……Jeff

What a wonderful man! What a great life! What a Dad! How he will be missed!

Growing up, it seemed that we were constantly on the move as he took on new job responsibilities in Massachusetts, New York, Chicago, and then finally Rhode Island. One of my earliest memories is falling out of a car in Salem, Massachusetts way back in 1944 or 1945. I don't remember the house that we rented there or the surroundings, but this picture of Dad holding me as a toddler in 1943 might have been taken there. I was riding in the back seat and I leaned on the door, it came open and I spilled out on to the road. Luckily, I didn't fall under the wheels or get hit by the traffic, but I remember Mom was really upset with Dad because the door had a broken hinge and had just been tied on. Dad wasn't very good with maintenance issues.

The first house that I remember was our home on Ellison Place in Bronxville, NY. (1945-1949) Rich and I shared a bedroom ( we did so until we were about 16) and we would chase the car shadows on the bedroom walls at night whenever cars came down the short, steep hill that Ellison Place was. We' be having a ball and Dad would have to come in and tell us to "stop gooping (not goofing) around", and we would. Rich and I certainly heard that line a lot over the years!

I remember the first baseball glove that he got me. The finger pockets of the glove were not connected by any webbing and there wasn't much padding, but how I loved it. Dad would throw Rich and I ground balls on the pitched little front yard that bordered Ellison place and teach us to "hop" as we turned to throw. It was the first sport that I remember learning and over the years he would go on to teach us football, basketball and tennis. He must have spent a fair amount of time at it and been a good teacher because Rich and I generally were well ahead of our peers at an early age when it came to sports.

Early on, Dad drove home some important lessons about honesty, and responsibility. When I was probably about 6 years old, in the first grade in Bronxville, I had a friend named Jack Northway and on occasion I would spend the part of the day at his house after school. One day, for some strange reason, I took some money out of his mother's pocket book that she had left by on the floor by a door, put it in my pocket and took it home. When I took a bath that night, my mom found the money called Mrs. Northway and I was discovered. Dad took over and explained the seriousness of what I had done and told me that I would have to stand up for my actions and personally return the money with an apology to Mrs. Northway. I will never forget us driving over to the Northway's house, Dad letting me out at the curb and my making the long walk to the doorway, making my apology and returning the money. That certainly never happened again!

The years that we lived in Skokie, a northwestern suburb of Chicago, 1950-1953, were the years that Dad truly was almost never around. He was the Midwestern Region Sales Manager for Dumont television and his territory spanned from Western Pennsylvania to Okalahoma. He was on the road every week and many weekends flying all over the Midwest in the early prop aircraft of the time. Highlight memories those years were watching the Milton Berle Texaco Star theater and Friday night dinners at "Andy's" or "Cooley's Cupboard" with alone with mom, not with Dad. It wasn't Dad's fault. His job just demanded the time, and I know what little free time that he did have he devoted to the family.

While living in Chicago, we would go back to our grandparent’s house in Rockport, Massachusetts for the summer. It was our second home growing up, and, somehow Dad always made it back to help us get established in little league or some special events there. One of those summers, he spent his whole 2 week vacation with us in Rockport and we built a small wooden sailboat, a "Turnabout", from a kit, painted it yellow, named it "The Minnie" after our grandparents beloved live-in household helper, launched it, and raced it at the Sandy Bay Yacht Club before he had to return to work in Chicago. We were just getting into sailing and it was a great learning experience for us and fun family project. I'm sure there were plenty of other things that Dad could have been doing on his vacation, but I always had the feeling that he put his family first and loved to spend the little spare time that he had with us.

After the family moved back east in 1954, Dad was home a lot more and played a much more active role in our daily lives. He was always trying to teach us bridge, get us interested in stocks, and to develop self-assurance and responsibility by having us work. By the time I was 13, I was working as a baby sitter watching the young Cotter boys who lived behind us on Woodland Road, shoveling Mr. Myer's long driveway on Jenny's Lane, or working with Rich in the warehouse at Allen Distributing in Providence. Rich and I were more interested in the New York System hot weenie joint just down the street from his office than working, but Dad put up with us. Shortly after I had learned to drive, he had me on the road delivering "Allencraft" boat trailers stacked six high to Jordon Marsh on the North Shore of Boston and other dealers that he had set up around New England. And, later servicing his "Moodmaster" background music accounts and collecting monthly rental fees from his customers throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The importance of work, earning your own money, and taking responsibility for your actions were constant themes.

Dad's love of food and his strange eating habits were almost as legendary as his sense of humor and love practical jokes. His car was always chock full of Nabisco products, packets of Klennex, and empty milk shake containers.

As he was an eater, Dad was an "impulse buyer" and loved being sold new product by a good salesman. Witness the Edsel that my mom drove in the late fifties. I'll never forget how on occasion she would have to drive home from Chellel's market with the push button in the center of the wheel stuck in reverse.

When I was about 17, Dad taught me another lesson about using good judgment and being responsible for you’re actions. Dad had gotten a used Ford station wagon for me to use making "Moodmaster" calls and trailer deliveries. I was cruising the town early one night, I think Rich was with me, and a friend pulled up alongside me on Nayatt Road near the elementary school and asked us, "do you want to drag." Of course, I said yes even though my friend had a souped-up dragster and my car was just an old 6 cylinder, Ford hydromatic wagon. We "peeled out", or at least he did, and race a couple hundred yards up the hill to the intersection of Rumstick Road. Nothing eventful had happened, but a friend of Dad's had seen us and called Dad about it. Dad was going teach me a lesson. He confronted me and told me that there had been a police report that someone in a car like mine had been seen racing on Nayatt Road. Did I know anything about it? Not being much of a liar, I admitted everything and he told me that I had to go to the police station and turn in my driver license because I had broken the law and the police were going to confiscate it for six-months. I did and it was 6-months before I got my license back. It was only then that he told me that the police had never really called. He had arranged everything with them to teach me a lesson.

I had the great privilege of working with Dad at Avid Corporation from 1971 until the business was sold and he retired on January 1982. During that period, I came to truly appreciate the extraordinary business talent that he was and just how great he was with his employees and people. He was a man of great integrity and a great entrepreneur who was deeply admired by his employees.

Some of the qualities that I admired most about Dad evidenced themselves to me after his retirement. He was a man who lived modestly all his life and he was extremely generous. He didn't need to be a big shot. Once he had secured himself financially, he set about providing for the education of his grandchildren funding most of the college education expenses for most of his 11 grandchildren. More than that, he engaged himself in their lives growing up and challenged them with projects like his famous "Grandfather Asks" book in 2001, and then kept asking and assigning follow up challenges to all. Dad always looked ahead, not back, and what the world was going to be like for the young people of tomorrow was of great interest and concern to him and he challenged his grandchildren to think about it. He was always "with it."

Besides his family generosity, Dad was a spontaneous philanthropist with other young people as well. Coming across young people working in restaurants or other business, he would engage in conversation with them, find out their life's history and often find some way of helping them. He helped several young people from different parts of the country, world, to attend college and have a better chance in life.

Although Dad never graduated college, he always had a great intellectual curiosity and a quest for knowledge. He loved to read and after retiring, he returned to take classes at Brown University. Although he didn't finish with a degree, he really enjoyed being an older student, adding his voice to the discussion and engaging with the young people in class with him. He was really on top of current events all his life and didn't dwell on the past even though he did love history.

Until the last few months of his life Dad remained focus on being engaged with family and friends and in making a difference in their lives. He was blessed to have a long, prosperous and healthy life and lived it well. Bon voyage Dad and thanks for the loving memories!

(Jeff and Al at 80th birthday party?)