My first blog

I recently experienced the loss of my father after a year long battle with cancer. It was hard for all the normal reasons it was a little harder yet because my dad was not only healthy all his life, he was very physically fit. He only missed about 3 months of his exercise routine before he actually died. Cancer is just a disgusting disease, it just is.
At 88 he lived a good time and had a very good life in many ways and when it came to my eulogy there wasn’t much to think over. Many times throughout my life I’d reflected on my dad and what he has taught me. He wasn’t always the most nurturing and cuddly guy, but he was by any definition a hero.
I always loved the fact that he wasn’t a “fancy dancer” or “high flyer”. He went about his life in a quiet way. He was engaged, but seldom up front. He was the type of guy that when he was involved in something you never noticed him, but if he wasn’t there…the whole thing fell apart. He was a WWII pilot who went to college on the GI Bill and became an engineer. He worked for 30+ years at Lockheed. As a young boy he was the smartest man alive and as a grown man and software engineer…he dropped to number 3.
More than any two in the family we had our battles over the years, but never, not for one second, did I ever not have the utmost love and respect for him.
I decided to eulogize him by way of a letter of tribute that I started several years ago. Here it is:


Tribute
To
John Lee Wright

Dear Dad,

This letter of tribute is long, long overdue on the one hand and, seeing as you fled “touchy feely” sentiment like the plague, its probably right on time. I now know that I needed to live a good while, learn, meet a lot of people and take in a lot of information, think about it, distill it down and grow before I could truly appreciate the man you were. It’s very true dad that the older I got, the smarter you became.

I wouldn’t tell you in this tribute that you were perfect in everyway or a model husband and father. Besides not being genuine, it trivializes the “hand you were dealt” and the way you lived in light of your start. I never heard you whine about your childhood, but as I came to understand the era in which you were born, the early days of your life and contrasted that with your choices and how we were raised I feel I’ve come to know as much as anyone, about the man you really were. You don’t travel the road you did in life and not hit bumps here and there.

They say in parenting “it’s not what’s taught, it’s what’s caught.” I stand here today, 57 years old, a parent myself, a college graduate, a business owner, having met hundreds of people and most importantly a Born Again Follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and say there’s no one else I’d rather have “caught” from then John L. Wright.

I can remember so many things through the years that impressed me and were impressed upon me that time wouldn’t allow mentioning many of them, but I know there all a part of who I am today.

I remember how you never took things a face value. You always “went deeper” into a thing to understand how and why it was the way it was. I saw this the time we were watching a documentary on the designing and building of skyscrapers. In the middle of the show you commented, “It’s fairly easy to design a skyscraper strong enough withstand the stresses it will encounter once built. The real trick is to know how to build it. What members to install in what order so it is strong enough to withstand the stresses it will encounter while its being built.

You were meticulous about much of what you did and yet seemed unconcerned about other things. I can remember seeing you make copious notes about things for work or other projects. Each time they were carefully filed for future reference and yet I found a several wards you’d received in a closet. You lived in our house for 50 years and I don’t think you ever painted the eaves. The roof leaked one time and it now has a top quality professional re-roofing job. Your cars (average age 25 years old) always ran like tops and looked like the dickens. You bought your clothes at L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer and yet still have the same 99 cent porcelain light fixtures at the house. They don’t even have small chains. We have to screw the light bulb in tight to have it go “on” and loosen it slightly for “off”. These things and others point to your unwavering commitment to value. I made it sound noble here, but if I were speaking plainly I’d say “you squeezed a nickel so hard the Buffalo pooped in your pocket.” I don’t think your lifestyle was exemplary in every detail, but the message was loud and clear. Something matter and other things don’t.

In all your stories of your life you were never the hero so my favorite one was the one Aunt Helen told. She was the Bookkeeper at a hops processing plant in Oregon. She got you a job doing several things among them sealing the crates of hops as they came off the assembly line by strapping them down with metal straps. Some of the employees got mad when the owners installed an automatic strapping machine thus eliminating a job. The debate raged until someone said, “John Wright can strap those crates faster then that damn machine anyway.” The race was on! With everyone who worked in the plant in attendance, hooting, hollering and making bets the machine went first then you. As you hammered down the manual strapping lever on the last crate the timers stop watch clicked. After a few seconds of deafening silence the pro labor forces erupted in joy…You beat the machine!!

Speaking of jobs you must have had a thousand. Working with grandpa as a small boy then construction, working in a slaughter house, the military, cab driver, surveyor and of course an engineer. One might think being diligent and working hard was something you believed in.

Bob Almon tells me that during his years as a Structural Assembler at Lockheed when they had a problem building an airplane they called an engineer. When they had really big problem they called John Wright. He said, you’d come to look at the issue followed by an entourage of engineers that looked something like a Rock Star being pursued by the paparazzi. When you saw Bob you’d readily acknowledge him as a friend. Someone might think that hard work paid off.

You weren’t the most soft and cuddly guy I ever knew pop and you didn’t look for controversy. There were many times you had plenty to say about what I might do better in my life. Only after being a parent for several years did I realize that one of the hardest things you ever did was to come and pick your son up from jail. The implications in our middle class community were obvious. On that ride home you said very little and what you did say conveyed your concern for me and not your precious reputation.

There’s so much more I could say dad it seems I’d sound like a broken record.
• Study and learn.
• Work hard.
• Do a good job.
• Loyalty & Commitment.
• Make solid choices.
These and many other messages were loud and clear. I’ve put these ideas to tough scrutiny. I’ve weighed them against the heaviest tests life can offer. They have been lauded by some of the greatest leaders in history. Philosophers, statesmen, champions of industry and Jesus Christ Himself spoke of these very same concepts, but I know they wouldn’t have had as much meaning for me had I not seem them lived right before me.

To many people pop you were that goofy old man, driving in his clunky car wearing an array of funny hats, who lived in a 90 year old house and hung your laundry on a clothes line rather than having a dryer. You wore your eccentricity like a badge of honor and some people didn’t understand.

To all who knew you well the assessment was unanimous. You were an amazing man. We loved you, we respected you, and we are all very, very proud of you.

I will miss you pop,
Love,
John