Eulogy of a Boston Jew in Neptune's Court
Sailor, Businessman, Father, Weightlifter - My father's legacy
I’m posting this a year after my dad’s death. His Yahrzeit is this month, and I thought it an appropriate time to produce a eulogy.
Early Life
I think, more than anything, the death of my father's father overshadowed all else in his life. He was 13, and it changed everything. I'm not going to go into family drama for a couple reasons, namely that I both repaired our branch of the family's relationship with the other, but also because it's somewhat rude, but my dad held somewhat of a grudge against the other side of the family after the passing of his father.
He went to work a job to help his mom out with income, and predominantly hung out with two crowds - the 'bad kids' (hotrodders), and the Yeshivah kids. I think, in many ways, this dichotomy would be repeated throughout my dad's life, and served as a pattern.
On the one hand, he was a tremendous intellectual. On the other hand, he was always rough and tumble and not only had little respect for authority, but also had minimal self control in terms of not simply punching it in the face.
Military
When he was 18, he joined the military. Had a high enought GCT/ARI he could pick any school, went to Corps school at Bainbridge. Stationed at Pensacola, then transferred to Key West. When he was at Key West was the last time he saw someone from the other side of the family -- 1955. Until 2013 or so, when I repaired things with them, there was no contact. His cousin was an officer who'd graduated Harvard.
While at Key West he worked as an ambulance driver, as a midnight switch board operator, in the emergency room, and in the hospital laundry. Apparently the locals didn't like sailors, but did like their money.
He told me about how they'd go spearfishing and bring the fish to the Boca Chica bar on Stock Island to trade them for beers.
He got out somewhere in here, then reenlisted pretty quickly. Got attached to the Fleet Marines as a Corpsman, then went to Field Medical Service School in 1956 at Camp Pendleton. It was his first time in California. From there, he was temporarily attached to 1st Division Reconnaissance Company.
He was assigned to Guantanamo Bay, where the flight surgeon spent more time flying than taking care of patients. He ran the sickbay there on the Windward side. Cubans used to come to work on the base - they were given an option to go into exile and live on base, or never come back. He remembers them shining the spotlight and harassing the marines, and the marines giving them the finger back.
He also remembers that they landed on some island for a search and rescue - Indigenous natives thought they were from "Mars".
Briefly in Santa Domingo, got shot at by a plane.
Somewhere in here he went to Japan, from 1958-1960. He was in a place in Southern Honchu called Iwokuni, just south of Hiroshima. Visited ground zero in Hiroshima, visited the Atomic Biological Chemical Clinic where they were still treating patients from Hiroshima.
Got seriously into motorcycles, and Judo, in Japan. His sensei was a big beefy 6th dan. Dad made it to 1st dan at some point in here. During this period in Japan is when two of the more amusing stories (which unfortunately I don't have deeper details on) happened.
Helping a Nurse go AWOL and helping her escape the MPs, while he was an MP (which resulted in them trying to courtmartial him). He insists he wasn't sleeping with her.
Remembering his Japanese 'ojou-san' riding side saddle on the back of his motorcycle in the snow. He did not deny sleeping with her.
His first deployment to Vietnam he was on the Stickell. No long stories, just brief notes here.
He went back to Newport, applied to transfer to Fleet Marines 2nd Division as an E-6. He never made it above E-6 despite being up for going to OCS a few times because (again, recurring theme), he had a tendency to insult idiots in the bureaucracy. At this point he was the Chief Medical Officer on the Stickell. Got sent back to Fleet Marines 1st Division in Pendleton. At this point it's some time in 1966.
He went back to Vietnam for a second tour in 1966, attached to the Third Marine Expeditionary Force. He worked out of a sickbay in Denang, and for all intents and purposes, he ran the dispensary. He found this completely boring, so he requested a transfer to go be the designated air crewman to fly helicopters for medivac. Apparently, he didn't 'quite' go through the chain of command, and got denied.
They used to go into what they called ‘The Vill’, or ‘Village’. (Quote) ‘They’re all basically Frenchmen over there.’ That’s where they could get a haircut. Sitting in a chair, no powered tools, all hand haircutting. After he got his hair cut, barber sprayed underarm deoderant onto his head as a hairspray.
While he was in Denang, he occasionally went into jungles on patrol with the troops - they had to send corpsmen out with them for injuries, etc. Carried a shotgun during these excursions.
Eventually he ended up going north regardless.
In 1968, he was at Dong Ha when the ammo dump got hit by NVA artillery. You can see some of the smoke from the fire in this video.
I went ass end over teakettle. They had 43 guys trapped in a trench by the ammo dump, and they were trying to get to them, and shit was flying all over the place. It was ‘10 4th of July’s all rolled into one’.
As a result, his elbow got banged up, his lower back got somewhat torn up, and he was laid up more or less for 7 months. Nearly had his head cut off by flying "chinese pig iron". He'd never seen so much rain in his life, during monsoon season. He got put on the TDRL--temporary disability retired list. He had to go in for an evaluation every 18 months, where they decided whether to put you back on active or retire him. They formally retired him in 1972, during which he was in school.
Professional
After he got out of the hospital, while on temporary disability, my dad moved back home to live with his mom in Philadelphia (for those keeping track, he's now about 34-35 years old), above his sister's apartment. He worked for his former brother in law, driving midnight runs up the coast from Philly to NYC and Jersey Shore for lobster. Made some side money filling cigarette machines in bars.
At this point he'd seen too much human gore to particularly want to go to medical school. He went to college for the first time, St. Joseph's, and took an accounting course to see if he could hack it. He didn't do too bad, but he didn't like living in Philadelphia. So, he moved back to Boston, enrolled in Suffolk University as a Management and Finance Major.
He'd taken the GED for a first year's worth of college credits, and then finished his undergrad work in 2.5 years, and his MBA a year later. So he got his Bachelors in 1971 and his Masters in 1972 while tending bar.
Between 1972 and 1975 he went to work with an old friend, and opened a shop in Dayton Ohio doing plasmaphoresis. Business unfortunately didn't take off. It's funny to think my dad was doing a bio startup back in the 1970s. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
In 1975 he joined the federal govt as an employee. He was brought into a training management program for contract management, and got a job in Long Beach doing contract management as a GS-11. In 1975 he also started at law school, beginning at Suffolk but finishing up at the Western State University College of Law in Fullerton. He wasn't a great law student, but he did end up teaching an extension course in Accounting for Government Contracts for a certificate program with the National Contract Management Association.
In the 1980s, he was at the Northrop Plant Rep Office working for the Airforce as the contract officer working in the F-22. There's some stuff here that isn't classified but I'm not sure if it's private so I'll leave it out about Grumman internal politics, but in 1984/1985/1986 proposals came in for the F-22 (unclear if for whole program or for a part of it) and he was on the evaluation team. The proposals were apparently about 5 feet high, stacked, and he had to read through them.
In 1993 he retired as a temporary GS-13. He'd spent a long time as GS-12 because, surprise surprise, he insulted a lot of idiots in the government. His career wasn't going to go any higher, they weren't letting him anywhere near real influence, so they treated him 'like a mushroom'. He made them a deal - if they eliminated his position, he could go out and get his FERS account and reinvest it. He would have liked to work for another 15 years, but that didn't work out.
When he retired and immediately regretted it, he volunteered legal time for the next ten years for retirees while acting on the side.
Some brief notes that I don't really have figured out when they took place:
My dad beat the IRS in tax court while representing himself
He learned FORTRAN IV
He had a 3 digit ARPANET number
He was a playboy. Exact details I’m not going into, but I know where my early 20s tendencies come from...
Feats
Some of these didn't really fit above, but I still wanted to call them out.
He taught Jujitsu while in Japan.
He trained in the original Gold's Gym in California in the 60s.
My dad trained for the PanAm games, though didn't compete. He WAS a regional Navy powerlifting champion in the 1960s though
My dad did handstands on the back of a moving car, on top of a ferris wheel, and on the edge of Niagara Falls.
At the age of 70 years old, with two fake hips, severe osteoarthritis, and a disk in his neck, my dad still deadlifted 315 lbs. Still hit a 300 deadlift in late October of 2019, when he was 84.
At various age points in my life my dad might not have been too far from the character "Joseph Joestar". Hell, when he was 69 he biked 284 miles in 6 days across California with me. He was the oldest in the group, I was the second youngest, and we completed it together.
Father
As a child, my dad was a tyrant. After some events that I don't actually feel like sharing with the world - nothing abhorrent, but very personal - he cleaned up his act. He was retired around the time my first memories form, so he was around the house most of my childhood.
He supported my mom in her decision to homeschool me, though he didn't contribute to it very much himself. He enjoyed his retirement - by which I mean he was thoroughly miserable the second it happened and spent his time finding makework errands, puttering in the garage, outdoors, volunteering, etc.
We both did some acting classes (I was a child, he obviously was not), and he stuck with it. It was a late in life found joy. He was in a few different small films, and even was in Fiddler On the Roof three times for community theater - once as Lazar Wolf, I don't recall the others.
Speaking of Fiddler on the Roof, I think perhaps that's a way that I can relate his relationship to G-d. Something similar to Tevya, antagonistic friendship on top of a deep worship and respect, but not particularly observant. He didn't have a lot of respect for organized religion, but he still made sure to observe the High Holy days.
He encouraged my education, and drove me multiple times a week to the local charter school and to community colleges. He helped me get into the schools I did, young. While he would have preferred I went and became a doctor, what really mattered was that I brought 'Honor to the Family Name'.
Writing about my father as, well, a father - it's a little bit different than relaying things about his life more broadly. I started writing this section like I did the others, editing down anecdotes about his life.
But obviously, it's more personal, right?
I loved my dad. I was inspired by my dad. I learned a lot from my dad. I was never particularly close with my dad, never truly best friends with him, and I regret that. Maybe it was generational, maybe it was personality, maybe it was a lack of filial piety, but we never congealed as close friends.
At the same time, it doesn't eat at me in a way I think other people need to pity. It simply would have been nice - and it inspires me on how to try to connect with my own children more.
I loved the man. I am who I am because of who he is. Is he perfect, and did I always like him? No. People of such intense character often have aspects that you don't like so much.
But god damn did I respect him as a person and love him as a father. He was a model for me, physically and mentally. When I was 16, I was somewhat fat (approximately 180 lbs, 5'7") after a semester away at college. My dad called me a fat-ass, told me to lift weights, threw a plan at me, and, well, I turned into what I am now. Not that I was particularly unfamiliar with physical exercise, having grown up doing gymnastics, fencing, and tennis, but I'd let college get to me.
My reading of the Great Books of the Western World is inspired by my dad, who had a print copy--and he probably read about 50% of them over the years. He was comfortable in Hebrew, French, Italian, Japanese...
He brought our part of the family back from effectively zero/negative worth (due to his own father's early death in the 40s) to upper middle class, and did all the right moves (though he had bad luck and a tendency to leave money with bad money managers) to take it lower upper. It's my duty to grow that again, and pass it on through my children. He left me so much to pass on - his Judaism, his relationship with America, his intense physical and mental training throughout his life, his entrepreneurship.
He was sharp enough to talk Fed basis points with me a couple days before he died. I was working on moving him to Houston. He survived to get to hear his granddaughter on the phone - though he didn't meet her. He knew I had produced an heir.
I'll miss him.