This is the text of my tribute to my Dad that I read at his memorial service.
"You gotta get started to get started." That was one of my Dad's favorite sayings. It was also in the forefront of my mind as I was thinking about what I wanted to say today. It was his way of saying that sometimes, the just getting started with something, anything, helps you figure out what you need to do. That has never been more true for me than when I was trying to compose these words.
I want to tell you a little bit about the qualities that made my Dad my Dad.
My Dad loved language and language-based humor. He hated the slapstick and put-down "comedy" of acts like the Three Stooges. Instead, he preferred comedians like Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers, whose humor came from wordplay. He himself would make puns all the time. Whenever he was recovering from being sick, he would always joke that he must be feeling better because his puns were getting worse. He and I would also get into frequent pun contests. I remember doing this at the dinner table, and eventually my Mom would sigh and say with exasperation, "Guys, I'm trying to eat here!"
My Dad was very principled, and had a strong sense of justice and ethics. He would always do the right thing, sometimes even to his own detriment. When he was an assistant professor, he stood up for a colleague who was being discriminated against, giving a deposition on her behalf. Because of his actions, he was subsequently denied tenure and forced to leave the university. Although he eventually won his own lawsuit against the university, his academic career was irreparably damaged. But, despite the fact that this caused him great pain, he never stopped doing the right thing.
My Dad loved reading, writing, research, and learning. Once he was telling his nephew Mike about getting his doctorate. Mike, then a little boy, turned to him and said, "Wow, you must really like school!" After he retired, he had so many linguistics research projects he wanted to work on. He once said he didn't care if he ever got it published anywhere, he just had so many ideas that he wanted to write down.
My Dad was a natural teacher. When I was in high school, he saw that I was struggling with my English essays, so he took it on himself to tutor me in writing. He explained things in a way that made sense to me, in a way that my high school English teachers never had. To this day I still use the things he taught me then.
My Dad was kind and very considerate of others. When my Mom was working at Behnke's Nursery during the hot summers and the air conditioning in her car wasn't working very well, my Dad would stop and switch cars with her on his way home, so she could have air conditioning for her drive home.
My Dad loved baseball. He grew up in a family where baseball was very important, and he passed that love on to me. He took me to my first Orioles game when I was four, got Sunday season tickets for the two of us when I was five, and we went to games together for almost 25 years. He taught me how to keep score at these games, and at home, when we would listen to the Saturday afternoon CBS radio game of the week. He always preferred listening to baseball on the radio to watching it on TV. I remember once when the Dunns were out of town and Marshall had invited us to use their TV to watch the game. My Dad muted the TV and turned on the radio broadcast instead. He loved the Terry Cashman song "Play by Play (I Saw it on the Radio)", and always maintained that he got a better picture of the game from a good radio broadcaster than from any TV.
I have very fond memories of getting up early on spring Saturday mornings and going across the street to play ball in the park. My Dad and I would also play catch in the front yard many summer evenings after supper until dark. Most of all he taught me how to pay attention to the details and appreciate the subtlety and nuance of the game of baseball.
The last several years have been difficult, as we have watched the dementia gradually claim more and more of his once brilliant mind. Even through that, I would occasionally see flashes of the old him. A look in his eye, or he way he would squeeze my hand at the end of a visit. I am grateful that my Mom and I could be with him at the end, to see him open his eyes one last time, and to feel him holding our hands so tightly.
I love you, Dad. I miss you. And I am so proud to be your son.