The weekend before Thanksgiving this year, I had the good fortune of once again being asked to speak at a Boy Scout pre-Thanksgiving feast. This is the second year in a row that they’ve given out the memorial award for pops, hopefully it will turn into a full-blown tradition. I wrote about the speech I gave last year, and recently realized I still needed to post the one I gave from this year.

So, here goes:

I’d like to thank everyone in troop 262 for continuing to honor Dad by giving out this award. I’m certain that he would be proud that he could continue to represent a standard that we could strive for, long after he passed on. On behalf of Mom and Roger and myself, thank you.

For those of you who weren’t present last year, ask your neighbors about the carbide cannon. For those of you who were, worry not! I have a different amusing anecdote.

In our tradition, I wanted to share about the man behind this award, to give you all some insight into his life, and hopefully you will understand about the kind of leader and role model he was for myself and many other kids.

Enthusiasm for life was a huge theme for dad—he was nearly impossible to bring down. He sought to enjoy life (through his family, through scouting, through his zillion hobbies—don’t get me started!), and to make a positive impact on others, through helping, teaching, and sharing.

You may recognize those last three things as important components of leading people. One of the qualities I always admired in Dad was his ability to lead groups of people, and this leadership quality is one of the key traits in being selected for this award. Dad had a very flexible leadership style. He always had a knack for applying the right type of pressure to get things done.

He often had to lead Roger and I in some endeavor, and the two of us weren’t always the most attentive kids (just most of the time!). He would normally start to guide the two of us with suggestions. If those didn’t work, he’d try out some “Infectious Enthusiasm”, try to get us to come along with him. If those didn’t work, he’d get Slightly More Insistent. And with the two of us, since he was Dad, he would occasionally have to graduate to “I’m Getting Annoyed”, and then to “Do It Now”. I never saw a stage past that, thankfully, and most people never got past “Infectious Enthusiasm”.

The reason that most didn’t get past that point, is that is was difficult not to be swept up in his waves of enthusiasm, which often seemed omnipresent. And it was this technique that he applied almost universally when dealing with other people, particularly kids.

For example, some kids showed up to the pinewood derby with a coat of spraypaint on a rectangular block with sanded corners. Some kids showed up with works of art. I don’t know what their preparations were, but they couldn’t have held a candle to mine. Dad and I would spent days poring over aerodynamic race car drawings, draw plans, carve the block using hand and power tools, align the wheels with a micrometer, put 10 coats of paint on it, and put on all kinds of racing sponsor decals. And I was completely pumped to do so, because he was completely enthusiastic about the project.

We didn’t necessarily win, but our cars always looked good, were thematic (Roger had a bobsled in 1984 in honor of the Sarajevo Winter Olympics), and every year we came out with more scientific data we could apply to our cars next year.

The family had a habit of taking humongous driving vacations, which could last 3 weeks and take us thousands of miles. On one such vacation, we had travelled through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho before heading home. On the way home, Dad decided we would stop at Devil’s Post Pile, a favorite campground for his family when he was a boy.

Devil’s Post Pile is one of those freakish lava beds that, hundreds of thousands of years ago, cooled slowly into columns. A great many of these columns are nearly hexagonal. It was definitely a sight to see. But that was not the main point of our story.

There was a river a short hike from our campsite that he wanted to fish with us, because he had fished it so often as a boy. Again, his infectious enthusiasm was impossible to resist (plus, Roger and I enjoy fishing and liked hiking with Dad, so it wasn’t a tough sell), so we geared up and started walking.

As we got close to the stream, it started to look like there were fences blocking our route. Dad was not deterred. He walked straight up to the barbed-wire fence and pulled apart the two bottom strands so that Roger and I could climb carefully through.

I walked up to the fence, nervously looked about (my parents had raised me to be a law abiding citizen, and I was worried about tresspassing). My father seemed to sense my nervousness, and tried to calm me, saying “Don’t worry, there are just a few cows up on that little hill, the owner won’t mind us crossing right here to get to the river.” I looked at the cows, and decided they weren’t worth worrying about. I stepped through.

It is important to note: at that moment in time, I didn’t have any deeprooted fear of cows, despite being licked and drooled on at one point when I was about 3.

Dad climbed through, recovered his fishing rod, and we started walking side by side. I looked up the hill again, and three of the cows had definitely noticed us. They continued chewing, but their heads followed us as we walked across their pasture. I looked away, and we continued our leisurely pace.

About halfway between the two fences (I’m sure it wasn’t more than a football field, but when you’re small that distance can appear daunting), I checked on the cows again. You know, in a horror film, when the hero sees a threat, looks away, then when he looks back, the threat is nowhere to be seen? Exactly like that, only one cow was standing up there, chewing.

It took me a moment to locate the other two, who had somehow circled behind their hill and were now charging, at what my young mind felt was an unreasonable pace for cows, not at our position, BUT AT OUR PROJECTED INTERSECTION WITH THE FAR FENCE. They were trying to cut us off! I was not aware cows thought like that. In fact, until that moment, I had never considered that cows were capable of aggression. I was a suburb kid, I only saw cows when camping or when on a field trip.

At that moment, I wondered what would happen if an aggressive half-ton animal collided with my small 100 pound body. I figured I’d probably get the worst of such a collision. I wondered why I was thinking about it so much, and not actually doing anything.

It is at this point where Dad’s leadership skills got very useful.

He first got us to start running. “RUN!” he said. We ran. Roger, believe it or not, was a little shorter and having a problem running with his fishing rod. Dad grabbed it so Roger could keep up. He directed us a little to the left, hoping to outdistance the cows before we got to the fence. All this time, he was making sure that Ro and I were keeping up, urging us along but not causing us any fear.

About 10 yards from the fence, Dad increased his strides and got ahead of us, but stopped right at the fence. He threw his fishing gear over the fence, and again pulled apart the strands of barbed wire so that Roger and I could get through easily. We dove through, and Dad followed us. We probably only beat the cows to the fence by 10 feet. Dad said he had flecks of cow-spittle on his back after that experience.

This anecdote is important, because it is archetypical of what a good leader would do.

1)He got us to follow him across the pasture, because he knew the fishing on the other side would be rewarding.
2)He got us to move when we were paralyzed by indecision.
3)He led the way to safety.
4)He stopped, just short of safety, and made sure everyone was through before reaching safety himself.

These are all the things a good leader should do, and Dad did them regularly and instinctively, in far more pressing circumstances than attacking cows, without hesistation.

Dad was a selfless outdoorsman, a mentor, a role model for me, my brother, and countless other youths he encountered in his too short life. He taught me lots in that time, but none more important than this: Keep your ability to see the world through the eyes of a child, especially once you become an adult. A child loves learning, a child loves helping, and a child loves fun. To walk in his footsteps: Learn, help, and love to have fun.