My father was born 100 years ago today...

and I want to give thanks for his life

My father was born on September 3rd, 1924. Each year on this day, I make a point to spend a few minutes being grateful for him and his example of life. But when I first woke up this morning, it dawned on me that since he was born 100 years ago today, I should share my feelings of thanksgiving wider, here on my Substack. So this afternoon I went back and re-read the eulogy I gave at his funeral in 2001. Most of what follows is based on those remarks, which I feel even more confident in today.

One of the first things to mention is that my father was not a religious man -- although he wasn’t irreligious, either. But oh, how I envy the way he practiced what I (literally) preach.

My dad thought no more, or no less, of someone with a high school degree or a PhD.

Once in high school I watched him say “nice to meet you” to a janitor he’d never met, and at my wedding reception I watched him say “nice to meet you” to the United States Senator I’d worked for. My dad said the words “nice to meet you” the exact same way, and he meant it to the exact same degree: no less and no more.

I don’t recall him expressing a dislike for any particular person. But I do recall him expressing strong dislike of hypocrisy, phoniness, or being talked down to.

He was proud of his children, no matter what we were up to: proud of me when I was ordained deacon and priest and installed as the Rector of a church, but he was no more and no less proud than when my sister Kathy became a dental hygienist, my brothers George and Andy became public school teachers, and my brother Tom became an actor, and then a policeman…and then an actor playing a policeman.

Most of all he was proud when any one of us called to announce another grandchild. He got fifteen of those calls.

But more than anything else, my Daddy was a model husband and father.

He had a sign above his desk the whole time I was growing up. A simple black and white sign that only had the words,

Children need models, not critics.

One year -- I forget when -- he gave that sign to me.

Why me, you might wonder. Maybe it was because I was the youngest and last out of the house. I told my brothers it was because I’m his favorite. But the truth is, I think the real reason he gave the sign to me is that part of him sensed that of his five children, I was the most critical, the most judgmental…therefore the one most in need of this reminder: Children need models, not critics.

Over the course of my life, I’ve come to appreciate that wisdom in a wider sense:

Church-goers — worshippers — need models, not critics.

Our culture — our country — needs models, not critics.

The world needs models, not critics.

What I think most about each September 3rd is that my father modeled love.

He lived it. From the Christian perspective, he “incarnated” it…he enfleshed it. He made it real.

A story to leave you with: when I was a small child, I was playing with some toys in my father’s office while he was on a phone call. He was a grinding wheel salesman, and he was talking to a potential customer — a buyer at some factory. He made some reference to what even I recognized as his #1 competition. Then he hung up, slamming the phone down. That kind of startled me, because he always seemed an even keel person to me who seldom raised his voice. So I must have looked at him with an expression of “what’s wrong?”

He told me that he’d just referred that potential customer to his rival. I asked, “Why did you do that?” And he mumbled something like “well, John, one day I will make a recommendation for one of our products, and this customer will know it’s a reliable one, so it’s good for business in the long run: a man is only as good as his word.” But I when pressed a bit, and asked why he wasn’t able to recommend to this customer the grinding wheel that my dad’s company sold, he said, “well, because it’s a piece of shit.”

They call that truth-telling. It’s a powerful form of love.

I’ve long pondered how different the world would be were there more people like Donald Graham Ohmer. God rest his lovely soul.

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