I have a few best friends. I have the best friends that I have known forever, my best friends from my time in Washington DC, my best friend I went to grad school with, my best friend who I married and my best friend who was my hero…my dad.
My dad would often say to me Peter you don’t need to be a comedian, as I loved to make people laugh, please feel free to laugh because it doesn’t need to all be tears. Today I want to share with you a few stories about my dad and maybe give you a glimpse of just how much he meant to me, you’ll never know the extent because that isn’t something you can write down instead it’s something you feel.
My sister talked about a bit about what she got from my dad and one of the most precious things that my dad gave me is my name. Peter.
In the book of Matthew in the New Testament Jesus is speaking to his disciples. He asks them who the people think he is, and then he asks one disciple in particular, who he thinks Jesus is, and in verse 16 Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
When you leave on your mission you have a plaque outside the Bishop’s office and on the plaque, you pick a scripture. I picked Matthew 16:18 which reads And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
My dad taught me to live up to my name Peter, from the Greek Petros. The rock, to be solid, reliable, and maybe a little stubborn. As an aside…and a quality I inherited from my dad… One time I was on a ski trip with my roommates back east. We were having a heated discussion and I made my position very clear and would not budge. One of my roommates who served a German speaking mission said to me Peter…you are being so German right now. He could not have given me higher praise if he said my biceps looked big.
But maybe what it means most to be Peter is to be unwavering in your principles. I am tremendously grateful to be named after my dad.
Picking a name for our baby would be much easier if we had a boy coming. I’ve always known that I wanted a Peter after my dad.
I want to share a few short stories with you that are special to me.
Like my sisters, I loved visiting my dad at work at the Market. My mom would pull up to the back entrance honk the horn and out he would come. He would put an apron on me, give me the sawdust and I would “help” him. I remember in particular that one day I was at Fremont and he walked up to me and said Peter I need you to carry these for me. So I reached out and then realized that he was carrying two pigs heads by the ears. He thought this was hilarious, I less so at the moment.
My dad and I often went on trips to Utah, just the two of us. When I was seven we went up one winter, and as I remember it, it was my first time really being in the snow. One morning I walked out of the hotel, and pretty much proceeded to immediately slip on ice into a snow bank. I was like a turtle and my back and couldn’t get up. I declared loudly and to all that could hear me outside of the Days Inn in Richfield Utah, that I would never…ever go to Utah again. He always got a kick out of the fact that the day after we got back to Whittier I asked him when we were going back.
He used to joke about on those trips that I would sit behind him in the car with my elbow digging into his shoulder and talking loud and non stop all the way from Melgar to Richfield or Milford.
You don’t always get to see your dad do something really macho. Most of the time it is your dad doing dad things. My dad always told me he was a really good shot, but after carrying a gun around for two years in the Army he had no interest in carrying let alone shooting one. One day my Grandpa had a Bull that had an infection in his hoof that needed to be medicated. It was summer and the bull was in the pasture. Ivan Cowley gave my dad a rifle that shot medicated darts. My dad took a practice shot, bullseyed it and off we went to the pasture. We tracked the bull and on his first shot my dad bullseyed the bulls rump. It was a perfect shot and to an 11 year old this was at the time the most impressive thing he had ever done.
My dad retired when he was 47. I was in second grade. This allowed him to be very supportive of my life. He watched a lot of bad volleyball games, went to a lot of back to school nights and while I always give credit to my mom for making sure we earned our Eagle Scout my dad was very supportive of my time in Scouting. I dragged him, or sometime he dragged me on a bunch of campouts and hikes. One Summer we hiked with the Scouts throughout Yosemite. We hiked to the top of half dome together, and my dad chased a bear. In the middle of the night awe could hear the bears outside our tent, not thinking clearly my dad yelled at the bear and then chased it away, but not before it took my pack with it. We found it about a half mile away with nice big bite marks in it.
My dad took great pride in being my financier. Whether it was trips to the baseball card shop everyday in the summer with my one dollar budget, our ubiquitous trips to Burger King for a Whopper paying for college, our subsidizing me in grad school.
He was proud of his German heritage. He wanted me to always stay in touch with our family in Germany, and always spoke fondly of his tata and his brothers, and his dog.
He thought fondly of his time in the Army. He said he wouldn’t pay five cents to do it again but wouldn’t trade it for a million dollars. He would tell me stories about his time in Korea, how he stepped into the DMZ, and how he was an Imjin Scout.
He taught me the importance of saving and investing and I have often said that my dad took great pride in two things. His family and his bank statement. My dad never typed in his life. He never used a computer. Sometimes he would call me and say hey I need you to look up something on your magic phone, and then it would be some stock. When the market had a good day I would call him and say hey dad can I get a loan, and he would say I got up this morning and did nothing and made a fortune. When the market was down I would call him and say do you need a little something? This was routine for the last ten years.
When people would compliment him about his kids he would always credit our mom. We loved to go on a family drive, and after Jenn left for college and Chrissi got married it was just the three of us at home we had so much fun. We went out to eat all the time, we watched TV together and I enjoyed being an only child.
While he wasn’t a sports fan to the degree I was he enjoyed watching a game or a race. We went to baseball games, football games, indy car races, basketball games. We watched a tremendous amount of BYU football games together either in person or on the phone. If a big play happened I would call him and say did you see that. He was always anticipating my call. I feel the most German when it comes to Soccer. We watched Germany win the World Cup in 1990 and last time in 2014. We loved it and would loved rooting for the Germans. I’m hoping they win it for him this year.
I describe my dad as a Monday – Saturday Latter Day Saint. He loved the church, kept most of the commandments (he drank too much coffee). I would say if the Bishop called and said Peter we need you to pick up the scouts at 3 AM in Bakersfield and we need you to pay for it, he would say no problem, but if the Bishop asked if you he had any interest in staying for the third hour my dad would zoom out of there as fast as possible. But he made sure that we went. nHe understood how important our faith was and the sacrifices our ancestors had made for it. He was so proud of me when I served my mission. We talked about how much he wanted his Grandsons to serve missions.
Shannon loved him too. As far as father in laws go he was tops. She was so impressed that he met as in the terminal at LAX when she came to visit for the first time, and chaufferd us right to Angel Stadium. It was a sunny day that day and she got a little sunburn. My dad went to the store and bought her spf 100 and told her that the sun is very strong here. He called her his sweetheart, was so impressed and how hard she worked. He was the first person in our family to find out when Shannon got pregnant, and he told Shannon that if there was any BYU stuff the baby needed he would pay for it because you have to get them started early about going to BYU. He would send us mail and inside would be a check for Shannon to buy whatever she needed for her or the baby.
It was fun to watch him be Grandpa. He loved his grandkids, and one of the real tragedies if there is one is that he won’t get to meet our little girl in the way that we hoped. He was so excited would always ask how Shannon was doing and he would tell me that he couldn’t stop smiling when he thought about the baby.
My dad loved his son in laws too. He told Gavin that the men in our family have Masters Degrees. He was so proud of Marc and Don. How they took such good care of his daughters and his grandkids. The attribute that my dad appreciated more than anything else was work ethic. He would remark to me that he didn’t know why he was so lucky to have inherited them.
And I want to mention our honorary youngest sibling. My dad LOVED Winston. He cooked for Winston, they went on walks and when Winston was a pup he would be exasperated when WINSTON would wander off, and say doesn’t he realize how good he has it here. They were best pals.
Unfortunately, this isn’t our first rodeo. In the last 11 years since my Mom and Don, we have become acquainted with grief. I don’t stop missing them, I think about what our life would be like if they were still here, but I choose not to dwell on the sad times but instead to remember the good times and they were many. I remember the summer before I left on my mission and we all lived in Whittier, and we watched Survivor together all of us, and we went to the park together…all us. And then I think of the great plan of salvation, that because of the Savior that we can and will be together forever. I take great comfort in that knowing that someday will be like that summer when we all be reunited again.
Dad I love, I miss you, I hope I made you proud, and I will never forget what you taught me.
