Eulogy for my father

I am breaking my own rules by posting a personal matter on my blog. The blog is supposed to deal with smarter ways to get paid. But I wanted to record this for cyber-posterity so here goes. This is the eulogy I delivered on Monday at my father's funeral.

I wrote a eulogy in my head while driving down from Connecticut on Friday evening. It was a gush of random memories about growing up in Richmond and my father’s life, all played out in my mind like a collage on a mental screen. But putting it to words was harder.

When he died on Saturday afternoon I went back to his house and noticed a book on a bookshelf: Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation.” On the back of the paper cover there’s a quote:

“They came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America—men and women whose everyday lives of duty, honor, achievement and courage gave us the world we have today.”

I foolishly looked for his name in the index. No mention.

So, with apologies to Tom Brokaw, here’s another brief chapter for the book in memory of my father.

Born in September 1923, to immigrant parents in New York City, and named after Oscar Wilde, , my father spent his high school years in the Big Band Era and was self-remembered best as a trombone playing kid with bow legs and wide spaces between his front top teeth.

In World War 2 he was shipped (literally) to Morotai in the South Pacific, and his service was not a romantic one like the Broadway play nor a courageous one like the TV series currently showing. He was an anti-aircraft gunner with a few hits under his belt, but his favorite story was being on sentry duty and hearing a rustle in the jungle, commanded in his best Japanese, “Stop!” to be ignored and have no recourse but to toss a grenade to kill the intruder. The next morning, the non-Japanese speaking wild boar was his first enemy ground casualty. Halperts are not especially warriors.

He returned to New York, looking for work and found a restaurant equipment sales position in Richmond, Virginia, of all places, in a period of racial segregation and post war economic opportunity. My parents were married in 1952. My mother followed him to Richmond (a culture shock for her) and soon reached that all-important milestone for first generation Americans raised in the city, bought a house on Mark Lawn Drive. We outgrew that house when Stuart came and moved to the classic 1960s split level in a suburban neighborhood on Kalb Road. My parents raised us as best they could always seeking better for their boys. Halperts were no longer apartment-dwellers.

He established a fledgling home business on the weekends and evenings, growing to a significant manufacturer of products no one else produced with the same quality. He brought my mother, Neil and Stuart into the business and named it Marston, an acronym of all our names. Halperts were now entrepreneurs.

In quickly ensuing years, the boys, and their children, all grew up. He was always most interested to hear of our successes and our children’s advancements, all the time he tried to keep up with Jewish events and Israeli news from his AOL account, he read cultural updates from the New Yorker, and produced the not-quite-ready-for-the-Pulitzer Prize 5100 Men’s Club newsletter until about 18 months ago.

Challenged by skin cancer and heart disease, he dodged the bullet more than most and healed. My mother’s pancreatic cancer and death in 1998 was difficult for him but he bounced back. He had to learn to do the laundry, shop for groceries and run a household, all truly alien to the archetypal 1950’s father.

Sarah finished with college, Mindy is finishing college, Dan and Adam are in college, Marissa is starting in the fall and Eric is soon to get ready to start the search. Halperts are on the move.

Another stroke 18 months ago threatened to stop him, but temporarily, and his greatest lament was that he had to use a walker as an 86-year old. I always reminded on our weekly phone call: 1) I want to reach 86; 2) I want to be able to stand at 86; 3) if I use a walker, that’s ok too. He never seemed to agree with me on the last point.

His physical therapy was counteracted by his fear of falling and he always needed that walker. He made an amazing rebound he made in 18 months. The final stroke this past Friday still had him reminding the staff at Beth Sholom Gardens and the ER to cancel a doctor’s appointment.

So back to Brokaw’s quote:
• duty: in the Army to his country and to his loved ones;
• honor: to manufacture the best product and do the best he could for his family;
• achievement: he took pride in his accomplishments and those of his family; and
• courage: as he had to fight his and my mother’s illnesses.

Another member of the Greatest Generation is gone.

And yet he was an eternally optimistic, intellectually curious without any formal higher education and to the end a headstrong Hungarian.

My brothers and I all thank you for celebrating his memory today.