Eulogy Of The Master Sergeant

 (This was the eulogy I delivered for The Master Sergeant last week at his funeral)

Good morning.

On behalf of the Mr. and Mrs TB Families, we would like to thank you for being here with us this morning. Some made a journey to be here; all of you are deeply appreciated.

The Master Sergeant was one of three sets of twins and ten children total born to his parents in the Midwest. On growing up as a large household in <Midwestern states> he would share periodic stories, seemingly out of nowhere: capturing a raccoon, trips to the creek with his brothers, at least one Winter being so bad and so poor that they ate nothing but corn mush for most of it.

Upon graduating high school, he had two choices: to farm or to join the military. He joined the Air Force. His specialty was as an aircraft mechanic, something that was both a blessing and curse: a blessing in that it kept him largely in the US and for many years at Near Old Home, a curse in that it denied him the ability to perhaps have more postings elsewhere.

On a blind date, he met his wife the Future Mrs. Master Sergeant. Things went swimmingly and they were married . They had two daughters, The Ravishing Mrs. TB and The Ravishing Mrs. TB’s sister.

The Master Sergeant retired from the Air Force after 20 years. He and the now actual Mrs. Master Sergeant bought a house in Near Old Home at 1806 San Jose Place where they lived until his passing.

The Master Sergeant had several interests. He was a man of gardening and landscapes: his yard was always perfect, his garden full (his tomatoes remain amazing in my mind), and he built a backyard pergola and pond where he kept koi. He enjoyed fishing and for many years went on the bays and sloughs around Near Old Home. He enjoyed grilling and smoking and was an expert long before television chefs traveled long distances to find that “someone” no-one had heard of. And he was a long time coin collector, something that (from one of his brothers) had been a passion from when he was young.

Thus far The Master Sergeant the man. Now the harder part: The Master Sergeant as I knew him.

There is no manual for the meeting of your possible father in law and it is not something that young men seem to discuss among themselves: in that sense it remains very similar to the process that has been happening since before recorded history: one has a smattering of what your-then girlfriend tells you (and what they have told their father about you) and you go in, hoping against hope that things go well and your first meeting is not a mis-step of Biblical proportions.

Fortunately for me it was not: that I recall, things went pleasantly enough and I did not die. In retrospect I wonder what The Master Sergeant thought of that meeting: I was undoubtedly rather nervous and sweaty and probably stumbled a lot. He never held that first meeting against me that I know of, being as welcoming as a father can be to someone who is both dating and at some point possibly marrying his daughter.

I wrote of The Master Sergeant’s gardening skills: they stunned me. I had never seen someone do so much with a relatively small space and the citrus trees in his backyard were a marvel to me; many was the time I would come to visit, grab a chair, and sit out under the tree and read, surrounded by the fragrance of the blossoms and the sound of the waterfall he had built.

His grilling skills were something unlike anything I had seen either: we had barbecued growing up, what The Master Sergeant did was something else. It was easily ten years under his tutelage before I was “allowed” to grill ribs on my own – and even then it was under his strict supervision for another five. Another skill he held which left me in awe was his ability to tell what wrench I needed to use merely by looking at the bolt or nut instead of putting up a series of wrenches to it to see which one fit.

Otherworldly, I thought it. College kid without experience, he probably thought back.

I had never met a coin collector of any kind before The Master Sergeant. The most impressive thing to me about it was not the albums and albums he had of silver rounds and wooden rounds in bookcases and file cabinets, it was the number of contacts that he had throughout the U.S. of people with a similar interest. He knew people all over the U.S. long before social media and even cheap cell phone calls were thing, keeping in contact with them via letters and phone calls with exchanged coins and the typing up and sending out of newsletters that he did for more than one coin club. There were many time early in our marriage we would stop at their house and he would be in the back bedroom, working away on a typewriter for one of the various newsletters for which he effectively served as reporter, editor, and publisher.

Our relationship was set on a series of principles that, like that initial meeting, we never really discussed between each other but simply evolved the way these things seem to. Part of that was a realization that we were very different people with different backgrounds and different interests which are thrust together by a relationship that one chose and the other came along with. Our conversations tended to be of the safe sort that one has to pass the time: how work is going, college football (something I was not at all good at), some techniques at gardening or grilling. Once or twice I went with him to a coin show: he directed me to the vendors with the historical coins he thought I would enjoy

One thing I found in my relationship with my own father is that I did not understand the extent to which his early life impacted his later one. I suspect the same was true with The Master Sergeant. He could be cross sometimes, but then would buy you dinner or help you rebuild your retaining wall or support you financially. And the only time I can think of when we had a verbal disagreement, he never held against me later.

As time went on, two things came to dominate his life: his grandchildren and the diabetes which, in the end, took his life.

In his grandchildren, he took great joy. He managed to pass his love of fishing on to his grandsons. To all of five of his grandchildren he remained involved, although for our girls it became harder once we moved to New Home. Still, even then he loved to see them and speak with them on the phone about how things were going in their lives. He also had a stock of what are now known as “Dad jokes”, which he would roll out for them upon occasion.

In his diabetes, the skill that had worked for him to that point – commitment to not changing course until a thing was done – did not work as well. It becomes relatively easy to look back on someone in that position and wonder “Why can he not change?”; it is much harder to realize that the habits and skills that got one to that point can be very difficult to change or abandon.

The Master Sergeant’s religious beliefs were probably the most private thing about him and something that we (to my reckoning) never discussed more than once or twice. That he did not discuss them does not mean he did not hold them: sometimes those things that are most precious to us remain the most private. But private, of course, is different from not having them at all.

If I have a favorite memory of The Master Sergeant it is less of The Master Sergeant himself than of the atmosphere that he created: sitting under the lemon tree with the scented blossoms in full bloom, looking at a deep green well manicured garden with the water bubbling down the rocks and the smell of ribs cooking drifting by. And in this, perhaps, lies The Master Sergeant’s greatest gift to myself and really anyone who knew him: memories of things that both bring us the joy of who they were and what they did and the sorrow of the fact that, at least in body, they are no longer with us.