January 30th

January 30th


    Dad - 1943 or 44

Next Monday, the 30th , marks the 35th anniversary of my marriage to Kris. 15 years ago on that date, our 20th anniversary, my father passed away. Early that morning while sleeping, I suddenly woke up from my sleep. I glanced over at the clock and realized it was still in the middle of the night so I went back to sleep. That morning I received the call from the family. Dad had passed away during the night and the time was within a couple of minutes of the time I had woken up and looked at the clock. Weird. Also weird, the month and day Kris and I first connected matched the month and day of my father's birthday.




So, my Dad's been gone for 15 years now and I still miss him. He was in an advanced stage of Alzheimer's as well as Parkinson's. He'd been been that way for a year or so and was living in a care facility. I, of course, went back to New York for the funeral and services. I am the oldest of the three kids. I asked to give his eulogy at the church service for him. A copy of it follows:




“No matter where you go, there you are” – This was one of my father’s little pet sayings when I was growing up. He had a number of these. This one seems simple and in some sense it seems to sound like it’s saying something pithy while just stating the obvious.




There’s an old joke about Moses and Jesus playing golf - They come up on a par 4 dogleg left with water on the left. Moses tells Jesus that the smart play is to just hit the ball down the wide open fairway to the bend and then it’s just 150 yards to the green as the fairway is narrow after the bend and it’s longer than it looks to clear the water. Jesus looks across the water and says: “Arnie would cut the corner by hitting it over the water leaving just a short pitch to the green for a good birdie opportunity.” So Jesus sets his ball on the tee, takes a mighty swing. The ball heads out over the water but it comes up short and splashes into the water. Moses says: “I’ll get it” and he walks down, parts the water, and retrieves the ball. He again suggests to Jesus that he take the smart play and again Jesus repeats that Arnie would cut the corner and proceeds to knock another ball into the water. Moses once again parts the water, retrieves the ball, and then one more time advises Jesus to play the hole as he suggested. He then says he is done retrieving the ball again. But, Jesus once again says “Arnie would cut the corner” and proceeds to hit the ball a 3rd time into the water. So Jesus heads out to the water, walking on the top. About this time the group behind them is coming up to the tee. One of them notices Jesus walking on the water and he asks Moses “Who does that guy think he is, Jesus Christ?” Moses turns to him, shakes his head, and says: “No, He thinks He’s Arnold Palmer.”




My father never thought he was Arnold Palmer. I never saw him pretend to be more than he was. He was always good at staying Jim Backus. No matter where he went or who he talked to he was Jim Backus. No frills, no pretenses, ego in check. He was self effacing and humble – he believed that humility was a virtue.




Born in Cleveland 1923, he was an only child. His father, a reformed baseball and basketball player, was a gentle man who was an electrician and later a building manager. His mother was a grade school teacher, a former suffragette, and strong willed. They moved from Cleveland to Brooklyn shortly after my Dad was born because his father felt that inner city Cleveland, where he had grown up, was no place to raise a child.




They moved out to Valley Stream shortly after that. Dad’s childhood coincided with the Great Depression. He used to tell my sister and I that he was 11 when he was born. He had something like 7 different dogs growing up, each one named “Sport”. I suppose Pete and Babs should be glad their name isn’t Dave or maybe Pete and I should be grateful that our names aren’t Babs. Actually, my mom and he had 7 Dogs as well, but only one got tagged with the name Sport and that was only because us kids insisted on it.




My Dad loved baseball and music. He played shortstop and relief pitcher for his high school (Central High of Valley Stream) baseball team. He was a New York All State high school musician. He played trombone, french horn, and sang in a Jazz band. After High School he attended Westchester State (his Mom’s college) to study music before dropping out to join the army for WWII. Upon returning from the war he married my Mom and went to work at New York Telephone, part of the AT&T corporation. They had a couple of kids and bought a house in Levittown. Because when WWII ended he hadn't accumulated enough points to completely fulfill his Military commitment he was later drafted for the Korean War. He served for about 6 months before being released. He returned back to work at the phone company the 1st working day after his return home. The phone company was expecting him to take some time off and had no position for him in his old office. However, there was an opening in engineering so he became an engineer and invented the transistor, the UNIX operating system, and the breakfast drink, Tang – just kidding on the inventions. I was just checking to see if you are still listening. After a few years the family moved to Rollingwood and added one more kid. Along the way he attained a College Degree from Hofstra, a school, according to him, whose reputation was always in question because they let him go there. However, his college ring was likely his most prized possession.




We were not demonstrative as a family but we were a loving family – ok not so much between my sister and me but otherwise… We were very “Yankee”, so self reliance was big in our family. We were taught independence and we are very American in that sense. My Dad was a firm believer in both America’s great experiment (government by the people and no classes) and also of man’s ability to overcome and persevere.

Mom and Dad in Rocklin 93

My father was black-and-white about things. He lived by a moral code and at least from my view he almost never varied on that. He firmly believed that it was vital to always do the right thing. My father also had a sharp tongue. He was very good at seeing through people. He knew how to zing you or needle you whenever he noticed something.




He was always quick with a smart comedic comment. He sang in the church choir. He would frequently crack-up those sitting next to him with his comments on the pastor's sermon. The pastor, who was a friend of my Dad's eventually informed him that the acoustics in the church allowed him to hear all my Dad's comments. I'm not sure that stopped my Dad. One of my favorites was near the end of his life. See, one good side of Alzheimer’s is that the person kind of slips away from you slowly and you get the opportunity to tell them how you feel about them. I wrote my Dad a letter telling him my feelings and how much he meant to me. My Mom was reading it to him when one of the staff at the home commented on what a wonderful letter it was and my Dad quipped right on queue “Yeah, well he doesn’t know me very well.”




My father, a member of “The Greatest Generation”, was a good man always tried to do what was right. He was loyal, loving, supportive, kind-hearted, yet firm and resolute. He was a good family man who especially liked kids and dogs. He was a lucky man – he spent over 60 years with the love of his life, my mother. She was his partner, confidant, best friend, and a person he never fell out of love with. Everyone should be so lucky.  Another of my Dad’s pithy sayings was “Be the labor great or small do it well or not at all”. I would argue he achieved the former.




I will miss my Dad dearly. The truth is I have already been missing him as the last few years as so much of him was slowly taken from us with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, but while I feel a huge loss I know the depth of that feeling is only possible because I have known and been loved by him all my life. And how great is that? On one hand, I feel very sad, but on the other, and really more importantly, I am reminded of how very blessed I am. That really goes for the whole family as well as others who had the benefit of having Jim Backus in their life.




So - Thank you Dad! Here’s to you and the Yankees! And say hi to Rita for us.




That's the end of the eulogy. My wife Kris has a lot of the same qualities that my father had and they got along famously. They both had/have a very nice posture on things/life. I have heard that a woman tends to marry someone like her father and a man someone like his mother. Well I married my father, I try not to put too much into that....

      Kris and Dad hangin' on the porch in Maine

Foot Notes:

1. One of his friends, Bob, who lived on our block, was a big Red Sox fan. My Dad was a Yankee fan. Bob would always toast my dad with “Here's to you and the Red Sox.
2. Rita was my Dad's girlfriend before my Mom. While he was stationed overseas during WWII he wrote a letter to Rita ending their relationship. Then he wrote a passionate letter to my Mom. Unfortunately he sent the wrong letter to each of them. My Dad was always embarrassed about that and it was a taboo subject until the latter stages of Alzheimer’s. Dad started bringing up Rita more and more, teasing my Mother as he forgot all about his famous faux pas.