Dan Among Den

Most of you reading this won't have really known my father, so I thought I'd pass on a few brushstrokes of his character.

He was an electrical engineer. It was not merely his job. It was his hobby. It was his passion. Mom never feared he would stray, because she new engineering was Dad's mistriss. Specifically, he worked on microwave communications. That's not one frozen pizza talking to another. It's the microwave band of the radio spectrum, and it's a very weird part of the spectrum. I've heard other skilled EE's talk about it and just shudder. "Black magic", they called it, but Dad thrived on it.

He worked on everything from top secret defense programs to long distance telephone networks, from cell and sattelite phones to the communications systems for the Apollo moon missions. His work helped save pilots' lives and made yours and mine more convenient. In that, he was a patriot, always concious of helping to give America an edge, and while he often questioned the national wisdom and direction, he always felt that this was the greatest nation on Earth.

He was also the cheapest man I've ever known. The polite thing to say is "frugal", but he didn't mince words over it. He freely admitted to being cheap. "A penny saved is better than a penny earned," he would say, "because it's tax free!" And this never changed, even with financial success. On my last visit to see him, on the way back from a financial meeting that laid out how well he has prepared for my mother's future, he was advising her on just where that day's cheapest gas station was. "Hey, 2 cents a gallon adds up."

And he did meet with a fair degree of financial success. He always strived to understand the larger economic events and invested aggressively for decades. He wasn't always on target, but after his retirement, he was able to really focus on it. At that point, he started beating the S&P 500 index by about 15% each year. Very few on Wall Street can say the same. One of his most prescient predictions came about a year ago as the price of oil approached the stratospheric level of $35 a barrel. I opined that it couldn't last long at that level. He just smiled and said, "We'll see $60 before we see $20 again." For those not following such things, I point out that oil closed at $66.27 today.

But he was not a money-loving greedy bastard. He gave much to charity, and while he would sometimes refer to the less fortunate with scorn, he was always kind to the individual. While very conservative in fiscal matters, he was remarkably liberal on many social issues, such as drug legalization, abortion rights, and to some degree, even gay marraige -- very rare for someone of his generation. He was also strongly opposed to various forms of prejudice, whether on racial, ethnic, or gender lines. This was not born out of any great high minded ideals, just that it struck him as incredibly stupid and inefficient.

And he was a great father. He was always there, and he loved my mother for over forty years. He taught me about responsibility, promises, self-reliance, and all the things a man is supposed to learn from his father but often doesn't.

So I think back across my childhood, and all the memories with him. There were many long cross-country drives on wonderful camping vacations. And amongst the beauty of the American wilderness, the ruggedness of the Rockies, the Tetons, the stillness of Crater Lake. he would point it out, just there, to the left of that peak. "Hey kids, there's another microwave tower."

Dates aren't set yet, but there will be a funeral service in Phoenix followed by a burial service in Austin.