THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604050016
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KEITH MONROE
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
My father died last week, ending a life that came close to spanning the 20th century. He was born in 1910 in Columbus, Ohio, and spent most of his life in that state.
In his time, he saw boom and bust, war and prosperity, technological progress and a decline in civility. When he was born, the Wright brothers down the road in Dayton had just recently gotten off the ground, cars were a rarity, movies were in their infancy and hadn't yet learned to talk. His father was a railroad telegrapher. He lived to see moon walks, cyberspace, television bounced off satellites.
Yet all the changes he lived through were not what I admired in him, but his unchanging character. He was a quiet, genial, private man. In his manner, he always reminded me a little of Bing Crosby - easygoing, amiable, competent, self-deprecating. He had little ambition, less acquisitiveness, no vanity. I can't remember an occasion when he gave me a syllable of advice about how to live or behave, but his example spoke volumes.
In many ways, he embraced the stoic virtues and practiced a kind of Midwestern zen. He rarely complained. He did whatever work came his way with a craftsman's attention but without self-seeking. He rendered a day's work for a day's pay. He abhorred boastfulness and ego and didn't seem to understand avarice, probably because his wants were few.
A character like Deion Sanders made him grind his teeth because showboating was unseemly and distracted from the game. A Cal Ripkin was far more to his taste. He watched the Sunday-morning political programs and shook his head at politicians who couldn't tell it straight or who put partisan advantage or personal advancement ahead of the good of the country.
He was a bridge player who appreciated the precision and order of the game. Overly enthusiastic bidding had the same effect on him as Deion Sanders since it was another brand of hubris. And an ill-played hand appeared to cause him pain, because it revealed a lack of tidiness and foresight, a lost opportunity.
As the world counts these things, the big event in his and his generation's life was World War II. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at 32 because he didn't want to wind up in the infantry. The winds of war eventually blew him halfway around the world to Kwajalein where he supervised 65 men who kept the B-29s flying.
Going through his papers, I've found a recommendation by his immediate superior. It is largely boiler plate, but I recognized the man I knew in a few passages: ``T/Sgt Monroe's tactful management . . . his over-all honesty and fairness have made him a well liked and efficient line chief. . . . He never faltered in his determination to do the best job possible with existing facilities, constantly working for improvement.'' Not a bad epitaph.
In the Army, they tried to make him an officer. He declined. After the war, he could have completed a college education interrupted by the Depression. He gave it a pass. He might have had a good job in the reviving airline industry. He chose small business over large. I have always suspected he'd had enough of marching to someone else's drummer. He didn't want to lead, but he didn't want to be forced to follow either.
He never mentioned the war afterward except to say the wind blew a lot in Kansas, Hawaii was beautiful and Kwajalein wasn't. The bad guys were self-evidently bad, and our side simply did what was necessary. Rather like taking out the garbage - a nasty job somebody had to do.
He returned to Ohio and went back to work. He had a babyboomer - me - a 3 percent mortgage, a car with modest tailfins and a job making parts for cars with tailfins. He did his duty as an employee, husband and father, but never with an air of dutifulness. He gave his mother-in-law a home for 35 years, was married for 54 and watched the Cleveland Indians and Browns at his leisure.
In his last year his loyalty was rewarded and betrayed. The Indians returned to the World Series after an absence of 41 years. The Browns were stolen from Cleveland by Art Modell, an act epitomizing the kind of egomania and avarice alien to my father's character.
His wants were few, he yearned for nothing he didn't already possess and he was free. I know how far I fall short of his example, and I worry that contemporary America is not geared to the production of men and women who possess the small-town, old-fashioned virtues he embodied. He was the best man I've encountered. I don't expect to meet a better. MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB