“My father was
very intelligent and,
like all intelligent men,
very kind.” So wrote Jorges Luis Borges in his famous
short story, ‘The Aleph.”
The moment I read those
words years ago, I immediately knew they applied to my father, Herbert Roy Needham; April 18, 1915 – February 20, 1990.
Herb, Herby, Herbert, Daddy. He was so extraordinary that I must confess, over my
lifetime Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Ashe, and the Dalai Lama have reminded me of
him; humor, curiosity, profundity, honesty, humility, grace, compassion.
My Mother told the story of
knowing him in high school, Capital Hill High School in Oklahoma City, but not
being interested in him at all until later at Oklahoma State University. She
had considered him “kind of a farm boy.” This is funny because my mother was,
in fact, a farm girl! But she was the socially outgoing, confident
valedictorian who clearly fancied herself otherwise. They were the best couple
I will ever know.
 |
| Navy Payroll Officer, U.S.S. Cleveland Light Cruiser, Pacific 1944 |
 |
| Awaiting Herby's Return, 1944 |
 |
| 50th Wedding Anniversary, 1987 |
So there always was a
simplicity about Herby – not a simple-mindedness – but such a lack of
pretension, such a lack of hubris of any sort. It was an elegance that a farm
boy who embraced the cosmos could embody. His sense of humor inclined towards
puns (“the lowest form of humor,” he proudly affirmed), corny twists (those
stories that ended with lines like “Opporknockity tunes but once” or “Pardon
me, Roy, is that the cat who chewed your new shoes?”), and out-laughing
everyone else at the table over his own jokes. He walked in the door at 5:30
every weeknight and we all sat down to dinner soon after. This occasion included
Daddy’s cracking up at his jokes as well as a discussion on the various types
of love: agape, eros, philia, among other curiosities of history,
psychic phenomena, ideas. When company was present, he loved to joke about
the butter knives being laid out, which resulted in a traditional family
favorite, “The Herby Look,” administered by Mother with futile subtlety. Dinner
was always fun and interesting.
 |
| Somehow I doubt those were really his clothes! Oklahoma City, 1919 |
 |
| A little rascal at the farm house, 1921 |
I was the fourth daughter,
so I have more personal memories of him during my high school years when the
older sisters were at college or already married. He liked to shoot a
basketball into the hoop he had attached to a tree in the corner of our
backyard. His arcane proclivities enabled him to envision the ball arching towards the center of that hoop and
swishing through it. He taught me how to try this. I saw him swish twelve in a
row once. I developed my visualization 'muscle' over the years, thanks to him.
After I went away to
college, he undertook intense self-training for tennis. He followed the Air
Force fitness standards, running the nine floors of stairs at his Southwestern
Bell Telephone Company office during lunch hour. He read The Zen of Tennis, which prescribed concentration not on the ball
but on the seam of the ball. He
poured a concrete slab on our back lawn up to the neighbors’ garage wall, where
he painted a solid line (‘the net’) and a dotted line above it (‘do not hit
above this line’). The neighbors were all close friends in that magical time. I
can remember waking to the rhythm of his serve and volley practice on that slab outside my window
when I came home between college quarters. Herb became a serious competitor at
age 55; at 59 he was Number 2 in Oklahoma’s ‘Age 55 and Over’ bracket.
Then he noticed a shortness
of breath and endurance problems and discovered that he had a heart condition.
This was based on a heart muscle weakened many decades prior when he had a
childhood virus. He was supposed to just sit still for a year.
Herbert’s mystical side was
rich with study, experimentation, and the focused discipline he believed was a
great source of freedom (“if you have the discipline, then you are free to accomplish
what you wish”). Studying texts by Max Freedom Long, Herb followed an ancient
technique from Polynesian kahunas (and from plenty of other ancient traditions) where
the balanced physical, emotional and mental meet in a present moment and connect
to an illusive higher energy (...the soul? ...the higher self? ...an electromagnetic connection to the universe's forcefield? ...the source of creation?). While practicing this presence, Daddy expressed
gratitude for the tennis, which had been such an exquisite gift. The moment was
an epiphany of sorts that resulted in a normalization of his heart function.
The doctor never knew why, but Herby was back on the tennis courts after seven months. He did limit his tournament play from then on to doubles, eventually becoming
Number 1 in Oklahoma’s ‘Age 55 and Over’ bracket!
He liked to write; sometimes
poems. During this time, knowing that his heart health could be compromised, he
stated that he would like to die some years hence while going for a great shot on the tennis court:
Chances
Taking chances with the heart
Is not a sport;
You really might die out
On the court.
But if you stayed in bed instead
And you died,
You’d be just as dead.
The methodical approach Herbert
followed led him to read every book on a published list of English literature
classics, starting at the top and working his way down. Both Mother and Daddy
attended American Institute of Discussion sessions, where more contemporary and
international literature was explored. He also enrolled in a semester of Art
History at Tulsa University, so we had much to discuss from my literature and Art
History studies at college. Later, ten years after his death when Mother moved
from the house to a retirement community, I found all sorts of books on Daddy's shelves that paralleled interests of mine, including the rich esoteric selection
and a well-underlined paperback by Erik Erikson about child development and
progressive education (which was turning into my second career at that point!).
Favorite lessons from this
great seeker of wisdom were insightfully shared with us. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning was a life-long
favorite of Daddy's. Its theme: that the only freedom that cannot be taken from a
person is the choice of how to respond to what life serves up, which in
Frankl’s case was a Nazi concentration camp.
I have confirmed the truth
of another of Daddy’s lessons: the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. It sounds tougher to go around
hating “The Other” than to admit fear of “The Other;" or fear of our unknown
selves; or fear of mystery. And love – in one form or another - is the
antidote. Hate is just a hairline away from love, and the two are so frequently
intertwined…due to fear.
On religion and science? Daddy’s
liberal Protestantism, which he eventually gave up, never required an argument
with the vastness of creation. He, as I, believed conventional science has
barely scratched the surface of our minds and our cosmos, so he saw science as
the incremental revealer and consciousness as the immediate revealer. As his
spiritual pursuits headed evermore away from doctrine in the direction of
seeking a “great oneness” from moment to moment – “prayer without ceasing” - he
preserved a Christian framework and idiom for this practice, seeking Christ’s example of wakefulness itself in lieu of organized religion.
A Minute
I am a minute man
I want to live each one
As fully as I
can.
Life
Life is bigger
Than most
People figger.
Thank You
Thank you God
For all the
Blessings of Life;
The ones we recognize
And
The ones in disguise.
Anyone who attempts mindful
practice knows how resistant we
humans are to intense, fleeting consciousness. Here’s my favorite poem of
Daddy’s:
Snow
The snowflakes fall lazily to the ground
Dancing in the floodlights –
Giving themselves unresistingly
To the air and to the purpose
Of their existence.
The wonder and beauty of it –
I am touched – inspired
And sent to thinking about
Snow and life.
How I wish I might be as
Unresisting to my life purpose
As the snow flakes that dance
Their lives away in the light of evening.
I love the intimation in this
line from his poem “On the Mountain,” which describes the astonishing beauty of
sunrise breaking through fog in a forest. It proposes the ultimate connection
between the personal and the phenomenal:
Oh Lord! How could you paint such beauty for me?
I am often moved to quote it
when the beauty of nature, ocean and sky, stuns me.
I often quote another
favorite of mine, substituting various creatures who regularly appear inside my
house in Brazil:
Little Mouse
Bless you little mouse
You are my brother,
But not in the house!
One compelling image of my
father was from a trip back home I took as a young adult. He was still a member
of the Methodist Church then, and I visited my parents’ Sunday School class
that day. These were older folks, and the body language of some of the men
fulfilling their “pillars of the community” status was over-the-top during the group
prayer. While the histrionics were entertaining, there was pomposity there. I
looked over at Daddy, who went inside the moment instead. The strength of his embodiment of unassuming humility and presence was so defining about him.
And the kindness. He could really see the person in front of him at times. He observed that our daughter Elise was in "control of her world" when she was only severn months old, and how true that observation has proven! He observed the long attention span and acute concentration of our son Jake when he was just a year old. Bingo!
As the Personnel Manager at
the regional telephone company in Tulsa, he turned a corporate setting into a
very human one. He found the personal connections so satisfying that he turned
down all further promotions on the corporate ladder and stayed in that job for
17 years, until retirement. How many came through the funeral receiving line to
say he had hired them in 1957, 1963, 1970, etc. and had remained their friend
all those years?
After retirement Herby
became a volunteer Hospice counselor. The dying and their families had an
attentive, open listener. One of the most emotional encounters I had at the funeral
was with the man dying of AIDS to whom Daddy had been assigned. He was a drug
user and his wife was also dying of AIDS. They had two teenage sons. He said Herb
was the only person in his life who had ever cared about him. From that time on
till the husband and wife both died – "here I hang on with a sob"* – my
equally compassionate Mother unofficially stepped in and continued loving
support for the couple.
* from Daddy's poem, 'The Letter"
Herby did fulfill his wish
to drive to Alaska with Mother some months before prostate surgery and
ensuing heart problems took away tennis and the quality of his life. It is
amazing to look on a globe and see the gigantic swath of earth that spans from
Oklahoma to Alaska. They had visited nearly all the states by car, alternating the
driving every hour with a little march around the car to stretch legs, but this
two-month trip was the crowning glory.
Herbert pushed hard for risky heart
surgery, as he was not interested in a prolonged, enfeebled life. Sure enough,
there was no long life to be had.
I fall short of all of his
qualities, but I find more and more how I am inspired by him: seeking, questioning, striving,
wishing; trying to calm myself and be still, as he could do. I have had good
fortune nearly all my life, but having this father of mine (and that mother of
mine) are at the top of the list.
 |
| With a line from a poem Herby wrote to Laurene |
Happy centennial of your
birth, Daddy, and thanks for showing me what a human can be.
Love,
Sandra
PS From Herb’s collection:
Plumber’s truck: “A flush
beats a full house.”
Electrician’s van: “Let us
remove your shorts.”
Travel office: “Please go
away.”
Tire repair shop: “Invite us
to your next blow-out.”
PPS
Even though my parents were
two very different, utterly equal individuals, it is impossible to
discuss one without the other! If any one wishes to see or revisit, here is my dispatch from 2010, honoring my Mother just after her death at 96:
http://sandy-dispatch.blogspot.com.br/2010/12/laurene-dispatch.html
