Thank you all so much for being here. Days after Gordon passed, I had a conversation with someone from the funeral home in Dartmouth, MA, near where he died. We were talking about placing the obituary and that we were trying to get it in the Globe in the upcoming Sunday edition. He stopped me; “when is the service”, he asked? I told him it was some weeks ahead and he said, oh, I wouldn’t do that. You want to run the obit two or three days before the service, because people forget. Forget? Huh? I was insulted. We are talking about my father. So, thank you all for not forgetting and for being here today. It means the world to us.
Gordon described how this service, his last “public appearance” as he put it, down to most every detail, should go. The broad form of instruction was that it was to be a “respectful roast.” There is no question that there is plenty of fodder for a roast. Talking to my childhood friends and others who I called after he died has yielded a trove of amusing stories; putting Friendly’s Peppermint Stick ice cream in the microwave to soften it up; the magnetic pull to pot holes when he was behind the wheel of a car, his love affair with black coffee and the spills on clothing, ties in particular, in the car and on the furniture; his ability to nap at any time in any place and his sometimes grizzled appearance that old friend Pete Nordblom memorialized by referring to him as “The Old Salt”, later shortened simply to “Salt”. I’d note that this name attached to Gordon years before he moved to Marblehead and foreshadowed his many hours on the water. There are also two of Gordon’s favorite sayings, evidence of a – just do it – life philosophy; the first, “that’s like asking your mother if you can stick beans up your nose” is a close cousin of the second, the more familiar, “better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
So, we can stipulate that there is plenty of material for a roast, but let’s go a little deeper. I read obituaries. I like to read about what was important to that person. Why were they here? What lessons can be drawn from their years here on earth. Gordon, of course, wrote his own obituary. It is long on accomplishment but short on what I will remember best about his life; the enduring relationships he established and a few valuable life lessons he passed on to me and others in his life.
This church is full because of your connection to Gordon. He invited you into his life. He wanted to do things with you to connect with you. He was a good friend; engaged, interested, a constant steady presence, always looking for ways to connect through shared stories of life.
I am more appreciative than ever of the lessons Gordon taught me while he was alive, and I’d like to think that his death will imprint those lessons on me in a deeper more everlasting way.
Be bold. Think big. Take risks. In business, he hardly ever saw a piece of real estate he didn’t want to buy. Anyone who ever served as a crew member on Katabatic for a race, will appreciate the boldness of Gordon’s risk taking. To me, awe inspiring and terrifying, but the racing results speak for themselves.
Be resilient. Gordon survived the death of his father when he was 15 and worse, the death of his three-year-old son Sam in 1969. He never recovered from that loss, but by the end of his life, he did heal from it.
Be disciplined. This is a funny lesson to have learned from him. In many ways, he was not at all disciplined, not in his diet or bearing, but he focused on the most important stuff and he stopped drinking in 1975 and never drank again. I know he served as an example to others in recovery and the impact that his recovery has had on my life is profound and I would talk about this more, but I’d never get through it.
Be curious. Like his mom Gordon was asking questions for his entire life. This helped him stay connected, to stay young, to have fun.
Be Optimistic. I have a vivid memory of being a young boy mucking about in the pucker brush as Gordon called the dense Maine Woods. I think Dave and I were helping to haul canoes into a remote pond, a good fishing spot, and it was raining – hard. Gordon declared that the rain was a “clearing shower”. It was not until many years later after getting rained on a lot, that I figured out that there is no such thing as a clearing shower; this was said to keep his boys engaged and on task, and it was also an expression of his head down determined optimism. Better times are just ahead. This became kind of a joke in the family; all rainfall was always a clearing shower, nevertheless, I am sure that the rain outside that just ended was that clearing shower Gordon would have predicted.
Finally, for me the greatest inspiration, taught to me at an early age, first in the context of how you care for a campsite at the end of an overnight; leave a place better than you found it. This drove him. The wheels were always turning in service of making of things in his corner of the world better. I wouldn’t always like the 6:30 AM phone call, because he was going to put me to work on something related to this mission, but I really miss them now.