On my dad, UCLA, Weber grills and the things that make me who I am

My dad passed a few years ago.  I was asked to give one of the eulogies at a memorial service.  I realized a few weeks ago I had not posted it on this blog.  So in tribute to my father, Stan Salen, I'll post it now.

Hi, my name is Todd and I was one of my dad’s sons.  I fit somewhere in the middle of the three families my dad was a part of.   I was the youngest of the first family, in the middle for the second and I’m not sure where I fit now!  I want to thank each of your for joining our family today for this service.

My father was shaped very much by the times he grew up in.  Raised on a farm in a small town in Pennsylvania, in the middle of the depression,  he was an athlete and very popular in school.  Over the years I have heard many stories of dad and his brother Lou driving around town looking for trouble.  Like many dads, he told me that he walked 5 miles to school in the snow uphill, both ways….. I believed him … until one time when I was visiting my grandmother and she pointed out dad’s school which was down the block a ways.  Still a nice walk, but hardly 5 miles.  Oh and the road was flat too…both ways.    You could only believe so much of what my dad would tell us, he had a sarcastic streak in him, just like I do.

I think he learned at an early age that hard work was a requirement of life.  He grew up in an era where the father was the head of the family, provided for everyone, while the wife stayed home to manage the children. 

I had heard he planned to attend Ohio State before he enlisted in the navy.  Like many of the Greatest Generation, he served proudly, but rarely talked about his experiences with his family.  I learned more about his service in the last 5 years than I ever knew in my first 45. 

After the war he enrolled at UCLA through the GI bill.  It was in Los Angeles he met my mother.  I’m not sure why she was in LA, except that I’m sure anything was better than Duluth Minn. where she was born. My mother used to say that Duluth had 9 months of winter and 3 months of poor sledding.  But, she was a looker!  At least that was how dad described her.  My mother was the second of 5 children.  Her father emigrated from Greece in the early 1900’s. 

Dad loved UCLA.  He loved all of the glory years of John Wooden and loved his Bruins.  He especially loved it when the Bruins beat up on USC, Illinois or Wisconsin.  After the 84 Rose Bowl when the Bruins destroyed my Illini, dad kept a subtle reminder hanging just outside the guest room,  a Rose Bowl pennant.  He loved to poke you just a little to remind you that no matter what, the Bruins ruled. 

With the help of Dan and Paul we took dad to see the Bruins play the Fighting Illini a few years ago.  Dad had begun to lose his mobility at this point.  I told him we would need to walk a bit at the stadium, so I persuaded him to do his exercises in the months leading up to the game so he would be strong enough to walk from the car to the stadium.  I knew this would be his last chance to see them in person and I arranged for tickets in the UCLA section.  Cheerleaders and the Bruin band and many fans decked out in blue and gold lifted dad’s spirits for weeks to come.  It was a special day for all of us that were there.

Let me share a couple of the happiest days in dad’s life with you.  His wedding days were happy days.  He loved having everyone share them with him.  Another really happy day was the day that my sister Kris was born.  He got a big stack of “It’s a girl” cigars and he handed them out at work and all through the neighborhood. 

  

He was always happy whenever we were driving to Pennsylvania.  There was something about going back to the farms and the fields he spent so much time in as a child that revitalized him.  He loved spending time with his sisters Eileen and Bonnie and Peggy.  And he even tolerated all of the newborns he had to hold.  He especially loved his mother, my grandmother.  She was a special lady, who managed a house and all of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  She was the only person that could put dad in his place.  All she needed so say was….”Stan….” and he would sink back in his chair and end whatever mischief he might have started. 

But the happiest day in dad’s life?  The day he got his first Weber grill.  Sunday’s belonged to dad.  Not because he was an avid church goer, or because he loved the NFL or anything like that.  No, it was because on Sunday he got to cook dinner.  And he loved that so much.  It didn’t matter whether he was cooking the most expensive steak, or the cheapest of hamburger, dad loved to fire up the grill.  And when they introduced the Weber grill, he had to have one.  I am certain he took better care of his Weber grill than any car or appliance he ever owned.  Oh and he loved to experiment on that Weber grill.  There was something about the circular flow of heat in a Weber that fascinated Dad.  I had more varieties of kabobs, and meat pies and the like from his experiments.   I don’t remember that any of them were great creations, but I know that dad thought they were. 

For most of his life dad hated holidays.   There was only one thing dad liked about Christmas, filling the stockings.  He would find the best little toys and trinkets to fill each of our stockings and take great pride as we sorted through them on Christmas morning.  But after the stockings were emptied, we needed get the gifts unwrapped, the paper in the garbage and move on to the rest of the day.  Thanksgiving?  Forget it, too many people running in and out of the kitchen and through the house.  He would camp out in his chair, and bite his lip, and count the minutes until dinner was over and the dishes were put away. 

Yep, he hated the holidays….that is…..until he learned you could cook a turkey in his Weber grill.  From that day forward he LOVED the holidays.  I remember him getting up early on Christmas morning to start the grill.  Oh my, that made the day so much better.  He was sure his grilled turkey was the best ever!  And he told us that every holiday.  “Have you ever had a better turkey…it’s just perfect!”  …..

Eventually, with the help of my sister Kris and his loving wife June, dad learned to enjoy the holidays.  He would patiently sit back and watch and listen to each of us.  I think he just savored the moments with his children, even if we weren’t cooking a turkey!

Dad grew up in the era where the man of the house went to work everyday and the woman took care of the family and the house.  He rarely missed a day at work his whole career.  He would be gone before we woke up in the morning and when he got home, he would head to his chair to read his paper and unwind from the day. 

Dad loved his family, although I don’t think he was ever comfortable letting us know that. I don’t remember seeing him hug any of his children, except for Kris.  But he connected with us in different ways.

Each of us had our own way of dealing with him.  My oldest brother Steve was dad’s favorite to argue with.  If you sat in the room and listened to the two of them you could be certain that it was possible that neither of them cared whether what they were saying was accurate or not, they just liked to argue.  And in the end, they would both truly believe they had won the argument, although watching from the outside you were certain it was possible they both lost!

My next brother Greg was dad’s golden boy.  Greg was a gifted athlete and channeled his gifts into an athletic scholarship.  Dad loved to tell stories of Greg’s successes and beamed with pride whenever the subject came up. Greg was also a charmer, marrying his high school sweat heart.  He used his charm on dad a lot, always nodding in agreement to everything dad said while crossing his fingers behind his back and doing things his way rather than dad’s. 

I learned a lot about dad watching Steve and Greg deal with him.   I always tried to be factual with dad.  I soon learned that facts where not what made you right or wrong though.  Eventually as I got older I adopted Greg’s style of letting him be right even when I thought he wasn’t.

 

It was interesting though, it was ok to take sides against dad, but if you ever bad mouthed the other brothers in front of him, he let you know that wasn’t permitted.  He protected each of us from each other and from the world around us.

Dad loved the women in his life.  My mother Muriel, Roberta and June all were very important to him.  He was someone that really loved being married.  He loved shopping for just the right birthday card or anniversary card or Christmas present.  And all three women changed him.  Roberta and June especially.   Roberta taught him patience and June taught him about family.  

There are a couple of things that I am certain about when I think about Dad.  I’m certain that he wouldn’t want us making a lot of fuss about all of this.  For the most part, he would have wanted us to get on with our lives and not look back.  That is what he always tried to do.  Dad was someone that had a good life.  I think it was the kind of life that he wanted.  A good job, a family, a home, and children that all finished college and found happiness in their lives. 

He had some tough bumps in his road.  Losing two wives to cancer was hard. My brothers and sister had our ups and downs and he took each of them personally.   I know the last time I saw him he was paranoid about putting all of us through the nightmares that he had been through with his two wives and cancer.  He was trying to fight a good fight for June’s sake, but he knew that the end was near. 

In the end though, he wanted all of us to be happy.  He also wanted all of us to know that he loved each of us very much.  The last time I spoke to him he made a point of reminding me that our lives had to move on.  We needed to deal with losing him the same way that he dealt with those rough times in his life.  We all needed to pick ourselves up and get back to living our lives. 

I don’t know what heaven looks like, I can’t even imagine what comes next.  But somehow, I have this picture of dad wearing a UCLA sweatshirt, cooking over a brand new Weber Grill and asking God…..”Have you ever had a turkey cooked on a grill??”