* my father began his “longest nap ever” on june 30, 2025. this past weekend we celebrated his exuberant, hilarious, beautiful life at the berkeley country club (formerly called mira vista), his home golf course for decades. i’m sure he loved it. i learned so many new stories and special moments of his life from the incredible collection of people who came to honor him. i am so grateful for the sharing and love and support we have received. i have been fully immersed in the 70s and 80s reading his letters, sorting through photos and remembering his antics and creative, loving approach to living. here is a link to his obituary that was published in the San Francisco Chronicle, a paper he read at breakfast each morning.
here are the stories that i shared about my most wonderful father:
my father was born on september 3, 1939. the year is particularly significant because until quite recently we all (including my mother) thought his birth year was 1941. the discrepancy was discovered when my mom started going with him to his doctor’s appointments as his health declined. my mother was shocked when my father repeatedly answered the doctor’s opening question of “what year were you born?” with 1939.
(one of the earliest photos of my father that we now know was taken in 1939)
intrigued, we tried to get out of him WHY he was saying ’39, instead of ’41. mind you, we have celebrated ALL of his big birthdays: 40, 50, 60, 75, etc. based on ’41, two years after they really occured. either my father was being wiley and didn’t want to share this origin story, or he just didn’t remember, but to date, we have not yet solved the mystery. we DID find his birth certificate and it confirms 1939. as did his cousin, who is sure that he is five years older than her. but we still don’t know WHY he has (my mother doesn’t want me to say “lied”) FIBBED about his age for minimum of SIXTY years.
(here is my dad celebrating his FIRST birthday… i don’t know why my grandma brought his cake out onto the front lawn)
(here he is on his FOURTH birthday… again they are celebrating on the lawn)
(blowing out the candles on his german chocolate cake for his FORTIETH… except we now know he was actually FORTY-TWO!)
(a birthday card for his FIFTIETH/ FIFTY-SECOND)
(celebrating his SEVENTIETH/ SEVENTY-SECOND with his three grandsons)
i suspect it is vanity related… like an aging hollywood starlet he was always a peacock both about his appearance and his intellect. he regularly stated that he could never golf in shorts because his legs are so BEAUTIFUL he couldn’t risk getting distracted by them and messing up his swing. he also frequently told his grandson, “you know theo, the great thing about being so handsome is that you never have to worry about it, you just know that you are.” of course, he was speaking from experience.
(his famous legs… and spectacular speedo)
(his famous swing)
(two handsome guys!)
he was NOT modest about his intellectual acheivements either. he was quick and bright and did everything early - he skipped two grades of school and graduated high school at sixteen. he then joined the marines - he had to get special “permission” from my grandma to do so - we never really knew what that entailed. but that fudge would have made him older, not younger. he completed all of his degrees: bachelors, masters and PhD at the university of minnesota, EARLY of course and we think he started TAing in grad school when he was hardly older than the undergrads. so maybe there was some scholarship or recognition (a 25 under 25 type article?) that he sought and it began from there. i am not sure we’ll ever know. it IS fitting that he left us with this last hilarious enigma.
(his high school senior portrait… i believe he was sixteen here…)
(i am not sure what graduation this is because of the age and date changes…)
in terms of his personal history, he was born in minneapolis, mn and remained there until he completed his doctorate. my grandmother absolutely ADORED him, even though he was super naughty. when she would get called in to the school to discuss his misadventures with the principal she would just say, “not MY johnny!” snap her handbag closed and march out of the office (or at least that’s how i imagine it.) she repeatedly told my father, “not to hide his light under a basket” and i’m pretty sure he never did. her powerful, unconditional love for him gave him the confidence to approach the world with great certainty (albeit not a whole lot of humility) and the assumption that he could accomplish anything. i think it was an incredible gift.
(my grandma gazing at my father with so much LOVE!)
so he had resounding clarity about what he (and everybody else) should do, often starting sentences with, “if i were KING….” and if i said, “oh GOD” when i was with him, he always responded, “jennifer, when it’s just the two of us, you can call me DAD.”
(a moment when i was free to call him DAD)
he and my mother married while he was in grad school and then moved to seattle for his first teaching job at U.W. i was six months old. my father loved his students and teaching, but did not like the seattle weather as he was not partial to golfing in the rain. when i was five and my brother was two, he did a teaching exchange with a professor at berkeley. we were meant to move back to washington at the end of the year, but my mother announced that regardless of what my father did, she was staying in california with us - she had fallen in love with the quirky bay area. she made one quick trip back to seattle to sell the house (which she didn’t tell my dad about until the deal was done) just to hammer home her point. my dad was happy to oblige.
(the photo my parents sent my grandma to show her that my mother wasn’t a “hippie!” before they got married)
(my parents at their wedding celebration)
so he continued teaching at berkeley and later at the university of san francisco and u.c. davis. he golfed whenever he wanted (there was no fear of rain), zipped around in a string of shiny cars - most notably his spider - avoiding accidents and slow drivers or PORFs (poor fools or poor f*ckers, depending on his company) with his “lightning fast reflexes,” continued to make mischief and charm his way in and out of all kinds of situations.
(golfing somewhere in northern california)
(putting in the ultimate plaid pants)
(golfing really gave him so much JOY!)
of course, my father was a huge character with a kaleidescope of talents and accomplishments: a tip top golfer, he could place his balls with astounding precision. i once watched him and a friend play the first nine at his home course, mira vista. he hit his ball through a hole in a tree the size of a dinner plate to land it on the green. the friend exclaimed “now THAT’S a golf shot!” my father LOVED retelling that story. other times he would entertain my friends by deftly chipping balls from the bottom of our backyard onto the top level so that they rolled easily into their tiny golf ball box. he was also a (self-described) terrific squash player, a fisherman (he took theo on many excursions on the colorado river when we lived in boulder), a “billiards” superstar, a sailor, a classical music afficianado - he could identify sonatas and etudes (the piece and often the orchestra playing it) after just a few notes played on the radio, only to have it confirmed when the dj chimed in. he excelled at puzzles, crosswords, math and word games. he could remember passages from books he read thirty years prior and have detailed, insightful discussions with me. he frequently broke down and explained political histories when i was confused about something on the news.
(after returning from a deep-sea fishing excursion)
(trout fishing with theo on the colorado river)
(sailing on the san francisco bay)
he was charismatic and made friends everywhere: the grumpy post office ladies beamed at him, the andronicos sandwich making ladies were both horrified and tickled to make his insane combinations (salmon and blue cheese and ham and all kinds of weird sauces), he often had lunch with the supermarket cashiers, he knew mechanics at car shops all over the bay area and was chummy with craftspeople who made leather bags or wooden games or boomerangs - we got a boomerang every year for christmas! he loved these people and he loved dragging me and my brother around to meet them. my mom called this “getting on his train.” he might ask you to come with him on a quick errand to kinkos (he was ALWAYS going there!) and you wouldn’t get home for seven hours. you might hit sufficient grounds the coffee shop, yoghurt park, barnes and noble, sandwiches a go-go, tower records, a hat shop, the post office, top dog, a leather goods store, his office or a frame shop all before you even got to kinkos. and then he would realize that he lost his glasses or his driving gloves or his house keys (that were never attached to his car keys) or whatever documents he was schlepping around and have to circle back to all of those places until he found whatever he was missing. eventually, these people just started calling the house to say they had his things so we didn’t have to circle as much. he always said, “i didn’t lose my keys, they just haven’t found me yet.”
my dad could be incredibly magnanimous (except when he wasn’t - he could destroy people with a single, withering glare or a slicing quip) bringing special treats to all of his appointments with doctors, hair cutters, trainers … it might be a chocolate, a book, a piece of pie or an interesting article.
he was unpredictable and mischievous and incredibly silly. he made outrageous faces (i think he passed this talent on to lucy.) he often stood about a foot and a half behind my mother’s chair at the kitchen table when she was speaking - he didn’t dare interrupt her - and shared his opinions with his crazy facial expressions, sending the rest of us into peals of laughter. he commanded us to “fart proudly” and gleefully described the frequency and size of his “lincoln logs” ever proud of everything he produced.
(one of lucy’s crazy faces)
because he was curious, he could be surprisingly open. while he was a resolute atheist, when my first husband and i moved back to california shortly after we got married, he arranged very difficult to get high holy day tickets for us at Temple Emanu-El in the city (utilizing his networking skills the way he always did to get amazing niners tickets in the joe montana years) and he couldn’t have been prouder of the study and dedication our kids put into their bar and bat mitzvahs.
(my father making a speech at theo’s bar mitzvah)
(my dad with lucy at her bat mitzvah celebration)
he was very protective. when i was little, he often told me that if anyone ever took me, he would search the world over until he brought me home safe and then he would absolutely destroy the perpetrator (simultaneously introducing something that i didn’t know i needed to be afraid of and reassuring me that it would be resolved.) he reportedly followed racing ambulances in berkeley to make sure neither my brother or i were the injured ones. he protected us from plane crashes by making sure we ate an airport hotdog before boarding every flight, no matter how late we were… i think the assurance these hotdogs gave me is the reason i cannot ever pass up a hotdog to this day - they are a form of protection for me and my children. i’m pretty sure he threatened all of my boyfriends, except the gay one - he LOVED that one - obviously, neither of us has very good gaydar (or maybe he DID and that’s why he liked him?) and when i was a student at berkeley, sometimes i’d turn around in a lecture hall and he’d be sitting a few rows behind, grinning and waving and kind of stalking. he ALWAYS held my hand when we were walking, even as an adult.
my dad loved a trend: wheat germ, bacon bits, grape nuts, wheat grass, pom juice, ginger beer… he was typically ahead of the curve, saying, “try it, try it.” i have the palette of a toddler so i was constanty disappointing him in this regard. he once paid me $10 to try a spoonful of shark’s finn soup - i have steered clear of that ever since.
he was a collector: books, cd’s, fishing poles, trains, knives, humidors (that’s a new one we just discovered!), shoes, leather jackets, golf sets, bicycles, cameras, tweed caps, leather bags, wooden games, decanters with cognac, cars, watches, boomerangs (of course!), david goines posters… and on and on…
(he started collecting cars early and he never really stopped)
(he was in high school with this beauty)
(this one was during college i think)
(when he was a young professor at U.W.)
(he bought this one the year i was born: 1968)
he adored being a grandfather and took credit for all of the qualities he admired in his grandchildren: that miles’ childhood face was so similar to his own delighted him, he was incredibly PROUD of oliver’s golf skills, he LOVED theo’s humor and intellectual curiousity and was staggered by lucy’s spirit and ferocity, “she’s determined!” he would say.
(my dad’s childhood face)
(miles’ baby face is just like my dad’s)
(oliver is the golfer in the striped socks and hot pink shoes)
(theo has always loved learning from my dad!)
(no one really gets in the way of this girl… she IS “determined”)
he was a storyteller - he loved to regale dinner guests with stories of our accomplishments (usually a bit or A LOT exaggerated, he was not above adding some color to his tales to make them more interesting.) he was also good at detailing his own exploits. he usually ended these stories with a wink and, “i’m just the average dad.” but his favorite stories were the ones that highlighted my mother’s wit, typically at his expense. this one has been told over and over:
my mother was at park and shop (now andronicos) putting groceries on the conveyer when my father (who came separately) noticed her, cut the line, stood very close behind her and started putting his items down as well. the cashier said, “ma’am, is this man bothering you?” “ YES!” she sighed, “he’s been bothering me for thirty-five years.”
(i am not sure how long he’d been “bothering her” when this photo was taken…)
he had an incredible vocabulary but sometimes felt he had to make up words to accurately describe something: “slunching” (slouching), “dritzle” (sauce left on your plate), “carping” (complaining), “rumble tummy” (belly ache), “gromp” (extreme grump), “scrumple” (mess left behind.)
(we made a list of his favorite phrases and made up words for the program)
there were things he really disliked: exhaust, smoking (which makes the humidors confusing), waiting, especially for a table in a restaurant, incompetance, snakes, snow (after growing up in minneapolis he never wanted to see snow again!)
(he’d had a few decades of snow by the time he got to california)
he had big LOVES: the vikings - he was such a diehard fan that we had to leave the house any sunday the vikings were playing so that he could focus on the game… especially if it was a super bowl, which they went to FOUR times but never won - which is also the reason i never had a dog growing up. dad promised that we could get a puppy if the vikings won the super bowl and they NEVER pulled it off! he also loved the 49ers, cal sports, his golden gophers, his own dogs: mugsy, greta, hansie and darling rosie, a green lawn, hot dogs, pecan pie, truffles, tea from the good earth, turtles (we don’t know why!) napping, letter openers, green pens, the symphony, salmon, trout and miso black cod, copper drainpipes, popcorn and sunshine.
(dad with his beloved doxie, greta)
(dad and his darling rosie)
(dad was an accomplished napper… luckily i inherited that skill)
but the main thing my father LOVED was US… as ferociously as my spicy grandma (she may have given lucy more than just her one dimple) loved him. she engulfed my father in her love so strongly that he knew how to do the same for us. for as long as i can remember, he has said, “i love you higher than the sky is high and deeper than the ocean is deep!” when he was putting me to bed, when he was saying good-bye, or sometimes just because he was passing by. i always imagined a vast, navy blue sky sparkling with stars reaching down to a deep purple ocean filled with colorful, friendly fish. the enormity of all of that love surrounding me and protecting me made feel so safe, like i moved through the world in my own special cocoon. so on the tougher days like when i wasn’t invited to the sleepover or i got a really bad hair cut (fall of 8th grade and again in 10th) or some boy didn’t like me back or we didn’t win the spirit cup senior year like EVERY other class or i didn’t get into the college i wanted (my father actually called some schools and asked for my hand printed applications back) or i didn’t get the job i interviewed for (i am colossally poor in job interviews) or the boyfriend whose eyes are too close together cheated on me (i should have known when my father pointed out his flawed eye configuration) or i couldn’t get pregnant - on all of those days, and every other, i knew my father loved me. that’s no small thing.
(my dad loved me even when i got this horrible haircut AND braces in 8th grade)
when i finally did get pregnant, i started thinking about how i could pass that security onto my babies. i would try to imagine something as immense as the sky and as enormous as the ocean so i could craft my own love cocoon for my children. and then i realized i didn’t need to… i just needed to wrap them up in my father’s words, “i love you higher than the sky is high and deeper than the ocean is deep.” so that’s what i say to them when i am putting them to bed or saying good-bye or hearing about a rough day or sometimes just because i am passing by. and now they say it back to me. and sometimes they even say it to each other. so THANK YOU dad. thank you for making sure that deep in my core i knew i was loved. thank you for taking such good care of me and my children. thank you for being the wonderful father and grandfather that you are. i love you higher than the sky is high and deeper than the ocean is deep.
(dad staying close when i was a peanut… and LOOK at that collar!)
(a new year’s dance with dad)
(at the cal game with dad and my kids x0x0x0x)