Last Sunday, I returned home to Indiana after flying back to Utah for Grandpa Bernie's funeral. At his passing, I thought I'd write a few things that I remember about him.
Flying Over Lehi
At a very young age, I remember him and Grammy coming out from Walnut Creek, California to visit us in Lehi, Utah. On one of those trips, he took us up in his airplane. We were totally enthralled as he showed us our house, our neighborhood, and our elementary school from two thousand feet overhead. I remember thinking the cars looked like little ants as they worked their way up I-15 and over the point of the mountain.
Just Grandpa and Me Down to Long Beach
A handful of years later, as we did every year, I believe we (Mom, Dad, and my siblings and I) went out to visit them in California. While we were there, my Dad left for a business meeting in Long Beach. Grandpa needed to run some blueprints down to him for his meeting, so he invited me to come along in the airplane. Grandpa being the quiet, slightly intimidating introvert that he could be, I was not a little surprised at how receptive he was to my curiosity. For almost two hours, I pelted him non-stop with questions about flying and about his airplane. What does this do? How does that work? What is this called? It seemed impossible that he could tire of my questions. He seemed to take joy in my enthusiasm. By the time we landed, both of us knew more about his Beechcraft Baron 58G than some Beechcraft salesmen!
We landed in Long Beach, met up with my Dad, and we gave him his blueprints or documents or whatever they were. I don't remember if we had dinner, or whether we just got back in the airplane and left. One way or another, before I knew it, it was dark and we were back in the air. I remember Grandpa telling me how we had to circle inside a tight area while we climbed, to get above Los Angeles International Airport airspace. I was caught up in watching as we circled, the wings pointing out into the dark ocean one minute, down at the lights of Long Beach and Los Angeles the next, the big twin engines drumming away in the night, pulling us higher and higher. It was really cool to watch all the instruments and see everything going on around me in the airplane anyway, but with everything all lit up, it was even cooler to see it at night!
During the handful of times he flew us up to Abbotsford in Canada to see the airshows, I remember watching him closely, hardly able to understand what he was saying has he interacted with air traffic controllers, watching the propellers begin to turn as he started the engines, feeling him run the throttles up to the firewall, release the brakes, and pin us in our seats as six hundred horsepower thrust us forcefully down the runway and on to another adventure with Grandpa above slow-moving intricate earth.
Right up to his dying day, I could always get grandpa talking if I asked him about aviation. I don't know how many times he told me stories of when he and was doing his flight training. He told me about a time when they were practicing emergency landings. They found a wheat field and made the approach. Grandpa used the lever to put the landing gear down, but got levers mixed up and retracted the flaps instead. Realizing his mistake, he re-extended the flaps, causing the airplane to quit dragging its bottom in the wheat and regain flight before they could crash. He laughed at the thought of the instructor still picking grass out of the landing gear, worried that he'd lose his job. Another time, Grandpa arrived back at his home airport after having flown his required solo cross-country trip. Upon his return, when the instructor realized how low he was on fuel, he chewed him out something good. "There's nothing so useless as fuel left behind!" the instructor had told him. Grandpa never forgot that lesson. He also told me about some of his simulator training experiences. Because he flew a twin-engine airplane, he often trained for what to do in the event he should lose an engine. Some of his training ended with him making a mad dash to the bathroom, unable to keep his lunch down any longer. He used to say, "There are ten things you can do if you lose an engine, and nine of them will get you killed. He also said with a twinkle in his eye, "Anybody can land an airplane. Not everybody can live to tell about it!"
There's an old encyclopedia set at my parents house. If you look at the "A" volume, you can still see the sullied edges of the "airplane" pages where I spent hours learning about everything from Bernoulli's principle and the four forces of flight to Sopwith Camels, Fokker triplanes, Spitfires, Mustangs, F-4 Phantoms, F-16s and the SR-71 Blackbird. Grandpa Bernie instilled in me a fascination with airplanes and a dream of getting my own pilot license some day - a dream that, far from dying, has become a bucket list item for me.
Christmas on Arbolado Drive
When we would visit the grandparents in California, I remember watching for the giant, pre-lit star on the roof coming into view to signal that our long, long drive was over. My excitement at the the thought of seeing both sets of grandparents was too great to contain.
During those visits, we would spend the night in one of the extra bedrooms. I don't know how many times I awoke early enough that it was still dark, excited for Santa Claus to come, and debating with my siblings as to whether we were brave enough to sneak a peek down the hall at the Christmas tree. I remember minding my own business in my sleeping bag or blankets, feeling the wet nose of a dog coming to see if I was ready for breakfast yet or not. We'd get up and follow the smell of bacon, whipped eggs and coffee down the hall where Grandpa's quiet demeanor and Grammy's bright eyes and excited countenance greeted us with good food, warm hugs - and piles of presents!
Grandpa's Drafting Board
I was caught way off guard at the sudden and deep interest Grandpa Bernie took in me on one of our visits when he caught me using pencil, eraser, ruler and french curve to make scale drawings of airplanes, motorcycles, cars, and anything else that happened to inspire my young mind at the time. Before I had a chance to really, completely wonder what was happening, Grandpa's unbridled enthusiasm rushed the both of us excitedly down the hall to his office. He sat me down at his giant drafting board and showed me how to raise and lower the square and change it back and forth to make horizontal and vertical straight lines. He set me to work on a fresh piece of drafting paper. He expressed some quizzical, feigned ignorance and graciously veiled amusement at my choice of scale: a centimeter for a foot. "I've never heard of that scale before!" he said, showing me some of the scales he uses on his bridges.
I believe it thrilled him beyond his capacity for expression to see in me what he could only hope were the symptoms of engineer-itis and to have such an unexpected opportunity to water my plant in his own way. In retrospect, my interest in drafting had probably in no small way inspired his invitation to fly with him to Long Beach. He wanted to show me more of his love of engineering - and more sides to the family business - first hand.
The White Sands Business Deal
I still remember the day Grandpa came to our home in Antioch, California to offer me a job while I was in high school. He came with a certain amount of fanfare, like the president of a corporation that he was, on official business. As we spoke, he treated me like an equal, or like a recent graduate from a university, a sought-after candidate about to embark on a career at Adams & Smith Inc.
He explained that he was offering me an opportunity to spend a month of my summer vacation working on the White Sands Missile Range on a project he was doing for the military, and he offered me a wage that seemed astronomical at the time. When we had reached an agreement, he concluded the matter as though it were no smaller and no less binding a thing than any other business arrangement he had ever struck in his lengthy and illustrious career.
Ingenuity and Professionalism
While I was growing up, I remember my Dad saying how much Grandpa valued professionalism. His work on the White Sands towers was an example of this. Although the towers were destined to be blown up in a bomb test, he still insisted on placing pulleys for the cable that would suspend the explosive. It was just his way.
I experienced this first hand one summer while I was home between semesters. My youngest brother, Jake, and I had just been at the hobby shop to buy a model rocket and some engines, and we stopped by the grandparents' home on our way to the park. Naturally, Grandpa wanted to come along for the test launch. We didn't have a fancy launcher at the moment, and so it was quite an embarrassment to hold a couple batteries and some wiring together by hand in the hopes of getting a spark to the engines. Needless to say, our launch experiment failed. That night, we stopped at the Radio Shack and picked up some supplies to make a battery compartment that could be connected to the rocket. We got some alligator clips for connecting to the car battery in case our D-size batteries failed. I spent some time with Jake, soldering and making it all pretty. The next time we went to launch, we invited Grandpa again. Though he never said a word, I remember seeing his expression of surprise and knowing that he was unexpectedly pleased at the launcher I had made.
He Got to Live His Bucket List
Grandpa Bernie certainly wasn't perfect. I didn't always appreciate the way he treated my grandmother or my Dad. Still, in Death, I believe everyone deserves to be remembered at their best. For a man who claimed no faith in God and did not have the gospel covenant to guide him, he lived a pretty amazing life. At the funeral, I heard enough stories about the much good he did, the lives he touched - sides of him I'd never seen before. I gained a new respect for him.
Although I would never trade places with him, there are some things about his life of which I am envious. He knew from the beginning what he wanted to do for a living; he had found something he was passionate about. He was able to acquire the means to do anything he wanted. He had his own airplane. He had the motor coach that he so enjoyed driving. He traveled many countries. He did some good in the world and left it a better place for his being here. I think it no small thing that Grandpa Bernie got to live his bucket list.
He Would Have Taught Us
Given his incredible mind, his strong-willed character in doing anything he believed was important, and his goodness and principled living, I know Grandpa responded frequently to the light of Christ that was in him, despite not being a "believer". When Shelley and I moved our family to Indiana, he counseled me to make sure it "felt right". He told us of experiences in his own life with that inner voice, wishing he had listened. I was very surprised to receive such counsel from my pragmatic, avowed atheist grandfather. Evidently, Grandpa had learned at some point in his life to trust in the whisperings of the holy spirit of God, though he did not recognize it as such. I believe there were things in his mind and heart that truly made him unable to conceive of the notion of faith in God, that his accountability before God in this is indeed very limited. Yet I also believe Grandpa was more a believer and a more spiritual man than he ever realized.
I have long believed that if Grandpa Bernie had been capable of taking the leap into faith he would have made an incredible disciple of Christ. He demonstrated a pursuit of true and deep understanding of the things he studied, and he had a capacity for self discipline that was second to none - perfect ingredients for developing deep spirituality. I believe that if he had ever converted, we would have been teaching him for about the first six weeks. After that, his ravenous mind would have overtaken our lifetimes of study, and he would have begun teaching us and showing us by example how it's done.
On the morning of his funeral, Saturday March 12, I read the following from the Book of Mormon:
As I read, I felt the Spirit attest to me that, in God's view, Grandpa had not had "the law given unto him", that he had indeed been restored to that God who gave him breath. I am confident beyond doubt that death has broken through many of the things that were holding him back in mortality, that he is now more free than ever to learn the gospel and to accept it. Prior to his death, I felt we should wait a generation or so to get his work done, in case he decided he wanted it. The delay was warranted because of his attitude toward God and the Church. But now, If anyone asks, I feel pretty strongly his temple work should be done as soon as possible, for I believe he has accepted it already. I believe that if we can get his ordinances done, we will see him again on resurrection morning, and it will be a joyous reunion!
Flying Over Lehi
At a very young age, I remember him and Grammy coming out from Walnut Creek, California to visit us in Lehi, Utah. On one of those trips, he took us up in his airplane. We were totally enthralled as he showed us our house, our neighborhood, and our elementary school from two thousand feet overhead. I remember thinking the cars looked like little ants as they worked their way up I-15 and over the point of the mountain.
Just Grandpa and Me Down to Long Beach
A handful of years later, as we did every year, I believe we (Mom, Dad, and my siblings and I) went out to visit them in California. While we were there, my Dad left for a business meeting in Long Beach. Grandpa needed to run some blueprints down to him for his meeting, so he invited me to come along in the airplane. Grandpa being the quiet, slightly intimidating introvert that he could be, I was not a little surprised at how receptive he was to my curiosity. For almost two hours, I pelted him non-stop with questions about flying and about his airplane. What does this do? How does that work? What is this called? It seemed impossible that he could tire of my questions. He seemed to take joy in my enthusiasm. By the time we landed, both of us knew more about his Beechcraft Baron 58G than some Beechcraft salesmen!
We landed in Long Beach, met up with my Dad, and we gave him his blueprints or documents or whatever they were. I don't remember if we had dinner, or whether we just got back in the airplane and left. One way or another, before I knew it, it was dark and we were back in the air. I remember Grandpa telling me how we had to circle inside a tight area while we climbed, to get above Los Angeles International Airport airspace. I was caught up in watching as we circled, the wings pointing out into the dark ocean one minute, down at the lights of Long Beach and Los Angeles the next, the big twin engines drumming away in the night, pulling us higher and higher. It was really cool to watch all the instruments and see everything going on around me in the airplane anyway, but with everything all lit up, it was even cooler to see it at night!
During the handful of times he flew us up to Abbotsford in Canada to see the airshows, I remember watching him closely, hardly able to understand what he was saying has he interacted with air traffic controllers, watching the propellers begin to turn as he started the engines, feeling him run the throttles up to the firewall, release the brakes, and pin us in our seats as six hundred horsepower thrust us forcefully down the runway and on to another adventure with Grandpa above slow-moving intricate earth.
Right up to his dying day, I could always get grandpa talking if I asked him about aviation. I don't know how many times he told me stories of when he and was doing his flight training. He told me about a time when they were practicing emergency landings. They found a wheat field and made the approach. Grandpa used the lever to put the landing gear down, but got levers mixed up and retracted the flaps instead. Realizing his mistake, he re-extended the flaps, causing the airplane to quit dragging its bottom in the wheat and regain flight before they could crash. He laughed at the thought of the instructor still picking grass out of the landing gear, worried that he'd lose his job. Another time, Grandpa arrived back at his home airport after having flown his required solo cross-country trip. Upon his return, when the instructor realized how low he was on fuel, he chewed him out something good. "There's nothing so useless as fuel left behind!" the instructor had told him. Grandpa never forgot that lesson. He also told me about some of his simulator training experiences. Because he flew a twin-engine airplane, he often trained for what to do in the event he should lose an engine. Some of his training ended with him making a mad dash to the bathroom, unable to keep his lunch down any longer. He used to say, "There are ten things you can do if you lose an engine, and nine of them will get you killed. He also said with a twinkle in his eye, "Anybody can land an airplane. Not everybody can live to tell about it!"
There's an old encyclopedia set at my parents house. If you look at the "A" volume, you can still see the sullied edges of the "airplane" pages where I spent hours learning about everything from Bernoulli's principle and the four forces of flight to Sopwith Camels, Fokker triplanes, Spitfires, Mustangs, F-4 Phantoms, F-16s and the SR-71 Blackbird. Grandpa Bernie instilled in me a fascination with airplanes and a dream of getting my own pilot license some day - a dream that, far from dying, has become a bucket list item for me.
Christmas on Arbolado Drive
When we would visit the grandparents in California, I remember watching for the giant, pre-lit star on the roof coming into view to signal that our long, long drive was over. My excitement at the the thought of seeing both sets of grandparents was too great to contain.
During those visits, we would spend the night in one of the extra bedrooms. I don't know how many times I awoke early enough that it was still dark, excited for Santa Claus to come, and debating with my siblings as to whether we were brave enough to sneak a peek down the hall at the Christmas tree. I remember minding my own business in my sleeping bag or blankets, feeling the wet nose of a dog coming to see if I was ready for breakfast yet or not. We'd get up and follow the smell of bacon, whipped eggs and coffee down the hall where Grandpa's quiet demeanor and Grammy's bright eyes and excited countenance greeted us with good food, warm hugs - and piles of presents!
Grandpa's Drafting Board
I was caught way off guard at the sudden and deep interest Grandpa Bernie took in me on one of our visits when he caught me using pencil, eraser, ruler and french curve to make scale drawings of airplanes, motorcycles, cars, and anything else that happened to inspire my young mind at the time. Before I had a chance to really, completely wonder what was happening, Grandpa's unbridled enthusiasm rushed the both of us excitedly down the hall to his office. He sat me down at his giant drafting board and showed me how to raise and lower the square and change it back and forth to make horizontal and vertical straight lines. He set me to work on a fresh piece of drafting paper. He expressed some quizzical, feigned ignorance and graciously veiled amusement at my choice of scale: a centimeter for a foot. "I've never heard of that scale before!" he said, showing me some of the scales he uses on his bridges.
I believe it thrilled him beyond his capacity for expression to see in me what he could only hope were the symptoms of engineer-itis and to have such an unexpected opportunity to water my plant in his own way. In retrospect, my interest in drafting had probably in no small way inspired his invitation to fly with him to Long Beach. He wanted to show me more of his love of engineering - and more sides to the family business - first hand.
The White Sands Business Deal
I still remember the day Grandpa came to our home in Antioch, California to offer me a job while I was in high school. He came with a certain amount of fanfare, like the president of a corporation that he was, on official business. As we spoke, he treated me like an equal, or like a recent graduate from a university, a sought-after candidate about to embark on a career at Adams & Smith Inc.
He explained that he was offering me an opportunity to spend a month of my summer vacation working on the White Sands Missile Range on a project he was doing for the military, and he offered me a wage that seemed astronomical at the time. When we had reached an agreement, he concluded the matter as though it were no smaller and no less binding a thing than any other business arrangement he had ever struck in his lengthy and illustrious career.
Ingenuity and Professionalism
While I was growing up, I remember my Dad saying how much Grandpa valued professionalism. His work on the White Sands towers was an example of this. Although the towers were destined to be blown up in a bomb test, he still insisted on placing pulleys for the cable that would suspend the explosive. It was just his way.
I experienced this first hand one summer while I was home between semesters. My youngest brother, Jake, and I had just been at the hobby shop to buy a model rocket and some engines, and we stopped by the grandparents' home on our way to the park. Naturally, Grandpa wanted to come along for the test launch. We didn't have a fancy launcher at the moment, and so it was quite an embarrassment to hold a couple batteries and some wiring together by hand in the hopes of getting a spark to the engines. Needless to say, our launch experiment failed. That night, we stopped at the Radio Shack and picked up some supplies to make a battery compartment that could be connected to the rocket. We got some alligator clips for connecting to the car battery in case our D-size batteries failed. I spent some time with Jake, soldering and making it all pretty. The next time we went to launch, we invited Grandpa again. Though he never said a word, I remember seeing his expression of surprise and knowing that he was unexpectedly pleased at the launcher I had made.
He Got to Live His Bucket List
Grandpa Bernie certainly wasn't perfect. I didn't always appreciate the way he treated my grandmother or my Dad. Still, in Death, I believe everyone deserves to be remembered at their best. For a man who claimed no faith in God and did not have the gospel covenant to guide him, he lived a pretty amazing life. At the funeral, I heard enough stories about the much good he did, the lives he touched - sides of him I'd never seen before. I gained a new respect for him.
Although I would never trade places with him, there are some things about his life of which I am envious. He knew from the beginning what he wanted to do for a living; he had found something he was passionate about. He was able to acquire the means to do anything he wanted. He had his own airplane. He had the motor coach that he so enjoyed driving. He traveled many countries. He did some good in the world and left it a better place for his being here. I think it no small thing that Grandpa Bernie got to live his bucket list.
He Would Have Taught Us
Given his incredible mind, his strong-willed character in doing anything he believed was important, and his goodness and principled living, I know Grandpa responded frequently to the light of Christ that was in him, despite not being a "believer". When Shelley and I moved our family to Indiana, he counseled me to make sure it "felt right". He told us of experiences in his own life with that inner voice, wishing he had listened. I was very surprised to receive such counsel from my pragmatic, avowed atheist grandfather. Evidently, Grandpa had learned at some point in his life to trust in the whisperings of the holy spirit of God, though he did not recognize it as such. I believe there were things in his mind and heart that truly made him unable to conceive of the notion of faith in God, that his accountability before God in this is indeed very limited. Yet I also believe Grandpa was more a believer and a more spiritual man than he ever realized.
I have long believed that if Grandpa Bernie had been capable of taking the leap into faith he would have made an incredible disciple of Christ. He demonstrated a pursuit of true and deep understanding of the things he studied, and he had a capacity for self discipline that was second to none - perfect ingredients for developing deep spirituality. I believe that if he had ever converted, we would have been teaching him for about the first six weeks. After that, his ravenous mind would have overtaken our lifetimes of study, and he would have begun teaching us and showing us by example how it's done.
On the morning of his funeral, Saturday March 12, I read the following from the Book of Mormon:
"O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit. And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave. And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel. O how great the plan of our God! For on the other hand, the paradise of God must deliver up the spirits of the righteous, and the grave deliver up the body of the righteous; and the spirit and the body is restored to itself again... Wherefore, he has given a law; and where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him. For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell, and the devil, and the lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment; and they are restored to that God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel." (2 Nephi 9:10-13, 25-26)
As I read, I felt the Spirit attest to me that, in God's view, Grandpa had not had "the law given unto him", that he had indeed been restored to that God who gave him breath. I am confident beyond doubt that death has broken through many of the things that were holding him back in mortality, that he is now more free than ever to learn the gospel and to accept it. Prior to his death, I felt we should wait a generation or so to get his work done, in case he decided he wanted it. The delay was warranted because of his attitude toward God and the Church. But now, If anyone asks, I feel pretty strongly his temple work should be done as soon as possible, for I believe he has accepted it already. I believe that if we can get his ordinances done, we will see him again on resurrection morning, and it will be a joyous reunion!
