Remembering My Republican Daddy

I didn't remember that yesterday was the anniversary of my dad's passing until quite late in the day -- but when I did remember it made perfect sense that he'd been on my mind all day as I watched the chaos unfold in the Washington and kept shaking my head at what he would make of what had happened to his Republican Party. 

My dad -- Bill Brown -- was born in 1913 in Atlantic City ... the seventh of seven children ... into a family context that Daddy described as "episodically advantaged." His father ran "legitimate theaters" and at 16 -- as the Depression gripped the nation -- young Bill left school to make it on his own as an usher in "Roxie's Army" at the Radio City Music Hall.

A few years later he headed west and ended up at the Los Angeles Theater in downtown L.A. ... one of the great old movie palaces ... where he became the manager in the late 1930's ... and where he was working when, as he told it, the Japanese had the gall to bomb Pearl Harbor on his 28th birthday and so he signed up.

He served in the army in Burma, India and China as newsreel photographer and then returned to the L.A. and "theater biz" after the war ... where he met my mom ... who had come west from Minnesota and was the head usherette at the grand old theater.

I grew up thinking what daddies did when they went to work was wear a tuxedo and stand in the lobby to greet patrons. Daddy never saw a room he couldn't work ... never met someone he wasn't interested in talking to ... and he modeled a deep respect and curiosity about people and places that was one of his great legacies. That and a great tolerance for differences -- respectfully offered -- that was a hallmark of my growing up.

Daddy was a "Goldwater Republican" with strongly held opinions -- and as I turned out to have some pretty strong opinions of my own we had lots of "spirited conversations." I remember friends in college being amazed that I could actually go toe-to-toe with my dad about ... well, George McGovern comes to mind! ... but Daddy was convinced that encouraging us to think for ourselves was part of his job. Love and acceptance in my family wasn't conditioned on agreeing with each other ... and I think maybe that's one of the greatest gifts he gave us.

Daddy retired in 1977 and he and my mom had ten years of traveling, golfing, and grandparenting.  He died in the summer of 1988. After months of failing health he was ready, he said, to "pack it in" when he could no longer even follow his beloved Dodgers or swing a golf club. A lot has happened since then and I wish he'd been here to see it all.

Well, most of it.

I wish he'd been able to see his grandkids grow up.

I wonder if he'd have been as surprised as my mom was that I ended up a priest and I can only imagine how much fun he would have had with digital photography.

And then there's all he'd have to say about what has happened to the Republican Party he valued so much -- and about the fight we're in to save the democracy he enlisted to defend when it was under attack in 1941.

I can only imagine that he'd sign up for the fight again in 2019 -- and so it seems that the best way to continue his legacy is to go and do likewise.

La lucha continua. Miss you, Daddy!