When I was a little girl, I sometimes stood next to my father at the basement sink, imitating the movement of his strong, calloused hands as he dipped them in Goop cleaner, carefully scrubbing to the elbows. He would rinse blackened oil and axle grease from his enormous forearms in precise movements and lather again with soap. Like him, I would carefully dry each finger, and we would head to dinner.
I worshipped him then. Later, I merely loved and respected him.
In late July, at 59, Dad died suddenly of a heart attack.
Besides his wife, mother, four daughters, sons-in-law, nine surviving siblings and countless nieces and nephews, he left behind an alarming assortment of pets, multiple heaps of dusty papers and books, a bewildering helter-skelter of tools and a grandson he'd pronounced "a fine fellow."
Although he was a hard worker (over his short lifetime: a college instructor, a master mechanic, a trade writer and columnist, a truck driver), fatherhood was his most defining characteristic. He raised us on socialist, Taoist and humanist philosophy, with sprinkles of sturdy skepticism and Irish humor. He told us terrible, wonderful things like: "Defy authority. Do not defy it because it is wrong. Defy it because it is there." When we did, he stood by us. Years later, he built a secret door behind a bookcase‹he believed every grandparent should have one. My son Arie was delighted.
He told a great story, teaching me that it was timing, character and exaggeration‹not slavish attention to correct detail‹that mattered. He was fiercely loyal. He taught us to love classical and traditional folk music. He was a proud Midwesterner.
His blue eyes would light up as he told us about courage: Beethoven tearing Napoleon's name from the dedication to his Third Symphony ("in public!"), or the sailors of the Battleship Potemkin fighting the Czar.
He leapt to his feet, rubbed his hands together, then clutched his beard, when a good idea struck him. He giggled and snorted at fart jokes, adored the Marx Brothers, and when he got laughing, he pounded his thighs and staggered, helpless. He loved children‹especially naughty ones.
He valued intellectual curiosity, but did not delude himself that only those with his considerable education would be interested in discussing Manifest Destiny or the chemistry of certain particles.
Dad was so well read and liked people so much he could comfortably chat with anyone about anything. He once talked his way into the cockpit of the Goodyear blimp and behind the controls, asking enough questions that the men thought he was a pilot. He never got around to explaining the mix-up, so they let him fly it awhile.
Besides being charming, he was incredibly perceptive and kind. After he died, a surprising number of people told me he'd once noticed that they were feeling sad, or ill at ease, and he'd taken them aside to speak gently and to listen. He made us all feel cherished‹even those he'd known only a short while.
Sometimes, my dad could be a real butt. If he was in an argument with my mother (someone once described their relationship as yin and yang; I imagined two fish desperately trying to devour each other by the tails), he would take it out on others. He recited tedious political speeches. He was a slob.
But oh, how we loved him.
I think he would have been happy with how we remembered him, although he claimed to loathe ceremony. At the hospital, we stole his ponytail and wedding ring after a nurse told us we couldn't. After his cremation, we set up his canvas hat with the hammer and sickle pin over his ashes, a coffee cup with a "yuck" face and some photos and wildflowers on the wood-burning stove. We told stories. We talked about how he'd donated his lenses, bone marrow and tendons, which would have been enormously important to him. We played Beethoven. The next day, we lit a bonfire, told more stories and jumped the coals. Although we were out of practice, some of us whipped out our instruments and played and sang a few Irish tunes.
If you couldn't be at the house and you want to pay your respects to my father, Joe Woods, open a jar of pickled herring, wash it down with a Guinness, tell an awful pun and put on a recording of Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man."
Farewell, Comrade. Farewell.
As a youth, Haddayr Copley-Woods always wanted to write a column, just like her dad.
