A Mad Biker's Ongoing Tale

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The earth stood silent last Thursday, August 31^st.

On that day James Monroe Still, Jr., one of the most notable, most human of all God’s creatures, was given a diagnosis of advanced lung cancer. The wags of generations to come will regale in tales of his exploits, repeated and improved with each telling, and perhaps one day too, all the wags’ tongues will, too, be stilled. But his passing will forever alter the world, just as his life has already done, and for that reason the Earth and all the angels and deities that guard it will forever recall him with dignity.

It is my belief that every birth augments the world in some small way, just as every death diminishes it; but certainly all lives are not equal. Those are those who achieve pop cultural fame but their influence is meager and swift, and they add nothing to our eternal ballet. Eminem and Gable and Nostradamus come to mind. Then there are those who achieve no prominence of any sort, but their struggles daily define what it is to be human or American or part-of-whatever-country they happen to be born into. My dad squarely falls into the latter.

A man who defied Air Force generals, businessmen, thieves and most frequently his wife, he both invited defeat and created it, rolling with every punch, often flailing wildly and hurting those he loved the most – those who needed to be loved by him – but he always pulled it together and somehow, inexplicably, exceeded all expectations. When he failed he failed spectacularly, but he stirred all those ashes with a little spit and grit and produced victory from the bile.

A perfect example: the first man in history to gather the highest stripes together in one room, commanders from the four prominent United States military services along with their counterparts from nine allied nations, to annually discuss peacetime Mission Planning. This may sound dry and esoteric to you, but what it really means is trying to find ways to make the world a safer place. A no-brainer really, but one of those things that most people complain about while they wait around for the next guy to do it. Since James was in the Air Force Reserve at the time, he certainly had justification to twiddle his thumbs. But my dad is never one to rest on his laurels. A political independent, he had no agenda save that of wanting to provide a better world for the spouses and children of persons like him the world over, starting with his own wife and kids first.

On a more commonplace note, when he installed a wood stove in the house several years back, he took a blue pencil and a notepad and sequestered himself in his study for two days and one night. He emerged with a detailed blueprint of the insulated ceramic tiling that had to surround the stove in the corner of the den, a clever and artistic pattern. He had no education and no experience in the matter, merely determination to get it done. And he did.

My dad has never been the leading man, the Gable who gets all the glory. He’s not the guy who outwits the bad guys and achieves all his dreams in a two-hour movie plot. No, he’s the guy who keeps plugging away no matter what. By the same token, he’s not Gibson’s “Everyman”, the unsung blue collar hero. He’s been deeply flawed: a man of European roots and all-too-common prejudice, he never succumbed to racism, and always beat his demons back down to give a man – any man, or woman – the chance for the dignity he deserved.

Those of every color who think there is no difference between these words, take note. Prejudices are real, they exist, we all have them, and they can be defeated – day-by day. My father gave way to sexism and elitism and was crass and crude. But he was effortlessly charming and dynamic and tireless and despite his ever-increasing girth, eternally sexy. And most important of all, in the end, eternally noble.

There are few in this world like him that I have met. Who knows? There may be millions or billions and I have simply been ironically isolated from them. Or I may be, along with my two brothers, one of the few most blessed men on Earth. Don’t you see?

My father’s tribulations were hard-felt and often self-inflicted – or at least, self- aggravated. There were a lot of lessons learned for all five of us, a lot of love and anger spilled along the way. But in the end there was tremendous victory. My father pursued a steady stream of business opportunities in his lifetime – he founded many businesses, independently contracted with others, and occasionally even assumed a role or two as employee. He has been wont to call his never-ending search for success a failure, but this may be the only thing he’s said in which he is 100% wrong: his string of entrepreneurial ventures is a continuum that ultimately rested in victory. He never relented, never truly gave in to his baser impulses, never fell to his knees and cried “Enough!”

Through all the sins and doubt and sorrow that permeates the human existence, he stood tall and made it. He may not realize it, but he taught me not only how to be a man, but how to be a good man, a good person. Like any dad, his first thought was to his family. But always in the larger context of how a living soul should act toward the world, to render it a better place.

Why did I write this? To hopefully make you think about your own parents and family, your own loved ones, to hopefully help you think how to make your slice of the world a better place. A man recently told me that he was addicted to monetary fortune, that the more he made the more he wanted. And in a brief second of true confession, he admitted he regretted this. There are much greater things to aspire to, and money is the least of all.

I also write it to extol the virtue of a good man. Not a great man as the world sees it, but a darned good man. One whose love and virtue will forever grace the fabric of this Earth, for now and all days to come. Why wait to tell the world about him? James Still is a star!

posted by mark 12:05 PM

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