Forever in His Grip
He evolved. During a lifetime of being a leader and possessing intelligence,
of being athletic and artistic - dad applied those things to a changing
landscape of passions throughout his life. Russell Jay White, aka RJ to my mom and friends, aka Russell to his mom, aka Rusty to his aunts and uncles, and Russ to just about everybody else. Dad and Batman to me.
Dad was class president as a senior and while I don’t know his
GPA, I know he was among the top of his class. He led. He was in the DeMolay
and that required commitment and leadership. Following high school he went into
the Navy and while he was never an officer, he was looked up to by his peers
and he led them. He went to work at Pacific Bell Telephone and Telegraph and
led his way up from an entry level installer position to a be second level
manager and his people loved him. He figured things out and designed systems
and procedures that improved every team’s performance.
I am not sure what sports dad participated in as a little boy as
it seems we never talked about that. As a high school athlete he was an all-league
football player, went to the state gymnastics meet in floor exercise, and was
an all-state competitor in wrestling. While playing for and being captain of the football team at El Camino College, Paul
Hornung pointed to him and, using some profanity, said to keep that guy out of
my face. While Hornung didn’t remember it specifically, he smiled at my telling
of the story and said that sounded like something he’d have said. While in the
Navy, dad boxed and was the ship’s champion. Not a bad accomplishment on an air
craft carrier with 1200 men on it. I was a different athlete and once he
figured that out he helped me go my way into baseball, basketball, and track.
He and mom got into racquetball in their mid-forties and I rarely
beat him. He won a few club tournaments. Then it was golf, something that took
he and mom on wonderful journeys and tourneys. I never beat him.
He evolved.
He loved music. He played clarinet in the school band, must have
fooled around with the French Horn because we have one in a closet at the big
house. He played keyboard, harmonica, and the kazoo. He sang in the choir and
had a lovely voice that ranged from basso to baritone. I got none of this from
him and only played the drums one year as a sixth-grader. He finished his
singing activities by being part of the praise choir at Bethany Presbyterian
Church in Grants Pass, Oregon.
He loved building and home projects and creating cool spaces and
watched every nail being driven into the house he and mom built in Merlin,
Oregon. Later in life he discovered Intarsia, the art of making wood mosaics using
the natural colors and grains of various types of wood. He loved making them
for family and friends and he told me he thought lovingly about each person as
he created the piece. A bit of his soul rests in every piece he made. He had Stacey
and Denise and every grandchild pick a piece from the pattern catalogs he had
and then he went out to his shop, found the various woods, cut them, sanded
them, and pieced them together, sealing in the textures of his love with coats
of varnish. He didn’t have me pick mine as he had one he wanted to do for me
and it was spot on – the Red-tailed Hawk, my favorite bird. It is one of the
most ubiquitous birds and is found in every state of the union but Hawaii. I
call it the “Everyman Bird”.
I was relocating mine today so I could put the piece that I
brought back from their house as my keepsake and my red-tail now sits where I
can see it out of the corner of my eye as I write. While moving it I looked on
the back to his inscription, “For ‘Stick’. Together in His grip. Dad 10-24-05”.
‘Stick’ is the nickname he gave me and the one I hold dearest to me of the oh-so-many
nicknames I have. I sign off many of my letters and emails ‘In His grip’. It is
a phrase I want desperately to always be true.
In His grip,
jerry
