1 Good afternoon. Thank you for coming and ... - Georgetown Law

Good afternoon. Thank you for coming and thank you for your support. The phone calls, letters, emails, and your attendance here are wonderful. We greatly appreciate your kind words. If you’d like to read more of the great things said about Dad, please go to legacy.com and the Georgetown Law Center website… A good eulogy conveys a sense of the person, of course. One way to convey what Dad was like is to give you a handout -- just as he did with his students -- so after the service, please pick up the handout I prepared. Another way is to share with you some of the anecdotes, articles, and quotations he shared w/me. One was what Franklin Delano Roosevelt told his son about good public speaking. FDR said: “Be sincere, be brief, and be seated.” I’ll certainly be sincere. At some point, I’ll be seated, but forgive me if I fail to be brief. I love my dad. He was my father, hero, and a best friend. I have a lot to say. First, it’s ok to be sad; it’s ok to cry. But let’s try to remember what Dr. Seuss said in one of his books, which I recently read to my young kids, “Don’t cry that it’s over. Smile that it happened.” To help you smile, here’s a funny -- and true – story Dad told me. Long ago, at Harvard Law School, which Dad attended, a professor once stepped into what he thought was one of those old-fashioned elevators. You know, the kind that resembled a telephone booth and had folding or sliding doors. The problem was -- the elevator wasn’t on that floor. The professor ended up falling about three stories down the elevator shaft. After surviving, he was asked by a

 

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colleague: Is it true what they say? That your entire life flashes before your eyes? The professor said: “No, I was just thinking what a fool I was.” The colleague said: “Exactly. That’s what I meant.” I could share with you Dad’s accomplishments. In high school, he was the national vice president of Junior Achievement. His senior year, he was the president of his class. He graduated among the top ten students academically. He won the school’s top prize. He was awarded an Eisenhower scholarship to Columbia. He studied abroad at Oxford. He went to Harvard Law School. After his second year, he ranked 12th in his class. He called the registrar because he was sure that was an error. It wasn’t. He made the Law Review and clerked for the US Supreme Court Justice William Brennan. He went on to become a leading Administrative law professor who co-authored & co-edited one of the leading casebooks. Perhaps it’s more relevant to discuss Dad the teacher. One of his former students, ex-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, told me at Dad’s retirement lunch: “I listened to everything your dad said because I couldn’t read everything he assigned.” But I won’t focus on Dad’s professional accomplishments for several reasons. First, many of you are similarly, if not more, accomplished. Second, I can’t talk about my father as a lawyer because that’s not how I interacted w/him, and I’m not a lawyer. Third, to focus on his resumé would be to miss the spirit and uniqueness of Dad. He was distinguished not only by his accomplishments but also by his love and warmth. Years ago, Mom wrote in her Radcliffe reunion notes, “Roy has a heart of gold.” That’s what made him so

 

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special. •

Dad the Husband Soon after Mom and Dad met, she took him to get to know her parents.

She told Dad: “Listen, my parents really value education. Talk about your degrees and accomplishments.” You know that was very hard for Dad. He was humble. Thank God my grandpa cut him off and said, “All I care is: do you love my daughter?” Forty-five years of a good, happy marriage is the best answer to that question. He met Mom while he was teaching at Penn. While dating, they loved a quotation by Ford Maddox Ford. He wrote something to the effect of: “To have a conversation takes a lifetime.” If Ford wrote something about how to continue that conversation once the lifetime is over, we would love to read it. Once, Ellen Epstein, her husband, Mom, and Dad had dinner, and Mom said: “I don’t allow Roy to read anything after 1900.” That wasn’t completely accurate but Mom certainly reprimanded Dad and me when we looked at anything painted after 1900. Dad was so supportive of Mom and her career. I remember the teachers at my elementary school saying to me, “When is your mommy going to pick you up?” I would answer proudly, “My mom works. My daddy is coming,” and he’d drive me to my doctor’s appointments. Dad could also cook a decent fish. •

Dad the Father Of course, any discussion of Dad as a father must begin with my older

sister: Becky. I don’t know what those first years were like because I wasn’t born

 

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yet, but now that Nicole and I have kids of our own, I am sure that what Dad and Mom and Becky had – those first few years with the first child -- was simply magical. More recently, Dad really enjoyed Becky’s cooking and eating with her and her husband, Jeremy, and my wife, Nicole. The four of them would enjoy a steak, some wine, and a special dessert, whereas Mom and I would stick to nonfat, low-salt, organic, gluten-free alfalfa. When I was young, I always felt the love & warmth that made Dad special. He woke me up with the same song every morning. I now sing that song to my kids. He set out cereal boxes on the kitchen counter with a spoon and bowl so I could get myself breakfast. Mom recently revealed to me that he was just trying to get a little more sleep. Now that I’m a father of young kids and would kill to be able to sleep in, I know that she is… totally wrong. J It was love. Dad drove me to elementary school. We’d pass what he called “the colored-brick building”, and Dad would assume the voice of the building and say, “Hullo Joey! Have a good day at school!” He’d give me piggy-back rides. We’d play this game “pillow”, and we played a game we called “naughty W” because when I was learning the alphabet I rarely put “W” in the right place. When I was older, he taught me chess so I’d learn how to sit and concentrate. Dad let me win. Of course, he hid that and got so upset when he “lost”. I ate it up. When he put me to bed, he read to me Edward Lear poems or Winnie the

 

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Pooh. Then he sang me another song, the same one each night. I now sing that same song to my kids. When we got our first dog, Taffy – perhaps it was the first night? – Becky and I were looking to play with the puppy. We couldn’t find her. We went down to the basement bathroom, where Dad had bathed her. When we opened the door, he was holding her in a mess of towels, and her little furry head poked out. Her tail was wagging, and she was nipping at the folds of the towel. She was so happy. Bec, I don’t know if you remember it, but I do. You and I looked at each other and smiled. I don’t know if you smiled because the puppy was so cute or Dad was so loving, but both were true. I remember how thrilled Dad was when Becky was happy at her new high school, Concord Academy. His moods rose and fell with his children’s happiness. I know it’s not politically correct to quote Joe Paterno, but I like his line: “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” That was true for Dad. He encouraged me in my sports. For my high-school football games, he rented and banged a big bass drum. For one big game, he got us a bagpipe player. He would cheer, and mind you -- he was a brilliant lawyer who dealt in fine legal nuances -- but his cheers didn’t reflect that. When we were on offense, he’d yell… “Score!”… When we were on defense, he’d yell… “Get the ball!” Once we got the ball back, we heard more: “Score!” You get the idea. One of Dad’s most brilliant insights was to see that his hapless son didn’t have the ability to fulfill his dreams of playing in the NFL, so he advised me to become a kicker or a punter. Being a teenager, I didn’t listen, and of course, Dad

 

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was right. Years later, I saw this quotation from Mark Twain: “When I was 14, I thought my dad was the stupidest person in the world. When I was 21, I was amazed at how much he had learned in seven years.” Dad would clip articles for me and book reviews about my interests. He read four newspapers a day – the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, & Financial Times – and he had tested at a PhD reading level his freshmen year of college, so he read a lot, which meant a lot of clipped articles for me. A few years ago, one of those articles contained the following, which I kept for this occasion: [QUOTE] “Every time a professor dies, a library burns.” Once I left home, we interacted in several ways. Phone calls. I’d call and ask, “How are you?” And he’d reply, “Now that I’m talking to you? Great!” I’ll miss that terribly. When I was at home, we’d do late-night dog walks together, and he’d tell me about cases such as Lochner or Justices such as Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo. We took trips together. Thanks to Mom’s hard work, we were able to travel all over the world. Dad would set the itinerary and tell me what he had learned about each place’s history: from Cambodia to Calgary and from Mexico to Moscow. Those trips made history come alive for me, and that’s one reason why I became a history teacher. One trip was to France in 1982, I was 8. Becky, 12. After a long day driving through Provence, it was the evening, and we were staying at a hotel that had been a castle. Our bathroom was in a tower -- very cool. Since we were in France, Dad had been reading about the Impressionists. He was especially

 

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taken with Claude Monet and his love of color. That evening, Dad told us the story of Monet’s funeral, where the painter’s friend, Georges Clemenceau, who had been the prime minister of France, tore the black shroud off the deceased’s body, replaced it with yellow curtains from Monet’s home, and said: “No black for Monet!” Well, that touching story – and the long day -- were enough for me. I crumpled into tears. To honor that story & Dad’s love of color, I tried today to pick a tie he’d like & I chose yellow flowers. The sunflowers are to remember Van Gogh – one of Dad’s favorites and the focus of the last exhibition Dad enjoyed. I remember Dad driving us around on our trips. One evening, as the sun set, we were on a mad dash, driving along the Danube, trying to see one more site before it closed. I remember Mom telling Dad: “Slow down!” She looked at the speedometer and called out what was to her a shockingly high number. Dad replied that the speedometer was in kilometers per hour and that she wasn’t reading it right. We really weren’t going that fast... Of course, we were. I wasn’t with Mom and Dad when they did a tour of English country houses, but I heard that late one afternoon, Mom had to use the restroom, and Dad said, “Sara, we just don’t have time.” Dad was a real Anglophile and loved English history, especially Churchill. I remember going into Mexican churches, and Dad would have on his hat, his glasses, his guidebook, Xeroxed pages from other guidebooks, and his green Harvard bookbag. We’d enter, and the attendant would say, “Sombrero Señor.” And Dad would duly remove it. Thanks to Dad, we made it to Central Mexico, where millions of monarch butterflies migrate to each year. Dad was then reading

 

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about the conquistador Cortez and marveling at the difficulties he faced. I was reading about the Aztecs. We shared what we learned. Japan was another favorite. We were in Tokyo, at the Idemitsu museum, and there was a fake shrine in one of the rooms. Dad thought he could walk right in, so he did. Of course, alarms went off immediately, and guards came running. For a 13-year old son, it doesn’t get much better than that… except for another night in Tokyo when, after dinner, we walked back to our hotel while pretending to be a band: oompah-pahs and all. •

Dad the grandpa Dad loved Claire. She made him burst with pride. A few months ago, he

was raving about a picture she did that made it into her school calendar. He told me at length that he was not biased and he gave me several objective reasons why Claire’s artwork was the best. This from the man who loved to say: “De gustibus non est disputandum”. Mai, Kai, and Eli loved it when Grandpa Roy read to them. Eli already has Dad’s love of reading; Kai has Dad’s curiosity and love of music; and Mai, well, she’s a girl, so she’ll be smarter than Dad ever was. I hope with all my heart that they will be able to remember him. •

Dad the intellectual Dad was an only child, and books were his friends. He read a lot from an

early age. His classmates called him “the walking encyclopedia”. During the last few years, his interests were guided by something he read. It said there were three topics that were really deep and really had a lot of

 

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literature written about them: The Bible, Shakespeare, and Ancient Greek plays. So Dad read Shakespeare and Ancient Greek plays. He enjoyed discussing them with Mom and Mauri. The Ancient Greeks strove for immortality by killing Persians. Dad will live on thanks to his warmth, his love of others, his teaching, and his reform efforts. Dad read all the time. For late-night dog walks when I wasn’t there, he strapped on his head what was basically a miner’s lantern so he could walk the dog and read at the same time. When his hands were full, he would tuck the Sunday Times into his pants. With his walking stick and headphones playing Gregorian chants, he was admittedly a bit of an eccentric – but a lovable one. Even in the ambulance from the hospital to the hospice, Dad was encouraging me to read. Then it was Martin Gilbert, who wrote a leading history of World War One. A few years ago, Dad clipped an article for me by the essayist Philip Epstein. Epstein said, “The problem with death is that it puts an end to so much reading.” •

His politics: Dad loved the underdog. He believed – and these are his words from a few months ago – that: “The

status quo isn’t always wrong but the case against it needs more attention and sympathy.” He was, as he would say, a “good ol’ Lib Dem” – a liberal Democrat. Dad would also, I think, be classified as a reformer in favor of good

 

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government. I think they’re called “goo-goo’s”? Perhaps this is true of many “googoos” but I thought it was interesting that a theme ran through all his reform work. Whether it was pensions or campaign finance, Dad was concerned with the moral use of money. Recently I came across a great quote by Martin Luther King. He said, “I never saw a more moral statement than a budget.” Dad loved to tell me about Mark Hannah, who was the power behind the Republicans in Ohio 100 years ago. Hannah said: “There are two things that matter in politics. The first is money… and… I can’t remember the second thing.” Dad’s politics also came through in the anecdotes he told us. Dad said that Thurgood Marshall was arguing a case – I don’t remember which one – and Marshall was in the judge’s chambers and said, with his elbows on his knees, his head down, and his hands shaking: how long do my people have to wait? One of the few times I saw Dad cry was when he told us how the former Minnesota Viking defensive lineman Alan Page overcame adversity and prejudice to become a judge. Dad was even political when it came to his clothing. He refused to wear clothes with visible logos because he didn’t want the manufacturer to get any free advertising off of him. He would turn any offending piece of clothing inside out so the logo wouldn’t be seen. I’m not sure how much of the universe Dad affected on that one. He refused to wear all-white dress shirts because they made him feel like an IBM “company man”. I love Mom’s story about how they had a firm dinner at L’Opéra in Paris, and Mom said, “Sorry honey, this is really a formal event. You

 

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gotta wear a white shirt.” The night of the dinner came, and sure enough, Dad had on a white shirt. Mom was shocked and when she inspected the shirt closely, she saw that – sure enough – there were the faintest lines on the shirt. It wasn’t all white. After all, one can’t compromise one’s principles! •

Dad was a realist when it came to law and politics but a romantic when it

came to art. He loved beauty and appreciated it in several forms. First and foremost was Mom – the most beautiful thing in his life. Second, he loved clever writing. One article he clipped for me said: “I.F. Stone was a mensch, not a Menshevik.” Dad loved music and listened to it all day, every day. When he was young, Dad played the viola and he played the saxophone in Columbia’s marching band. It’s fitting that Mom, who majored in Renaissance literature, ended up with a Renaissance man. Dad loved art, and we loved going to museums together. He liked to try to determine what exactly made a particular work of art beautiful. He liked quoting Bernard Berenson, who said art was “life-enhancing”. And Dad also liked this line from Paul Freund: “The law, like art, seeks to accommodate change within the framework of continuity, to bring heresy and heritage into fruitful tension.” •

Closing thoughts When I was in high school, our family evenings went as follows. Becky

was away at boarding school and then college. Dad, Mom, and I were in our library. I did my homework at my grandpa’s old desk. In one corner, Mom was reading about Tibet or polar exploration or a French novel, and Dad was seated

 

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in another corner finishing his four newspapers. We loved those evenings together. Perhaps Dad loved them most of all. Mom told me later that when I went away to college, Dad cried for days. Now that he’s gone, it’s my turn to cry. I will try to remember the line from the poet Khalil Gibran: “When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you will see that in truth, you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” Dad loved colorful obituaries, especially ones about the English, who seem to have more than their fair share of eccentrics. Dad gave me an obit of Auberon Waugh, the eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh, whom Dad liked. Auberon had nine wine cellars! And when his father, Evelyn, was alive, Auberon wrote to him every week. After Evelyn died, “his son continued to think of him as an unseen correspondent”: [QUOTE] It was many years before I could break the habit of viewing every event w/half an eye to the bulletin I would send to my father. Even now, I find that when I hear a funny story about someone in whom he would have been interested… I mentally store it away to repeat to him. There always follows a pang of bereavement when I remember that he is no longer around to hear it... (NYT) Dad and I liked the next paragraph: Auberon’s “father did not return the affection, once describing his son as ‘clumsy, disheveled, sly, without intellectual, aesthetic, or spiritual interest.’ At the time, Auberon had just turned […] 7.” (NYT) Dad’s junior year of college was spent studying abroad, at Wadham in Oxford. After the Wadham crew team had performed well in a race, the warden would yell, “Well rowed Wadham!” And after my big accomplishments -- such as graduating from college -- Dad would write, “Well rowed Joey!”… Now all I can say is, “Well rowed Dad.” Thank you for being the best dad ever, the best dad

 

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anyone could ever ask for. We love you very, very much.

 

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