Eulogy

To remember my dad and honor his memory, I am posting the eulogy that I gave at both his services. Love you and miss you everyday dad.

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My family and I would like to thank everyone for coming here today to celebrate and remember the life of my father. For many people my father embodied certain characteristics such as strength, intelligence and power. He was someone who knew how to command attention and respect. He could weave a story like no one else. He had the hospitality of a true Southern gentleman and always wanted people to feel welcome. He will always be associated with such things as a pipe, Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco and a bottle of scotch. He could be picked out a mile away by his blue jeans, boots and red hancherchiefs. He believed in taking care of his family as much as he hated Republicans. He believed that knowing where you came from was essential. These are all things that most people here would agree upon and know about him. So….I am not telling you anything you don’t already know and I would not be doing my father justice if I just told you things you already know. Therefore, I want to give you all glimpses into the man he was as a father because that is what I and my brothers know. As most parents would tell anyone, part of their job is to teach their child. Teach them values, morals, the lessons that the parents deem important. My father did just that. Sometimes he did it intentionally (such as how to answer the telephone…”Carl Turner home, how may I help you?”) but most of the time, my father’s lessons were taught by how he lived his life. They were shown to us by his everyday actions. The very best way I could illustrate these lessons would be to do it the Carl Turner way and that is to tell you some stories.

Lesson #1
Take care of your own
It was always very important to my father that his family was safe and taken care of. My father always had a fire going in our wood stove to make sure we were warm and would check on us in the middle of the night to make sure we were covered with blankets. He continued that tradition with my own children whenever we came to visit. It really bothered my father when a relative was buried without a headstone and would always buy a headstone for those who could not afford one or fixed up broke ones. When I was a teenager I would baby-sit most weekends. One weekend while I was babysitting two children in our neighborhood, I and the older son heard a window breaking. Who did I call? The police? The children’s parents? Nope….I called my daddy. Two minutes later, my father pulled up in our fun buggy van in his bathrobe, slippers and his shotgun. To my embarrassment, no prowler or broken window was discovered, but my dad was the ultimate superhero in my eyes. However, the most extraordinary daddy rescue took place on a cold winter Pennsylvania highway in January 1997. My Buick century was having some major problems and the engine kept cutting out on me. So did I find a gas station? A rest stop? Nope…once again I called my daddy via cell phone. Since the fun buggy had been retired and my dad did not have supersonic traveling powers he called in the troops, i.e. the Pennsylvania state police, who promptly started looking for me based on my location description to my father. They located me at the nearest gas station, escorted me to a hotel and took my car to the local service station. Once again, those daddy powers prevailed.

Lesson #2
Everything and Everyone has Potential
My father was a bit of a pack rat. He believed a rusty bent nail should have a second chance. He was fascinated by pieces of nature such as driftwood and animal bones. He saw the potential in all that was around him whether it was a beat up old pickup truck or his grandchildren. My middle son Sam is a happy, smart, eager little boy who also has a sensory disorder and mild autism. My father always called him Ol’Smiley and when we received the diagnosis, the first thing my father did was offer help. He was concerned that Sam receive all the help that he needed. Whenever we spoke on the phone he would ask about the latest therapies that we were trying and what he could do. Last Christmas we traveled back to New Mexico. One night while we were there he pulled out a cardboard box and started drawing letters on it. He pulled Sam on his lap and started teaching him his letters. He also drew a face on the box and started asking Sam the parts of the face. My dad believed in Sam’s potential and wanted to be part of the process.

Lesson #3
Even big tough guys have a heart
Dad was not always the gentlest of souls. He wasn’t big into kissing booboos or talking about broken hearts. However, there were times of extreme kindness and tenderness. My mom’s mother used to say as she watched my dad comb out my hair on her living room rug that she couldn’t believe that big man would sit there with me in between his knees and take the time to gently comb out each individual knot in my hair. Whenever I got a splinter, I went to Dad to get it out. Why? Because he could get it out without an ounce of pain. His tool of choice….his trusty pen knife. One year at Christmas, my father had purchased my mother a pair of beautiful diamond earrings. Since the thought of pulling out the tape, scissors and Christmas paper probably scared my father, he decided to use the biggest, most colorful box he could find….our Christmas tree. All Christmas morning he danced around with the excitement of my mom finally finding the earrings. He wanted her to be surprised and feel the excitement he already was feeling. Unfortunately, someone was excited as well and blurted out the location of the special gift (sorry dad!). However, it taught me about doing something for someone else and wanting nothing more than to be witness to their excitement.

Lesson #4
Reading is essential in life
My father was always reading. Everything from the latest political nonfiction to Louis Lamour, Steinbeck, and Faulkner. He believed that reading was one of the skills that everyone should master. He would always tell me “You can hire an accountant, lawyer, plumber, but you can never hire anyone to read for you.” My father’s love for books was illustrated to us one day when he came home with a pickup truck stacked with boxes and boxes of books. He dropped them off, left and returned a half an hour later with another pickup truck and then took off to get….you guessed it….another pickup truck full. My father had attended the cities police sale where the local library had parted with their least favorite 100,000 books for the fine cost of $25 dollars. That $25 yielded many outdated computer manuals and trashy beach novels. But amongst the trash the treasures emerged.

Lesson#5
Combining and consolidation of food is a good thing
My father grew up in the Great Depression and using what you had to its fullest ability was really big with my dad. He hated wasting anything and that was exhibited in something we kids feared daily. The ol’ quick slick combining of foods that my father thought would go together. We woke many a mornings to find that our cheerios had been spiced up with the few remaining shredded wheats leftover in last weeks cereal box. Or how about the gourmet stylings of sweet pickles mixed with kosher pickles? Hey they both say pickles on the label….whats the big deal. Or my brother Shiloh’s favorite. The ol’ Christmas holiday mix of eggnog and milk. Not too bad you think…what till you pour that onto your Cheerio, Corn flake, and Luck Charms gourmet mix. So…..dad, you taught us to look and smell our food before we ate and most importantly …to appreciate what we have to eat.


Lesson #6
Knowing who came before you and paying them respect is very important
Growing up, I was always aware of a simple fact about my father. He was old. My friends pointed it out. He looked older than my friend’s fathers. He talked about growing up in the Great Depression, being a part of WWII, and other historical events that no one else’s father knew first hand about. I remember looking at pictures of my ancestors and listening to stories about their lives. I have walked through graveyards and have been able to place those names on the gravestones with the faces in the pictures. Each one of dad’s kids were named after people my fathered admired or our ancestors.
Kim Pierce, Candace Selby, Carla Montez, Alexandra Rebecca, William Shiloh and James Zebulon. Dad believed that giving his children names that had such meaning connected them to their past and honored those that have gone before them.

Lesson #7
Helping those who are less fortunate
My father always believed in helping those that were down on their luck or needing a helping hand at a time of need. Throughout the years we were growing up, we constantly had people living with us when they had nowhere else to go. Sometimes they would stay for a weekend, sometimes they stayed for years. My dad was always ready to offer a room or a ride to anyone that needed it. Even if that person would go on to become the Governor of New Mexico and a candidate for President. One night at the Santa Fe Airport, my dad was waiting for someone to show up for a trip when he noticed a private jet sitting on the runway with people around it. It was Bill Richardson’s plane and it was out of gas. Dad talked with a few people and before you knew it, Bill’s plane was full of gas and Bill himself was full of food, having not eaten anything for 24 hours. Big or small, my dad was always ready to help out in anyway he could.

Lesson #8
It doesn’t have to be pretty to work
Bailing wire was one of my dad’s best friends. He could use it to fix a lot of things. It tied up a sleeping bag, held a cardboard box together and was always in my father’s box of tricks. He could fix a car motor with an empty pear tin can and bailing wire. Of all the lessons learned this one has the most examples. About 15 years ago my parents had a horrible problem with gophers in the garden. My mom tried the gases, poisons, traps, you name it she tried it. Finally at the end of her rope, she turned to dad who grabbed a piece of flexible aluminum piping, attached it to the back of the Suburban’s tail pipe, ran the pipe into the gopher hole, started the engine, ran the engine for a couple of hours and Voila….no gophers. And 15 years later…still no gophers. My dad believed in learning how to survive on your own. You know…tie knots, build a proper fire, set up a tent. But why make things hard on yourself. So he always brought gasoline with him while camping in order to make lighting camp fires easier. And for the show. About 20 years ago my father put in brick walkways in the front of our house. Unfortunately, the temperature was fixing to drop the night before he was going to lay the bricks. So, in true Carl Turner fashion he grabbed all the electric blankets off the beds and set to plugging them in outside and laying them on the ground outside. However, mom wasn’t buying that vision. The most memorable “doesn’t have to be pretty example” was on one fourth of July about 20 years ago. We had spent the afternoon at a 4th of July party and we got home late. Dad had purchased one of those large boxes with 5 million fireworks and sparkers that promised 4th of July glory for all. Us kids were tired, but wanted those fireworks lit. Mom and dad were tired as well, but of course, dad’s inner fire bug did not want to disappoint. So, dad took us outside, set us all around our big wooden table on our patio, pulled the plastic off the box of fireworks, set the box in the middle of the table, told us kids to step back, lit the match and threw it into the middle of the box. Boy was that pretty.

Lesson #9
Don’t panic
It took a lot for dad to panic about anything. In fact, I don’t remember him panicking about anything. Not a truck broken down on the side of the road in Utah with 48 hours to get to Seattle. Not coming across a rattlesnake while giving a nature walk and having ten little kids with him. He didn’t panic. My mother use to take my brother Shiloh and I ice skating on Sunday’s after church. Our youngest brother Zeb was too little to go and so he stayed home with Dad and they ate popcorn and watched football. Well one Sunday dad started the popcorn before we left and …he started it in a frying pan. He put the pan on the oven, turned up the heat, poured in the oil, and then poured in the popcorn. However, he forgot the lid. So while us kids were running around the kitchen screaming and eating popcorn off the floor, dad searched the cabinets for a lid without any evidence of panic. Finally he found it. And mom yells at him saying…”Carl that was the stupidest thing you have ever done.” To that dad responded….”No it is not!”

Lesson #10
Life is rough in the big city
Well, this lesson does not have a story. Why you might ask? Because my dad said it all the time. He didn’t much like whining and didn’t believe it got you anywhere. “Life isn’t fair” we whined. His response….Life is rough in the big city.


So, did us kids learn our lessons? Well, we can all read. We take care of each other. And I am happy to report, that Sam knows his ABC’s and has recently learned to spell his name. My three boy’s names are Stephen Carl, Samuel Alec, and Daniel Turner and my brother Zeb had his first child eight weeks ago, Adalia Fe, who was named after her great grandmother. We value what we eat, but pickles and olives are kept separate. And this winter I successfully fixed a broken fake Christmas tree with…what else but bailing wire.
So, if you could all forgive me for a minute as I directly talk to my dad. Dad, thank you for the life you gave us. The experiences, the stories, the love. You gave us pride in who we are and where we came from. You taught us that we can take care of ourselves, although we will miss you immensely. But, in reflecting on your life as a whole, you have taught me that that is what life is really about…..living and living it to the fullest. So, let’s saddle up and ride!