Bull Remembered

Let me begin with a good Southern story. A little more than a month ago, my father became caught up in the terrible events that brought us to this place today. Of course, being my father, he waited a full hour to let anyone know because he didn’t want to bother anyone. He was admitted to a general hospital room after a whirlwind of chaos in the ER. As the nurses got him ready for admittance, deafened, exhausted, stricken with the stroke that would eventually take him, and suffering from pneumonia, he asked them in a slurred voice, “What do we do next?” One of the nurses said to him, “You just need to lay here and get well!” He turned to her and said with perfect clarity, “Oh no, my dear; it’s LIE here.” Two separate nurses sought us out and reported this story to us.

This story embodies my father perfectly. My father was a gentleman, in all senses of the word. He was a Southern gentleman, a gentle man, and gentle in the medieval sense of being well educated. He was intensely curious about everything, and delighted in knowledge and information. I remember when we had stopped at an AM/PM minimarket. There were 4 or 5 rather scary looking bikers in the parking lot. My father happily sauntered over to them and started quizzing them all about Sturgis North Dakota. Knowing my father as I do, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the bikers asked him to join their gang. Such was the power of his personality that he could talk to anyone about anything.

He had a keener sense of the underlying order of life than anyone else I have ever met. He had a sense of the correct, the necessary, and the appropriate. He was an astute observer of life and its many foibles. It is hard for me to adequately explain his sense of well-being and order; he intuitively grasped what most people spend their lives seeking out. 

He was, of course, a gifted storyteller. His stories, particularly of his early life in Mississippi, are magical in their content. He described a lost world of supersaturated heat, of poverty, complex characters, and justice and injustice. His knowledge of the relations between people was encyclopedic; he could tie my sister and me to almost any character he described through an intricate web of familial obligations and connections that make the Hapsburgs seem like rank amateurs. 

I think he realized early on that lives consist of a series of events connected by a golden thread. It should not be surprising that one of his oldest and dearest friend, Jeff Smith, is a mathematician, whose power of description resides in the formal language of mathematics. My father described the same reality from the outside.

We are about to begin a religious service held in his beloved church, an event he would have greatly appreciated. I cannot presume to address his immortal life in spirit. I do however believe that when we leave here today, we will find ourselves in the coming days, weeks, months, and years repeating stories by and about Bull. He will gain no small measure of immortality in this way. His spirit will live on here on Earth, ever stronger, as we delight in his stories and continually learn to marvel at the way the world is put together.

Many of you– most of you– have asked us what you can do to help in this time of need. Well, I actually have 3 tasks for you. First, please keep yourselves healthy. I love you all very much and I don’t ever want to go through this again. Next, after the service, please take a moon pie from the boxes in the fellowship hall and consume it at your leisure. Once you get over the anaphylactic shock of the sugar rush, listen to my father tell you about sitting on a front porch in the stifling MS heat, eating a lunch consisting of a moon pie, an orange, and an orange Nehi. Finally, we’d like to collect as many of your stories about Bull as we can; we’ve set up a video camera in the fellowship hall and an interactive website at bullremembered.org. Please help us preserve the legacy of this unique and wonderful man.

Thank you all very much for being here.