Happy in Heaven

A toast to someone I'll always miss. Requiescat in pace to one of the best men I ever knew.

Tampa, FL

July 24, 2024

My mother is a wonderful woman.

But being terrific isn’t always enviable. If nothing else, it’s hard for any man to measure up. Fortunately, she found one who did. For more than forty years he’d been my father.

We all have a finite number of heartbeats, none of which can be stored or saved. But they can be invested, and Jerry Miller did that well.

After almost 93 years, he used his last pulse yesterday afternoon. Throughout his life, each beat earned a remarkable return. And those who loved him received the dividends.

Certain things will always bring him to mind. The Songbook…football…bird watching…any major golf tournament…popping a cork at six o’clock.

But there’s much more we’ll never forget, especially the memories time turned to treasure.

Coming Clean

My mother met her husband more than four decades ago, in Switzerland. Assuming she’d never see him again, she took the liberty of spicing up her résumé. 

Already a successful travel agent and burgeoning business owner, she pretended, for this trip, to also be a renowned attorney and a concert pianist. Not needing to try a case or play a tune, she was easily able to pull off the ruse. 

Until she got home.

Upon returning to Tampa, she received a phone call. The man for whom she’d created her airy Alpine credentials lived within sixty miles, and wanted to see her. 

The feeling was mutual, but left a pit in her stomach. For while she had innocuously embellished [Latin: “made up”] a few fraudulent aspects of her life, she had somehow forgotten to mention a couple genuine ones:

Her children.

I was eleven or twelve years old, my brother about nine. At some point, if all went well, Jerry would probably find out about us. Like a scalpel to a delicate operation, my mother had to come clean.

She once told me how she did it, but that was years ago. Like the rear windshield after a few drops of rain, the details are spotty. But let’s adjust the mirror, squint, and look back.

I don’t think I was in the room when she broke the news of her sons’ existence (tho’ having me there would have been a less subtle way to do it). 

Based on what I recall of the story, let’s imagine that day thru the eyes of whatever fly happened to be on the wall…

My mother answers the door, welcomes Jerry in, and invites him to (or strongly suggests that he) sit down. We’ll take some artistic license, go out on a limb, and assume a bottle of wine adorns the scene.

The stage set, the overture complete, and perfunctory recitatives out of the way, it was time for the aria.

“Jerry”, she said ominously, “there’s something I haven’t told you, but that you need to know.”

Somewhat startled, he looked up apprehensively, braced himself and…like Linus with his blanket…clutched his wine glass.

“Oh? … What is it?”

“Well”, she continued, “I should have told you sooner, but wasn’t quite sure how. And the time never seemed right.”

Nothing good has ever followed such a sentence. Jerry’s face grew pale as he sank further into his seat. He knew this woman was too good to be true!

“That’s OK”, he lied. “You can tell me.”

After a deep breath, she took one more drink and, like an RAF pilot over Hamburg, opened the bomb bay doors.

“I have two kids”, she blurted…and then stood back, waiting for the smoke to clear. 

Jerry sat up, dusted himself off, and emerged, unscathed, from the debris. The color slowly returned to his face…but (like the legend he was) he retained his hold on the wine glass.

“Is that all?”, he exulted. 

“Is that all?”, my mother asked, almost as perplexed as she was relieved.

“Yeah”, he exhaled. “I was afraid you were going to tell me you aren’t an attorney!”

My mother (even as a teenager) was destined to marry Jerry

Setting the Temperature and the Tone

From that moment…which probably didn’t happen as I described, and may not have occurred at all…our lives improved. 

Not that Jerry didn’t have plenty of days when he didn’t wish my mother could exchange her sons for a law degree. But he initially tolerated the boys, always taught them, and soon treated them as his own. 

They eventually reciprocated, in their intransigent teenage way. Their home consolidated, and their horizons expanded. 

Jerry and the author (Prince Valiant) fight for the rebound (1981)

Incomparable impressions of Donald Duck and WC Fields became commonplace. Frank Sinatra, Bo Schembechler, and Johnny Carson joined the family.

Desiccated martinis, enervating whites, and soothing reds spurred happy-hour conversations and after-dinner debates. Two-inch steaks and Jerry’s homemade spaghetti rendered rival sirloins and sauces almost offensive.

It’s been said that some people enter our lives as thermometers, others as thermostats. Most merely register the temperature. But the special ones change it. When Jerry joined us, our family grew warmer.

He struck a welcome tone, paternally harmonizing the raucous vibrations of untuned teenage strings. His reliable chords remained a steadying influence whenever life’s notes turned sour, or shifted off-key. 

An Infectious Fondness for Life

He loved life, and reveled in it. Negativity was as incompatible with his nature as an Adam’s apple is to shaving. And his fondness was infectious. Everyone felt better when Jerry was around.

He instilled or reinforced my lifelong affinity for golf, wine, conversation, and travel…particularly for all three at once.

In 2006 he, his son Kevin, my brother Brett, and I mixed them in style along the Wisconsin coast. We spent three days sampling several courses, numerous varietals, and a Brewers game on a golf trip to Whistling Straits.

Jerry and his sons: Whistling Straits, Wisconsin

That remains among my most enjoyable memories. The courses and company were wonderful. But a particular recollection comes from high in the rafters toward the end of the game, when Miller Park ran out of beer. 

Out of beer…at a Brewers game…at Miller Park.

As an amiably inebriated group of guys in front of us (who were no doubt largely responsible for the drought) told the vendor, this should not have been possible at a ballpark built next to its namesake brewery…a brewery bearing Jerry’s last name!

Secret Sauce

As he did my love for the finer things, Jerry also facilitated my relationship with the finest. I’m probably married because of his patented spaghetti sauce. After a 1993 visit to Tampa, Jerry froze some for me to take back to Philadelphia.

So armed, I invited a beautiful woman to my fashionable apartment. There, like a destitute entrepreneur seeking VC funding, I used someone else’s assets to enhance my pitch. 

And it worked…to a point. Rita loved the meal, and appreciated the man who made it. But she already knew her host well enough to know it wasn’t him.

After all, anyone who could make such a meal would probably own at least a few pots and pans. And his refrigerator would likely chill more than watery beer, stale milk, and salad dressing as neglected as a vegan in a steakhouse. 

But the evening wasn’t a total loss. If nothing else, it made Rita want to meet my parents, which she did a few months later. 

Redeeming Faults

Jerry was as durable as he was dexterous. He survived deadly car accidents, debilitating knee injuries, and Ohio State fans. 

And that’s just since we knew him. 

He was also struck by lightning, went to college with Ted Kennedy, and lived in Detroit. Jerry has been in scrapes so hairy they make Sasquatch look like Kojak. 

But he also holed-out from the sand to birdie the 10th hole at Augusta National, which makes up for a lot. 

Jerry was a good athlete, and a well-rounded one. He played college football at Harvard, and won a National Championship rowing crew. In 1952, his team almost qualified for the Helsinki Olympics.

But we must be wary of portraying a person as being too good. After all, everyone should have a few redeeming faults. Jerry’s was the degree to which he adored the Michigan Wolverines, who did him a final honor of being reigning champs.

I’m unsure whether his passion derived more from his love for Michigan or his loathing of their foe. Jerry often said Ohio State fans are the most rude, obnoxious, and deplorable of any in the land. Midwest Nice apparently checks its gentility at the Ohio Stadium gates.

Based on Jerry’s testimony…cloaked like a Medieval abbot in maize and blue modesty…Columbusites treat visiting Wolverines with a coarseness and vulgarity that Philadelphia fans would envy. 

Which seems outrageous ingratitude to the friendly fans “up north.” We all know that when these same Buckeyes make their way to Ann Arbor, they stroll into the Big House as honored guests, on a red carpet, with rose petals under their feet. There’s a reason, after all, that halos are maize. 

As a fan, Jerry yielded to no one in his discretion and humility. Anyone who adorned U of M socks, displayed a Wolverine wall-clock, and stocked a Michigan music box…all of which repeatedly (ask my mother) played “Hail to the Victors” at the push of a button, top of an hour, or lift of a lid…was always eminently gracious, humble, and reticent toward benighted collegiate rivals. 

Happy in Heaven

Jerry was fond of being “often wrong but rarely in doubt.” But who isn’t? Unchecked certainty can make life worth living. If not for our arrogance, how could we have political arguments over Christmas dinner?

Harold Nicholson said 99 out of a hundred people are interesting. And the other is interesting because he’s the exception. Jerry was one of the more interesting and exceptional men I ever knew. He was also one of the best.

Jerry was genuine. He had no pretensions that I ever saw. If they ever existed, they’d fallen away, like discarded heirlooms along the Oregon Trail. 

In the movie Hud, Melvyn Douglas’s character observed that little by little, the world changes because of the men we admire. This was meant as a warning to his naive grandson, who idolized Douglas’s selfish, ne’er do-well heir. 

But admiration also flows uphill, following and forging laudable channels as it streams toward higher ground. As I’ve moved thru life, my world improved because of Jerry Miller.

But what meant the most was how much he loved my mother. Like blades on scissors, they seemed inseparable, and mutually essential.

Jerry with the woman he loved

He always hated when they were apart. Whenever she was away, he’d count the days till she returned. Knowing my mother, that’s understandable.

Altho’ he’s the one who’s now taken leave, he’ll retain a permanent perch atop her mind. And I can’t imagine that’ll bother her a bit.

Seneca said the happy man is one who can make others better, not only when he’s in their company, but even when he’s in their thoughts.

If that’s the case, Jerry is happy in Heaven, where he’ll keep improving our lives for as long as we live.

The glass may be gone, but the wine remains. Jerry would have it no other way.

JD