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Gems A Personal Statement #1: My Dad: Humanitarian Service
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September 24, 2008
During the summer of 1960 I took this photo of Dad - Peter Becker, "Pete" to his friends, and Uncle Pete to my cousins. He was only 32 then, I was 9.
I'm smiling just now as I read Mom's dutifully added caption, "Daddy combining 1960" - as if we might one day question the identity of the man standing beside his mechanical beast. That's not too likely. For a long time we had a family joke about an incident with Dad while he was working in the fields. It was one of those sweltering, humid, and dusty North Dakota summer days. Searching for a drink of water with a certain measure of abandon, Dad grabbed from the back of the pickup the nearest thing that looked like a water jug - but a few gulps later he realized that something was wrong. Unfortunately, he had recently taken to transporting a small amount of gasoline in a very similar container! With presence of mind, he quickly sped himself to our small town of Napoleon and implored Dr. Goodman for help. For years to come, Dad would laugh as he quoted Doc, "Well, if you're not dead yet, you'll probably make it. Just lay off the cigarettes for awhile!" The subject of this short essay is humanitarian service. My Dad was not what you might refer to as civic-minded. His friends would ask him to join the Lions Club or the Knights of Columbus or something else, but that was not his way. Service clubs of various sorts do engage in charitable works, and they are to be commended for that; I will say, though, that I am not often moved to tears by the stereotypical plastic-banana publicity photos, typically, of a club officer handing off a fat check to some grinning charity official. Don't get me wrong, I think group-giving to a good cause is a good thing - before I die I hope to be more active in philanthropic projects. It's just that when I see photo-opp shots like that, in the back of my mind, a nagging little voice pipes up and asks, "If there were no publicity, no articles in tomorrow's paper about your club, would you still be serving?" Let's just say that we don't meet many people in life of whom we could readily ask help - and expect an instant response if necessity so required.
My father would not be found in a check hand-off ceremony - but he was the kind of person who would risk his life to help you, if you really needed help. Here's a true story about my Dad. This happened when I was about 10 years old. It was January. North Dakota winters are brutal, and even quite dangerous, if not negotiated very carefully. As a kid I thought temperatures, occasionally dipping to 50 below zero (or more), was the norm - didn't everyone live this way? And I remember, quite vividly, that a simple 60-foot venture, from the house to the barn, with the right mixture of wind and snow, on a bad day, could be a life-and-death proposition. On a particularly cold day, Dad gave me permission to stay inside for awhile to warm up while he finished feeding the cattle. While working at this, Dad noticed that a car, about a mile from our farm, haplessly, had wandered off the main road and was stuck in deep snow. Many people have died as a result of such a seemingly innocuous situation. Ironically, about eight years later, as a senior in high school, while driving home late one night in blinding snow, I drove off the highway in almost exactly the same spot. The inherent danger here is the possibility of being stranded if the snow persists; if the wind turns violent; if the temperature drops very much - all of which, of course, can result in a frozen death. And some blizzards with blasting and howling Arctic winds, allowing almost zero visibility - I'm thinking of the winter of 1966 - can last a whole week! To say that Dad drove his tractor to these stranded motorists, pulled them out of the snowbank, and sent them on their way - all sounds somewhat unremarkable. And if it does so to you, allow me to suggest that you have no idea of the forces at work here. Blizzard winds can be capricious, sometimes roaring full-speed, and then suddenly dying to a whimper, only to explode again. The point here is that a simple one-mile excursion could very easily turn deadly. I was quite young then and did not understand the dynamics of all attendant risks in play. But when Dad returned and came in the house - I was shocked, and I still remember how I felt - his face was covered in ice: ice on his eyebrows; ice in his hair; ice on his cheeks; his face was white, almost deathly white, and he was clearly suffering from exposure. I will never forget this picture of my Dad - it will forever serve as my own, private archetypal image of the classic suffering servant. Today, I don't always live that way; but when I don't, I have that icon of him in my heart, that man covered in ice - and that helps me to right myself.
Well, that was my Dad. I was lucky to have him for as long as I did. One of the things I enjoyed doing most - one of our rituals - was going with him in his pickup as he checked on the cattle in a nearby pasture. It was a time for us, without distractions, when he could more easily speak of things important to him. I enjoyed doing this with him even when I was a young boy - but, later in life, even when I was in my 50s and visiting home, this simple rite took on an almost holy, sacramental significance to me - I realized that this good man, one with whom I had worked very closely for twelve years, and sometimes fought, would not always be an easy phone call away. I just remembered a joke, one that I told him, which he liked very much. You'll recall that in the 1980s, before cell phones, mobile telephones in cars were called "car phones." A Gary Larson cartoon depicted a rancher beside a cow, the broadside of which presented an open hatch-door. The rancher was reaching inside the compartment and pulled out a mobile phone. The caption read, The Agricultural Executive And His Cow Phone. Dad liked that one. I lost Dad to cancer on June 17, 2005. I'm sure he's doing well wherever he is; he probably has a farm in heaven; probably, still enjoying his cattle and crops. But, hey, Dad, just remember - try to lay off the high-octane juice this time, ok?
Woodrow Wilson
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