Prelude

I miss my father. His warm, deep voice could bring order to chaos and made the most bizarre elements of life seem understandable, if odd or misguided. I missed my mother as well, but she lacked my father’s understanding and compassion. I know that might sound backwards, but it is true.

My mother wanted to “climb the corporate ladder”, where my father enjoyed his job as a professor at a local community college. There arguments were legendary inside of the family, with my mother’s voice raising just short of yelling, and my father’s growing even softer and more gentle, though no less passionate.

Once, when I was home on leave, I questioned my father about those arguments and how he had kept his calm years after her death. He just smiled, and explained that she had her own demons, and what she was really doing was crying about how scared she was. Every time she yelled, he listened to the scared child inside of her crying out that she needed him to love her.

Don’t think my father was weak. At six foot six, and a bit over two hundred and fifty pounds, he looked more like a viking than anyone wanted to admit. My mother told me, shortly before she died, that he was the only man she knew that was strong enough to handle her. In public, she doted and adored my father, the pair behaving more like a 1950’s couple. Around our small town, such displays were noticed and commented on. A local group of “women’s advocates”, a woman’s only social club that I cannot remember the name of, approached her about needing to set an example of being her own woman. That as a business leader, she was an example to many aspiring women in the community, and then commenting that she needed to think about what kind of example she was setting for her own son. My mother looked at them, and laughed her self to tears, explaining that her greatest hope was that I would find a woman better than herself to love. They left in a huff.

And don’t think that I didn’t love my mother. She was an intelligent, articulate, and driven woman. When it came to my studies for my Masters in Business, most of my knowledge came from my mother long before I ever entered Stanford. She tried to bond with me by sharing her insight into the business world. I know she loved me. And I know that she hurt because she couldn’t find a way to fully bridge the gulf between us, but as my father said, she was haunted by her demons, and a driving need to prove herself.

So, understand that when it came to people, I missed my father’s advice and insight. His understanding of how society changed, and how those changes changed what drove and motivated people felt prophetic in the years after his death. He taught me what he could about how to read people, and understand what their motives were, and I used them during my time in the Army, and when I transferred from Military service to Civil service. All of the white papers and analyses in the whole of government didn’t add up to my father’s insights.

Chapter 1 »