Fred F. Gordy, Sr. passed on Monday, July 25th, 2016 at the age of 91. I, Fred F. Gordy, Jr., had the honor of delivering his eulogy. Below is the eulogy.
Today we gather to remember and enjoy the memories of Fred
Gordy… husband… photographer… life guard… teacher… And father. Yes, he was our family’s father but we also
knew him as a father of knowledge to countless others. He taught formulas, equations, the periodic table, physics, calculus, and
more... but it was not just what was in the books… He taught us and his students life.
I never had the opportunity to be a student of his in the
classroom but I have had the opportunity to hear stories from those who did
including my sister Dianne.
There are stories of him teaching from the top of the lab
tables… putting chemicals together to make controlled explosions to get the
attention of those otherwise less engaged… or maybe it is was just for fun...
which in the classrooms of today he couldn’t have done… Anyway… the point is… from what I hear is
that he tried to engage his students and not just preach at them.
He took that responsibility very seriously and viewed his
students as an investment and extension of him.
Some of his proudest memories were of the students who become more than
they thought they could. It wasn’t just
that they become doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, and mathematicians… it
was that they became those things they didn’t think they could achieve.
You know how as you age your parents become smarter and
wiser than you remember growing up?...
Things that he did in raising us seemed sometimes hard and unfair but as
I have found in becoming a father what my Dad did was loving and fair. He pushed me when I didn’t want to be pushed…
He let me fail when he knew I needed to fail because that was probably the only
way I would learn.
One of these lessons I hold onto
even now and it has served me well…
I don’t remember how old I was but I must have been old
enough to have an attitude and Dad was pretty perceptive to teenagers
attitudes… It was hot and it seemed like
everywhere I put my shovel I hit a root.
He finally stops what he was doing and said “What’s the problem?”… (Like
there wasn’t one)… I probably said something like “this is stupid… or there is
no way we can do this because of all the stupid roots…” He stood up… looked at me with that look that
only a hot, tired, father gets when he is dealing with a kid with an attitude
who would rather be anywhere but where he is… and said… “Grab a root and
growl!” Meaning “You have a job to
do… you have obstacles in your way… quit
whining about it and wasting the time complaining about it… get the obstacles
out the way and get the job done.
In a manner of speaking he imparted that wisdom to more than
just me. Throughout life we have
objectives… if we focus on the obstacles, we will never reach our objectives.
Dad embodied this… He was raised on a farm during a time
when most people didn’t have much. By
all accounts he should have stayed on the farm.
Education was secondary. Children
were needed on farm more than they were needed in the classroom. Dad wanted that education. He wanted more than the farm… not the farm
was a bad thing… he loved science and math and learning. Today the environment he grew up in could be
considered by most as almost third world.
In order to get an education, you had to really want it. He and his brother had to work the farm and
or milk cows before school and come home do it again. It was tough for someone just graduate high
school.
He also taught us patience in the task. That is… how to approach the obstacle and
remove it. You had to first recognize
the obstacle and then appreciate the task of removing the obstacle. And he did this in the simple things… I remember
he took me somewhere to get a load of dirt.
Do you see a pattern…. He taught me a lot with a shovel and dirt…. Anyway…
As a kid I just wanted to be finished as soon as I got started so I
plowed into the task of shoveling the dirt as fast as I could into the
truck. He let me go awhile as he was
slowly shoveling his part of the pile into the truck… I noticed that he was
putting a whole lot more dirt in the truck than I was even though I was making
3 or 4 shovels to his one… That’s when he told me the story of the old man who
was a sharecropper that worked part of their farm. Dad’s Dad told he and his brother to move a
mound of dirt. In the process the old
sharecropper came over and started to help them and he told them to slow down
and they could move more dirt which didn’t make sense to me or I guessing them
when they were about my age... How can
you slow down and do things faster… that’s not what he said… what he said was
move more dirt. What the old sharecropper explained to my Dad and his brother
and what my Dad explained to me was that taking your time and making sure each
shovel full was the fullest and the most useful of your effort, you could move
more dirt with less scoops and less time.
In other words, make each one of your efforts count and it will probably
take less time and effort to reach your objective.
Dad’s way was not to drive the point home with extensive
conversation… he simply told the story and let you figure it out. Sometimes it took a while for the light bulb
to go off but when it did, it is stuck
with me.
It also took me years to realize things he did for not only
my sisters and I but for others. He
didn’t talk about them or make a big deal of them. He did them because he believed they needed
to be done.
I was too young to remember the late 60’s and early 70’s but
as most know it was a tumultuous time.
Our father and mother made sure that we understood that everyone had
value. No man or woman was above another
and that everyone had the right to strive to make something of themselves. He stood by these principles… sometimes even
to his detriment. He was not a crusader
or a spokesman. He simply did what he
believed needed to be done.
Now Dad wasn’t just serious all
the time… He had his moments. Most of
them not intentional but funny non the less…
For example… There was the time Dad was running down
Gallatin street with a gun chasing a dog we had that was severely wounded and
he was going to put him out of his misery and mom was chasing behind him trying
to get him not to shoot the dog. Luckily
for the dog a neighbor took the dog in and saved him… We never saw the dog
again…
I remember the school bought a riding lawn mower and I got
to ride on the back with him as he drove it from the Sears outlet to our house…
I had no idea that was the plan when mom dropped us off at Sears. Yes, I
was embarrassed at the time… but now it’s funny.
Speaking of riding lawnmowers… One time he decided to take
the riding lawn mower and attach the military surplus trailer he bought which I
think weighed about 400 pounds and load it up with limbs and back it down the
hill behind the house. The hill angled
down at least at 120-degree angle and the neither one of us was thinking about
the laws of physics and the braking ability of small riding lawn mower…
Needless to say he started backing down the hill and the next thing I know is
lawn mower, trailer and Dad go rolling down the kudzu covered hill. I start yelling for him and I couldn’t find
him. He pops up over to the side a ways
with a big ole grin and says “Guess the brakes on the lawnmower weren’t
designed to hold that much weight… now go get the come-along and a rope and
let’s get this mower and trailer up the hill.”
And he said it like nothing bad had happened.
But that was Dad… something
happens and you just get up and move on.
He approached things from a logical and practical point of
view. Some of you may remember he had a
Volkswagen that didn’t have a passenger seat… why? Because that’s where his camera equipment
needed to go when he was going to a photo job.
If you rode with him, you either
sat in the back seat or you got the little wooden school chair and put it where
the seat should be. Probably wasn’t safe
by today’s standards but it was fun to ride in.
He wore suits cause that’s what
you did and wore boat shoes with your suit cause they were better for walking
all over the campus.
His logical and practical side also helped us to learn what
to fear and what not to fear. What to
believe and what not to believe. And to
even appreciate and respect that, that which should be feared.
As a child I was afraid of thunderstorms and bad weather in
general. One particular stormy day, Dad
took me on the front porch and explained to me what was going on and how all
the pieces fit together. I got a view
inside the storm and the powers that it possessed. I learned that a storm in an amazing powerful
thing and while it should be respected it can still be admired. So much so that even today I love to watch
storms. My wife knows that if a storms
coming I have to watch it.
This leads me into another funny
story of Dad.
A few years ago Dad was staying a day facility in Newton
called Foot Prints. Eileen told me that
they had some really bad storms blow through and the staff rounded up all the
people and were trying to get them into a center room until the storm blew over
but Dad didn’t want to be put in the room and he got pretty mad to the point
they called Eileen to come get him. She could
not come because… well… the weather was bad.
He was bound and determined to go outside and watch it. I think he either did get outside or almost
did. After talking to Eileen on the
phone I told my wife the story. As I was
telling it she gets a smile on her face and says “Do you hear yourself? You are definitely Fred Jr. That’s probably
what you will do when you’re his age.”
She’s right and I have Dad to thank for that. Now,
every time I see a storm I will probably be even more apt to go
outside. It’s my opportunity to visit
with my Dad. I’m sure he’ll be around
somewhere. At least while it's going on.
Dad also appreciated the science of creation. If you’ve ever read Lee Strobel’s case for
the Creator you’ll see a bit of my Dad in it.
As a scientist with an analytical mind, Dad understood that it takes
more faith to believe that this all happened by accident than to believe that
the divine Creator meticulously stitched us and our world together.
In the Case for the Creator physicist-philosopher Robin
Collins said that one of the most striking discoveries of modern science has
been that the laws and constants of physics unexpectedly conspire in an
extraordinary way to make the universe habitable for life. For instance,
gravity is fine-tuned to one part in a hundred million billion billion billion
billion billion.
The cosmological constant, which represents the energy
density of space, is as precise as throwing a dart from space and hitting a
bull's-eye just a trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter on Earth.
One expert said there are more than 30 physical or cosmological parameters that
require precise calibration in order to produce a universe that can sustain
life.
Dad gave me and many others the desire to understand the why
and the how. His was to question and
explain and for you to learn to question explanations in order to firmly know
the answers.
Although in his last years his mind was not what not as
clear as it once was, during his life his was a mind that molded my sisters and
I as well as countless others. To have
the impact he had on others…. I can only wish.
Dad…. There are no roots in your way. There is no dirt to move. It’s your time to rest and enjoy your
restored mind and health and know that we were blessed by your presence.
