St. Louis - Apr. 2006 Talk from Art Brereton (Bob's son)

Please excuse me for using some notes to refer to. I have found that in speaking without them I can be slow to get started, and once started difficult to stop. I can’t imagine from whom I might have inherited that trait. A contradiction certainly, and my fathers life was certainly filled with many of them. Certainly two of his favorite things, Golf and Sailing are sports of contradictions. The quiet and peaceful early morning tee off filled with the promise of what lay ahead, to the frustration of making a shot that should be easy and simple into one that is maddingly difficult. The slow and steady power and acceleration of a hull through tiny ripples on the waters surface, to the raging force of an overpowered boat lurching over chaotic waves. He appreciated that in both these things it was easy to be lulled into a sense of complacency, but once you thought you had things under control then you were headed for trouble. He not only understood that life was filled with these types of contradictions, but he relished them as the spice in living. He was both frugal and generous, serious and comical, conservative and a risk taker. And in this way he had the traits of both his Scottish and Irish ancestors. It’s hard enough being either Scottish or Irish without having to be both at the same time! He loved the irony in things and he simply appreciated the concept of irony. I remember being about 8 years old and we were driving in the car and Dad commented that something was ironic. Well, I didn’t know what the word meant. Since we were in the car, and there was no dictionary in the car, I figured if I asked him I was safe from him telling me to look it up which he would have if we were at home. He had a great love of words, and memory for them, and he started to give me a the proper definition like you would find in a dictionary, but remembering I was just 8 years old he stopped and said, “ well, it’s a little like running a car into a stop sign.” That definition has served me well. He was famously frugal, doing things like cutting his own hair and saving the last slivers of soap and then trying to mold them all together, but usually ending up with a gelatinous mess. But then he would surprise us with a new television, or car, or boat. We kids thought this sort of thing was great, but Mom might have gotten a little tired of it when on two consecutive years she got a canoe and a motorcycle as birthday presents. It wasn’t until much more recently that I understood that he wasn’t being a spendthrift as much as he hated to see time being wasted. For him, going out and buying something you didn’t need at all was the same as wasting time. He was certainly very serious about being a husband, father, and Doctor. He took his responsibility as such very seriously. One of my first memories was sitting on his lap as he taught me to read the Ant and Bee book. As a result I announced to my kindergarten teacher on the first day of school that I could read anything. He also instructed me on the proper way to sweep a room or wash a pot, and didn’t see the point of doing anything if you weren’t going to take the time to do it right. At the time I always thought, “Hey, what's the big deal. It’s only a pot.” But eventually I learned the value of what he taught me and now find myself trying to teach the same things to my children. And being amazed how few people in the world know the proper way to wash a pot! As a Doctor he was a taskmaster, accepting nothing less than total dedication from himself and others. He would always put someone in need of his skills before anything else. I will always remember going to visit his patients with him at the hospital and not only the patients would tell me what a great doctor he was, but the nurses would too. I remember numerous times when he would stop on the highway, step forward in an airplane, or come to someone’s assistance in a restaurant. I could tell how much he enjoyed being a doctor, and wondered if I would ever be lucky enough to feel the same way about what I did with my life. Being exposed to his serious side early on, I was surprised to hear from patients, nurses, and friends that Dad had a great sense of humor. But eventually I think he taught us all that there were some difficult, ridiculous, even tragic things in life that if you couldn’t find the humor in them you were missing the essence of what keeps life from being tedious. He identified as easily with Don Quixote as Sancho Ponsa. Even though he relished the contradictions in life, he often took comfort in some constancy. He always wore a dark suit and white shirt and tie during much of his career. He might be out mowing the lawn in shorts and t shirt in the morning, but would change to a suit and tie to head to the hospital for surgery even though he would be changing to scrubs as soon as he got there. His sister Peg remembers them as young children walking down the street from their house in Clayton to the ice cream parlor. They would talk about what they would get the whole walk down and Dad always wanted a chocolate ice cream soda. Somehow the order got confused and Dad got a sundae instead of the ice cream soda. There was a heavy gloom that accompanied them on their walk home. When at his office while he was practicing, he always sent out for a tuna fish sandwich and a chocolate shake. And just two months ago when one of the caregivers put a bowl of chocolate ice cream down in front of him and he wasn’t interested, we knew it was time to call the doctor. Dad was if nothing else authentic and that authenticity has been a benefit to all of us. I don’t think we will see another like him on this side of life. He agreed with Socrates that an unexamined life was not worth living for man, and he taught us that success and failure should not be celebrated differently, as they were both equally important in understanding life. He also taught us that the difficult path was often the easiest in the long run. But most importantly, he got us children as far as he could in teaching us about life. And now the rest is up to us.