HIGH FIDELITY

On July 4 of this year, my father passed away.

What follows is the eulogy I gave at his memorial service on July 14.

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John W. Engroff, Jr.

On behalf of myself, my Mom and my sister, I want to thank you all for being here. These past few weeks have been full of heartbreak and deep sorrow, and the loss of my father is a void we still don’t know how to fill. But by being here, and sharing not only our grief but also my father’s wonderfully rich life, you are helping us to heal.

I’d like to quote briefly from a song by the noted blue singer / guitarist / philosopher John Lee Hooker. It’s a song called “I Want To Hug You”:

“I want to hug you, kiss you, squeeze you til my arms fall off
I want to hug you, kiss you, squeeze you til my arms fall off
Then you’ll know by that, baby that I love you so”

I think that’s what Dad would say to you, Mom, if he were with us today.

Bluesman
The blues is a good place to start when talking about my Dad, because anyone who knew him knew that he loved the blues. He loved gospel, jazz, bluegrass, R&B, and folk too, but the blues first and foremost. One of my earliest musical memories is hearing BB King’s Indianola Mississippi Seeds on our turntable at home when I was about five years old. BB’s ringing guitar stayed in my mind – it was almost like a voice, that guitar, capable of expressing joy, sorrow, mischief, and every shade of emotion in-between.

My Dad also played acoustic blues guitar, and would sing to my sister and me in his clear, melodic voice. Songs about foxes in the henhouse and other stuff we didn’t really understand. He sang the lyrics like he really meant it. It was always magical to hear him sing.

When I was 11 my Dad took me to see BB play live at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, something I will never forget because it was also the first time I tasted beer. To say I had a very cool father would be an understatement.

I think the reason my Dad loved the blues so much is because he found in it the most sweeping, eloquent expression of the human experience. And living life to the fullest was something my father took great joy in. As he himself put it to me in an email in December, 2005: “The blues – and of course bluegrass and gospel – are elemental-fundamental-seep-in-the-soul-very-stuff-of-life-and-living.”

In addition being our resident bluesman, my father played other roles as well:

He was an Intellectual:
My father’s intellectual achievements are notable:
- A Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University
- A Master’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison
- A Ph.D. from Harvard University
- A Fulbright grant and two National Science Foundation awards
- And if that weren’t enough — he picked a dissertation topic that forced him to learn medieval Arabic. What the hell, as he would have said.

He didn’t accumulate these degrees and awards because he was interested in showing off a pedigree – they were markers along a path of insatiable intellectual curiosity.

That curiosity took him and my mother to Beirut, Lebanon, where I was born in 1969. They experienced the pre-civil war Beirut, which was then a kind of Paris on the Mediterranean, a city of romance, sophistication and beauty caught between the spheres of Europe and the Middle East.

That same curiosity brought us to Vermont in 1971, when my Dad headed up UVM’s UYA program and later moved on to become the Director of the Living/Learning Center. While at UVM, Dad taught courses on the Middle East, including one that dealt with the Arab – Israeli conflict from a Palestinian point of view. Indeed, he was an unapologetic advocate of an independent Palestine at a time when such views were not fashionable. My father’s intellectual courage and honesty always made me so proud of him.

Those years at the Living/Learning Center were among the happiest of my childhood. We lived there for 8 years, and here are some of the things I remember from that time:
- my sister Autumn being born – at first a mild shockwave to my self-centered, four-year old mind, this soon turned out to be pretty cool, because now I had someone to boss around, to protect, to blame things on, and to carry my backpack to and from school (which is not to be underestimated when you’re that age)
- my Dad coming home sweaty after a training run with his friend Easy Ed, with whom he ran two marathons
- Fabulous times with our good friends the Perrys and McKnights, and their children Aaron, Heath, Michael and Jason, all of whom became our close co-conspirators in various childhood misdeeds
- Trying, without much success, to learn to play the electric guitar that my father bought me for my 13th birthday (did I mention that my Dad was totally cool?)
- Setting off fireworks in the common area bathroom with Chris Dowhan, and not really getting in trouble for it, then setting off larger fireworks in student rooms, and getting in big trouble for that. Chris has been my great friend since 1st grade and like a second son to my parents, despite our shared criminal background.
- Eating my dad’s “charburgers”, as my sister and I called them – the hamburgers that he would inevitably make if my mother was working some evening, and which never seemed to get better over time
- And falling in love with the Beatles, particularly the White Album, which I didn’t understand but really liked. And other music that will be forever ingrained in my sub-conscious and associated with that time: James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Gordon Lightfoot, Keith Jarrett, The Eagles, Doc Watson, the band Boston (for some reason) and, of course, B.B. King.

In the early 80s, my Dad took the job of chief financial and administrative officer at Vermont Law School, a new kind of challenge for him. Over the course of his 10 years there he took a financially struggling, academically lackluster school and helped turn it into the foremost environmental law school in the country – greatly increasing student enrollment and campus size, as well as building a magnificent law library, of which he was immensely, and justifiably, proud.

The curiosity that fueled my Dad rubbed off on us kids. In me it took the form of a life-long interest in international affairs, which led to a year in Germany when I was 18 (during which my father wrote me over 200 letters), a year in Japan during college, and 2 more years in Germany after college (I had this defeated WWII powers thing going back then).

In my sister it took the form of a deep interest in nature and the environment, leading to a degree in Environmental Science, two years in the wilderness of Jackson, Wyoming — where she started a life with Jeff Spencer, my most excellent brother-in-law – and then back to Vermont for good.

I think it’s fair to say that, as his career matured, my father’s perspective on the world did too – gradually transforming from the analytic, rationalist approach of his earlier days – which is evident in his dissertation, try and get through 5 pages of that, I dare you – to one that was more spiritual. Key influences in this shift were the following, in my opinion: my Mom, who has more heart and soul than all of Motown, his work for C.I.D.E.R. and the Franklin-Grand Isle Community Partnership and the excellent people there, and my Dad’s own experience in building a house, and a life, in the quiet serenity of Isle La Motte.

Fifteen years ago, acting on a tip from his good friend John Duffy, my Dad purchased ten acres of land on this island and began building what he came to see as one of his greatest achievements. The more time that my Dad spent here, the more Thoreau-like he became to me: in deep harmony with nature, and in quiet awe of its majesty.

Finally, and most importantly, my Dad was a Family Man
My father always displayed his affection. The number of times he told my sister, my mother and me how much he loved us are countless. Even when I was 37, he always signed off our phone calls with “I love you.” He loved his whole family:

- My mother was his greatest love, as well as being the strongest, most selfless and compassionate woman I have ever known. He told me that when they met, Audrey Reinehr struck him as the all American girl – blonde, beautiful, intelligent, and with an independent spirit. He was right on all counts.
- My sister Autumn, his great friend, his little girl.
- His son-in-law Jeff, with whom he spent some of the most enjoyable moments of this past year, building the addition to our house, discussing music, hanging out
- My wife Olga, for whom he had the greatest affection, traveling with my Mom to Moscow to meet Olga’s family in 2005, one of the best trips we’ve ever taken
- His brother Scott and sister Jill and their families: I remember some of the most awesome adventures of my youth with Scott, Joy, Jill, Bill, Missy, Scottie and Michael, waterskiing on Conneaut Lake, or skiing in VT or Telluride, on the beach in North Carolina
- The beloved Reinehr sisters Cassie, Carol, Maureen
- His brothers-in-law Bill, Frank, and Jim
- His Nephews Bill, Tim, and Joe, to whom he felt especially close
- And Mary, Dave, Katie, Tim, Robbie, Mark, Sandy, Frank, Maureen, Audrey, Chuck, Julianne, Rich, Marianne, Dan, Susan, John, Jim, Carol and all your children
- And the many relatives and friends I may have forgotten: he loved you all.

In one sense we’re lucky, because my Dad made it easy for us to tell him how much we loved him. He kept many of the cards we gave him, including this one I sent him several years ago. I read it now, not to make everyone cry, but because the card strikes me as appropriate today as it did back on that Father’s Day. It reads:

“Dad — How do I put into words, all the things you’ve meant to me as a father? You’re at once a friend, intellectual companion, mentor, squash partner, pen pal, and fellow connoisseur of music and fine Scotch. No child gets to pick his father, and I couldn’t have been luckier. I still remember you teaching me how to catch fly balls behind the basketball courts at M.A.T. And the photography course you arranged before my year in Germany. And, naturally, the study chart you put together as I prepared for the Truman interview. I have so much to thank you for; you are the source of so much that I am and am still trying to be. And for that there will never be enough thank-you’s. I love you with all my heart, and wish you the happiest Father’s Day of all time. — Your son.”

Thank you.