Today would have been my father’s 87th birthday. He fell asleep in Jesus on June 6, 2019. The day after his death I drove home from southern Illinois and almost immediately wrote a draft of some thoughts about my father. My youngest daughter is three and won’t have many memories of her paternal grandfather. It is for her and for any grandchildren I may have, God willing, that I wrote the following words. They have since been revised and slightly expanded.
Happy birthday, Dad. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of you. I’ll see you again in the Resurrection because “He [Jesus] lives, and I shall conquer death”!
Reminiscences of My Father
The earliest memories of my father involve a pipe. My dad smoked Sir Walter Raleigh or Half and Half tobacco from the can in his pipe. Our home smelled like pipe smoke. His office at Associated Lumber smelled like pipe smoke long after dad quit smoking. One winter dad caught a succession of sinus infections. He visited the doctor to see what was the cause. His doctor told him that he might stop having sinus infections if he quit smoking a pipe. That was all it took. Dad then took up chewing tobacco. Red Man chewing tobacco in the pouch was his brand of choice. Sometimes I saw him with Levi Garrett chewing tobacco but most often it was Red Man. I would ride in a car or in the green Associated Lumber truck with him places and try to talk to him. Dad wouldn’t say anything for a long time. Then he would slow down the car or truck, open the door, and spit out his “chaw.” Then he could talk.
One Sunday evening when I was about 12 or 13 years old dad was watching “60 Minutes.” There was a story about a high school student who was an excellent baseball player. The student chewed tobacco. He caught oral cancer and died at a young age. My father got up from the kitchen table, walked to the trash can, and threw away his pouch of Red Man. He chewed Freedent gum for a while to keep the habit at bay. Not long after the gum disappeared.
Marv may have stopped his tobacco habit, but he loved to drink beer. Rarely did I ever see my father “overserved.” He had one, maybe two beers, and knew when to say when. On special occasions he would enjoy a glass of wine. On even rarer occasions dad would drink whiskey. Only when dad was around his brother Loren would he drink “the hard stuff.” During the last decade of his life I bought him a rather expensive bottle of Glenlivet Scotch Whiskey for his birthday. Dad and I cracked that Glenlivet and enjoyed a glass or two together. By the time I returned home at Thanksgiving there was enough Glenlivet for dad and me to have a glass…or two…to finish off the bottle.
When it came to beer, the cheaper the better. My friend Tim Hahn used to joke with dad about Marv’s love for “Dirt Cheap” beer, the brand that said “The more you drink, the better she looks.” I wouldn’t touch that swill! Marv loved it. Keystone Light was his most recent brand of choice, but he’d drink whatever you put in front of him. I recall dad not being fond of Budweiser because the rice adjunct in the beer gave him a headache. In my younger days dad like Busch, Meister Brau, Schmidt, Falls City, and whatever else was in the discount cooler at Kroger. He’d always put the twelve pack in the trunk like he was sneaking it in the house. Mother did not approve of alcohol in the house! Her father, my Grandpa Snyder, was an alcoholic. Mom and dad reached a truce. As long as mom couldn’t see him drinking the beer, it was okay. Dad would have to brush his teeth before a good night kiss, though.
Dad’s daily routines rarely varied. Dad woke up to Bob Hardy and Total Information AM on KMOX, Saint Louis. Every weekday morning in the 6:00 hour Bob Hardy would play a march. Dad always looked forward to hearing the march. It reminded him of playing the bass drum in the school band. Breakfast was often bran flakes. Occasionally there was eggs or pancakes. His first of many cups of coffee was with breakfast…always black coffee and in later years always decaf coffee. Another morning beverage was his glass of orange juice with Metamucil. Mother said dad had problems with his “piles” or hemorrhoids. Overdosing on fiber helped his “piles.” Dad loved to eat peanuts but it was “hard on his piles” according to mom. You get the point by now, don’t you.
Dad wore a button-down work shirt with a pocket protector advertising some sort of lumber yard product. I remember lots of Sakrete pocked protectors. There was always an Eversharp pencil and a ball-point pen or two in the pocket protector. He wore work slacks. Even in the summer time around the house dad rarely wore shorts. For a time dad took up jogging. He had a jogging suit that he wore to jog around the block once or twice in the morning. His bad back prevented him from jogging as he grew older. Red Wing or Mason shoes rounded out the usual work wardrobe.
Lunch time meant a very short trip home to eat a sandwich, some potato chips, and more coffee. My dad wasn’t much on drinking soda. Coffee was his daytime beverage of choice. As he grew older he had to cut back on coffee to one mug a day, usually in the morning. Becky made him sugar cookies using his mother’s recipe toward the end of his life. Dad loved his sugar cookies. When dewberries were in season at the lumber yard, dad would use some of his lunch break to pick dewberries. The lumber yard was the only place I ever saw dewberries, a fruit similar to a blackberry but they grew on the ground rather than on an upright vine. When dad retired from Associated Lumber a Du Quoin city employee sprayed weed killer on the dewberry plants. No more dewberries. It broke my dad’s heart.
Dad usually came home from work around 4:45 with the Du Quoin Evening Call newspaper in tow. The lumber yard took the paper and dad brought it home for mom and me to read. Supper was not long after dad arrived. Wednesday suppers in warm weather were just mom and me because dad played league golf at Southwestern Lakes golf course near Percy, IL. Supper was usually when dad convened the “Marv Juhl Lecture Series” as I called them later in life. Dad would pontificate about what happened at work and how foolish many customers were. My father was patient to a point but didn’t suffer fools gladly if he thought they should know better. Not long after supper Marv would take his seat in the recliner either in the family room or the living room. Mom and dad rarely watched the same TV shows. Dad watched the Saint Louis Cardinal games when they were on TV. More often he listened to them on the radio before he went to bed. Perhaps he watched the Saint Louis Blues in the wintertime or some college basketball. Marv would often get angry watching college basketball because the game was becoming too physical for his taste. Dad appreciated sound defense and good perimeter shooting. Monday Night Football was always a favorite of his, too. Dad would watch the Chicago Cubs games with me but often teased me about the Cubs lack of wins. Every year around my birthday began the “June Swoon” talk. Dad was more right than wrong about the swoon. When the Cubs finally broke through and won the World Series in 2016, he was very happy for my brother Jim and me. We were the token Cubs fans in the family. I have to think Dad was rooting for them as well. I often tell people that my father was “Cardinals first, then Cubs.” He would have agreed with that sentiment.
Bedtime was when the radio went on in the bathroom. It was also when Dad seemed to get phone calls. My mother had enough of him being in the bathroom when a phone call came so she insisted a telephone be installed in his bathroom. People were curious to see a phone in one of our bathrooms but it solved a long-standing problem. Dad listened to the Cardinals game, an NFL game, or maybe the Blues hockey game. But on Friday and Saturday nights Marv would try to pull in 650 AM: WSM, Nashville, TN. He talked about listening to the Grand Ole Opry when he was a boy. Sometimes his family listened to the National Barn Dance on the Prairie Farmer station: WLS-AM, Chicago. You could hear the radio crackle with static when dad listened to the Opry. Dad would shower, shave, and brush his teeth. A bowel movement was necessary, too. All this took quite some time. When I was young my dad let me watch him shave. Maybe it was watching him lather up and shave his face that led to me choosing to grow a beard.
Speaking of the telephone, my father spent a lot of time talking on it. He never liked it but it was a necessary evil. Even when I would call him to visit after I moved to Momence he was looking for a way to get off the phone. He had his limits. You knew when he would say, “yeah, yeah, yep, well, okay!” that your call was coming to a quick end. He finally got an email account but he preferred his love-hate relationship with the phone. We looked forward to his “strawberry report” and “peach report” phone calls every year when we moved to Momence.
There was always music in the house. Dad practiced his electric bass in the basement in the wintertime when outdoor work around the house slowed down. He often turned on WDDD-FM in Marion, IL and practiced with country songs of the time. Dad wasn’t much on the “new country” artists that sounded more like adult contemporary music than country music. He tolerated the “Outlaw” country artists of the 1970s and 1980s. He loved Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Bill Monroe, Norman Blake, and other traditional sounding artists. I won two tickets to see George Jones in Saint Louis when I lived in Iuka. Dad went with me. It made up for the time “No Show Jones” didn’t make a concert that dad saw. Marv also took me to see Willie Nelson at the Du Quoin State Fair. We used his friend Tom Morgan’s box seats. I still rank that Willie Nelson concert as one of the best concerts I’ve seen. When the “New Traditionalists” of the mid-1980s arrived (Randy Travis, George Strait, etc.) my dad really liked their sound. Rock and roll was worthless to him. Give dad country or bluegrass music and he was happy.
Now and then Dad would let me go with him on “gigs” when the Beaucoup Bottom Boys, our family bluegrass band, played in concert. I would sit either in the crowd or next to our family friend Henry Schmidt, who ran the sound system and the portable tape recorder that would record the concert. I tried to learn guitar and mandolin with the hope of being good enough to play with the band. I didn’t have the persistence to continue playing either instrument.
Growing up Lutheran, dad liked his Lutheran hymns. He also liked American gospel music. My Grandma Juhl liked it, too. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” was a favorite, as was “I’ll Fly Away.” Marv didn’t express a dislike for German chorales, but he did like “Beautiful Savior” and “Rock of Ages” in The Lutheran Hymnal. Dad didn’t sing so much as he “made a joyful noise to the Lord.” He did sing in Bethel’s choir for a few years with me.
Mom and dad rarely went on vacations or trips. There were a handful of time that dad stepped away from work to enjoy some down time. I recall going to Kentucky Lake when I was four years old. The chairman of the board of Associated Lumber, Mr. Neal Laws, had a cabin at Kentucky Lake. Dad liked to fish. Mom occasionally fished. I rode in the boat with a life jacket. That didn’t stop me from stepping out of the boat to “walk on water.” Dad had to grab me by the scruff of my collar and pull me back into the boat. Dad also went to northwest Alabama on two occasions to visit his longtime friend Louis Walkenhorst who had retired there. We had a lot of fun on those two trips. Much to say about those but I’ll stick to my subject.
Then there were the family trips. I remember my first visit to the Chicago area to visit Uncle Loren and his wife Elaine (not technically my aunt but I always considered her my aunt). We took I-294 (The Tri-State Tollway) to get there. It was my first taste of the big city. Saint Louis was the big city growing up. Chicago made Saint Louis look like a small town! Uncle Loren never treated me like a child. I always respected him for that. For my eighteenth birthday he treated dad and me to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. The Cubs lost 19-8 to the New York Mets but I didn’t care. All dad cared about was making sure our car would be where we parked it.
When Uncle Leonard was alive, and especially when my Grandma Juhl was alive, there was frequent trips to Lincoln, IL and New Holland, IL. One such trip my dad held me in his arms and my Aunt Ruth took a picture of dad and me. To this day it remains my favorite picture of dad.
The time came for my Grandma Juhl to move near us so she could have better care. Dad moved her from New Holland to Pinckneyville, the county seat of Perry County. Grandma lived in Skilled Care, a nursing home. I think Grandma for a time lived down the street at Fair Acres Nursing Home but that was for a short duration. At any rate, most every Friday evening I accompanied dad to Pinckneyville to visit Grandma. Our first stop was always at Farm Fresh milk store in Du Quoin to get my Grandma’s beloved Archway cookies. Then it was on to Pinckneyville. At my young age I found it more interesting to interact with other residents than sit still and watch dad and grandma visit. I say that to my regret. Grandma Juhl fell asleep in Jesus in December of 1982 when I was in fifth grade. I came home from school that day to find cars parked at our house that weren’t normally parked there. I asked what was happening? Dad quickly whisked me away to my room, sat me down, and told me Grandma died that morning before she was supposed to have her leg amputated. Her death was sudden. She was 85 years old. I didn’t go to the funeral. Mom and dad did their best to shelter me from death. I wish they would have been more open about the dying process. I think they were afraid of it themselves, especially dad. He lost his father when he was eleven.
Unlike Bob, Jim, and Joe and their hunting stories with dad, my stories with dad happened mostly on the golf course. I was the only Juhl child who took up golf. Golfing on warm Saturday afternoons with my dad and his friend Dale Schwinn is where our male bonding took place. Dad taught me how to play golf after my friend Matt Bentele moved away. I needed something to do. I didn’t want to hunt. I was clumsy, especially with firearms. I can shoot a gun or a pistol a handful of times. My brothers are men of the field and stream. I am a man of the golf course. The more I played and the more I listened to my father’s gentle, perhaps impatient at times, instruction, the better my game became. I was good enough to play on the golf team at Du Quoin High School for three years. After my first year in high school golf the news came that the golf team was being defunded. Du Quoin was going through hard times. Money was drying up. The worst was yet to come. This was only the beginning of the worst. King Coal was no longer in favor for energy, especially with stricter pollution controls. I thought my high school athletic career had come to an end. My father didn’t think so.
Much to my surprise, Marv wanted me to join him at a Du Quoin school board meeting. Dad never went to school board meetings. An agenda item that night in the spring of 1988 featured discussion on the proposed cuts. At the meeting the proposed cuts became reality. My golf coach, Mr. Bill Cochran, pleaded not to have the golf team defunded. He would have six eleventh grade boys next season. We had two good years left to get to the state tournament. The board was deaf to Mr. Cochran’s pleas. I don’t recall what a board member said but at one point in the meeting my dad stood up and said, “Would you accept a personal check?”. There was an audible gasp in the room. Mr. Cochran’s jaw nearly hit the floor as he looked at dad. My father proceeded to take out his checkbook and write a personal check for approximately $1,600. He knew that he would never cash that check. Dad told Bill Cochran after that meeting that he would put together a fundraiser to pay for the golf team. Dad had lots and lots of friends and acquaintances. He called in favors. He made requests. He put together a benefit scramble. The money was raised…and then some. Dad did it again the next summer. Our team fell just short of going to state both years. Who cares! Memories were made those two years. My golf team memories are, without a doubt, the best memories of my high school years. Men were formed on the golf course. Lifetime friendships were formed over birdies and bogeys. I have my father to thank for making it so. On his deathbed I told him that I will never forget the sacrifice he made to allow my classmates and me the opportunity to play golf and have fun. I hope someday to pay it forward to a future generation if God gives me the opportunity.
My father looked for ways to save money. I grew up in the latter days of the shade tree mechanic era of automobiles. Dad refused to let me have someone else change my oil or service my car. He did it. I helped. My “help” was to hold the flashlight. Later in life I discovered my brothers had the same distinct pleasure of holding the flashlight. If I moved the light even a fraction of an inch, my father would grab my wrist and move the light back to a certain spot and say, “Shine that light right there, David! If I could only see! I just can’t see!” I don’t know which was worse: “helping” dad fix a car or “helping” dad cut wood for our wood burning stove? I think both jobs were the pits. Dad loved them.
Speaking of cars, my dad helped me buy a used car in college after my car was totaled in a parking lot the first week I transferred to SIU-Carbondale. We went to the Ford dealer in Nashville. Why we went 45 minutes north of Du Quoin to buy a car I don’t know. Marv was that way. Dad and I thought a 1988 Ford Escort was the perfect car. So dad, in his usual fashion with car dealers, dressed like a slob, brought out his calculator, mumbled something about a “senior citizen discount”, shook his head a couple of times, and negotiated the price he wanted for the car. It was a master class in negotiating a price for a car! We drove home in that Escort.
One more car story. My dad’s friend Dale Schwinn died in 1996. Dale smoked Roi-Tan Cigars and chewed Doublemint gum. He was perpetually tan and had a deep, cigar-influenced voice. Dad and I played many a round of golf with him. He was one of the few people I permitted to call me “Davey.” He bought a 1994 Ford F-150 pickup truck brand new at the Du Quoin Ford dealer. Dale barely drove the truck before his death. My father wanted me to buy that truck. I was working full-time at WDQN making a little bit of money. I knew I couldn’t afford to buy the truck with my savings and with my meager disc jockey salary. Dad kindly co-signed the loan at Charter Bank (now Union Planters Bank) in Du Quoin and I bought that truck. Blanche Schwinn, Dale’s widow, was very happy that I bought Dale’s truck. That’s one of the many sacrifices my father made for me. He did the same with all his children but he never, not even one time, tooted his own horn about it. Class!
My father rarely used vulgar language. I can remember him twice saying the word “shit” in my presence. Once was on the golf course when I made a good shot. He complimented me about something and said I didn’t want to do that other shit or something like that. I nearly fell out of the golf cart. The other time was when Aunt Ruth was in town. Aunt Ruth’s visit was my favorite time of the year. She got dad drinking too much wine one night at the dinner table during one visit. Ruth and Marv started talking about laxatives because Aunt Ruth was constipated. Dad recommended Dulcolax to Ruth. She thought she might take one. So dad got out the Dulcolax, handed it to her, and said “Say ‘shit’, Ruth!”. He even took a picture of the moment. I had never seen my dad this wacky in my life! My mother probably was blushing with embarrassment that my “polluted” father said a vulgar word in the house under the influence of wine. It was hysterical.
My dad had a silly sense of humor; one that I have picked up and passed on to my children. He was always joking about something. The jokes were usually corny. “All students taking physics please bring paper to class.” Only it was fissics, a suppository. During the Iran Hostage Crisis he wore a hooded bathrobe around the house and distorted his face to look like the Ayatollah. It usually brought a roll of the eyes and a laugh. One year for Fathers Day Becky and I bought dad a hat that said “Where’s my senior discount?”. Dad wore that hat everywhere for a long while. He wasn’t joking. He loved to save money wherever he went.
Marv had a lot of catchphrases that he used. If my mom’s cooking was really good dad would tell her “Josie, that was one of your better batches.” If a product was expensive or didn’t meet his stringent guidelines he would say that it was “highly overrated.” If dad was kind of impressed with something he’d say it was “nicht schlecht” (“not bad”). A Lecture Series usually began with a hand gesture and the phrase, “Now lemme tell ya” or “I’m gonna tell you something.” If something stumped him, that thing was “the beatenest thing.” When Tim Hahn came home with me from seminary, upon our departure dad would tell him, “Well, Tim, I’m glad you got to see me again.” Snowy mornings during the school year featured the oft-heard phrase, “There’ll be no school today but the buses will run where possible.” Ice cream, no matter how large the bowl, was eaten in a “small bowl.” Mother was usually “Jos” or “Hon.” Dad referred to himself as “Marv” or “Marvelous.” To me he was “dad”, rarely “father” or “daddy.” In later years I fondly called him “Marv.” He didn’t mind it.
I’m proud to say that my father pressed me hard enough to save money to go to junior college without me having to borrow one penny. I borrowed about $1,550 to go to SIU-Carbondale and paid it back rather quickly. When I went to seminary, dad took over loan payments on my F-150 I wrote about earlier. After I graduated from seminary and had moved from my first call at Iuka upstate to Momence, dad called me and asked what the payout was on my seminary debt. I looked into the matter and told him. Nothing was said for a while. He asked some time later. I gave him the payout. Evidently I hit the magic number with Marv. Dad paid off my debt. We paid Dad back with two percent interest. I loved banking at “The Bank of Mom and Dad”! To this day Becky and I remain debt free thanks to Marv’s generosity.
I have always thought my father would have made a very good pastor. My mom probably wouldn’t have been comfortable in the spotlight of being a pastor’s wife. Nevertheless, my father knew his Bible and Small Catechism very well. He taught Sunday School for years. He was my teacher for a time. Dad tended to emphasize God’s Law very well…maybe too well. Later in life I heard him articulate the Gospel in a sweet way that would make any Lutheran theologian smile. I bought him a Book of Concord and he read it cover to cover! Pastor Mech did so much for my father in helping him develop a sound Lutheran piety. My father also loved Pastor Keller who served Bethel in the early 1980s. Same for Pastor Roper who served before Pastor Keller. During my days at seminary Dad became one of Pastor Esget’s most vocal supporters. When a pastor or when Bethel was in the wrong, however, my father was not bashful to speak up and confess the truth. There were some troubling times for my home congregation and my father. The Lord saw to it that we weathered the storm and looked to Him for our every need. That’s the clear message my father taught me. When in need, cling to the cross of Jesus Christ. My father continued to teach me even after I became a pastor. I once called him and lay my burdens before him. The first thing he told me was, “David, did you think to ask the Lord about these things?”. Ol’ Marv was right. Again.
My father rarely showed sensitive emotions. He was usually the life of the party, telling jokes and stories, but I can recall only three times in my life that my father cried. The first time was at my sister Brenda’s wedding when he walked her down the aisle. I recall being taken aback at my dad shedding tears. He is the rock of the family. Seeing him cry startled me. The second time was in September of 1998. Mom and Dad moved me into my dormitory room at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was leaving home for the first time in order to prepare for the Holy Ministry. As I walked my parents out to their truck, we hugged goodbye. My mother held it together. My father started to cry. I told him, “Don’t start crying or I’ll start crying.” I never remember my father being so emotional about something I did unless it was something good. He knew, as did I, that I was about to start something good that would bring something good for many people. The final time I saw my father cry was four years later at my ordination and installation at Trinity Lutheran Church, Iuka, IL. He gave me a big bear hug and began to cry. You could see the joy in him that day. He was a proud father whose son was now a pastor. As dad’s health began to fail you could see some more emotion in him. He knew his time on earth was coming to an end. He was confident about his future. That’s the one solace I take in his death.
My wife Becky fell in love with Marv about as much as she fell in love with me. She was fond of his silly sense of humor, not to mention his kindness. Shortly after Becky and I were married, Dad and I drove to Jefferson, WI to pick up the upright piano on which Becky took her piano lessons. That was her wedding gift from her mom and dad. Marv was the general, leading my father-in-law John and all the male teachers from St. John Lutheran School as they carried the piano down the stairs of the old parsonage in Jefferson and into the U-Haul truck. We stopped in Milwaukee to pick up her things at her apartment. My mother-in-law Karen made runzas for lunch. Dad couldn’t stop talking about how much he loved those runzas, or “Rapunzels” as he called them. He insisted on having the recipe so he could pass it on to his daughters-in-law at Thanksgiving that way. Even though Dad’s bad back limited how much he could do, he was there for Becky and me so we could get settled in Iuka.
There’s much more to say about my father, but I’ll end (for now) my reminiscences with these final thoughts. My father was a sinner. My father also was a saint. He was a man who loved his Lord and his family. Sometimes he let his work get in the way of his family. He is forgiven for doing so. That’s what it means to live simul justus et peccator. I saw bad and good in dad. We see bad and good in everyone. Thanks be to God the good things outweighed the bad. He sacrificed for his family. When he retired, my father became a different man. Much of the stress of his job melted away. As he became involved in Laborers For Christ, you could see the love of God in Jesus Christ pour forth from his heart through his hands. Dad got things done. Ask the people of the congregations he worked with. They will tell you the Lord did marvelous things from them…and He used Marvelous Marv to do it. It was my pleasure to be with my dad in his final days. I let him know how much I appreciated every sacrifice he made for me. I know he heard me. He fell asleep in Jesus with the sure and certain hope of a happy reunion in heaven with those who went before him and those who will follow after him. A giant of a man has left us but the circle shall never be unbroken.
Media Vita In Morte Sumus 