I presented a eulogy at my dad's funeral. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Reading this in hindsight, there are parts I really like about it and things that I wish I would have included. Quite frankly, I'm surprised it turned out as it did. And that I even made it through the eulogy.
My dad fought a bear.
Not like some sort of sideshow. He didn’t actually wrestle with the bear, but he did square off with it.
We were camping in Voyageur’s National Park on one of our yearly MEA “Deer Scouting” trips in dad’s old canvas cabin tent. I woke up to the terrifying sound of Dad angrily hollering at the top of his lungs. Dad rarely raised his voice, but if he did, you’d better watch out. Jim and Patti told me there was a bear in the camp, which made the whole situation even more frightening. One of the neighboring campers yelled, “What’s going on over there?” and Dad replied, “There’s a bear in camp.” The next day, we woke up to see that all of the other campers had left in the dead of night. Our green metal Coleman cooler was torn apart, and Dad had to go into the woods to find his axe, which he had thrown at the bear.
Adventures like this were part of dad’s life, and we were all lucky enough to be included in them, complications and all. In fact, while he planned all of his adventures carefully, complications and surprises arose. But that was just a part of the puzzle to figure out. That was all part of the adventure. That’s what made the adventure.
One of Dad’s biggest adventures was joining the Navy. He wrote about seeing a sign at the recruiter’s office that said, “JOIN THE NAVY AND SEE THE WORLD.” With dismal job prospects at the time, he signed up and headed off to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois for boot camp, followed by Yeoman School in Bainbridge, Maryland. He was stationed in Hawaii, and after his watch would head to the beach to swim, work on his tan, and cook fresh lobster in a boiling pot on the beach. He said that there was nothing better than boiled lobster on the beach.Following dad’s passing, I heard someone say he was a rule follower. And he was — most of the time. While in Hawaii, he wrote about going on pineapple-picking runs as the fruit began to ripen. The fine for this was $25 per pineapple, which was a lot of money in the late 1950s. He said they would still be in jail if they had been caught.
Dad was proud of his service and would tell us stories and show us pictures from his time in the Navy. I can remember crawling into his lap as a young boy, smelling the scent of his light sweat and mail after working at the post office. I would trace the scar on his forearm, which he said was covered with a skin graft from his behind. So, of course, I called him “Butt Skin.” He said it was from wiping out and hitting coral while surfing in Hawaii. Other sources indicate it may have been an ill-advised tattoo that needed a quick remedy before returning home to Grandma Verna.Dad took some good-natured ribbing because he was deer hunting up north when I was born. Mom would bring that up every so often just to give him a hard time. He would listen quietly before bringing up the fact that I was born a month early.
Dad’s adventures continued with hunting trips to Wyoming and Montana, where he harvested elk and antelope. He told me the story about getting lost for three days in northern Minnesota and explained how he hunkered down, built a shelter, and tried to find some food. He came through the ordeal a bit cold and quite hungry, but otherwise fine. He made sure that when we were camping, we always had a compass and a waterproof container of matches should we ever find ourselves in the same situation.
Lloyd Henke was a conservationist and a recycler before anyone was doing it. He lived by the motto “Leave no trace” and used every portion of any game he killed. After I killed my first deer, I think he could see the conflict in my eyes at the thought that I had ended the life of this beautiful creature. He said that we should thank the creator for providing us with this animal and thank the animal for sacrificing itself for us. In hindsight, he might think what he said was cheesy, but at the time it was exactly what I needed to hear. And he wanted me to be as excited as he was. It worked.
I would imagine having kids and working a steady job puts a damper on the adventures, but us kids were lucky to have someone willing to take us with him as he also fulfilled his duties as a parent. Along with camping and hunting adventures, dad always had time to throw a football or baseball around in the backyard after a long, exhausting day at work. He attended sporting events and school functions, something I took for granted at the time. He taught me that it is important to be there, present, in moments for other people. This is something I carry with me to this day.
One of my biggest regrets is not going on a trip to the Boundary Waters with him and Meredith. I don’t remember why I didn’t go, and I always felt I missed out on something.
I began taking dad on adventures that I planned. It started with downhill skiing at Afton Alps. He was worried that he would break a leg, but we had fun. I talked him into a fly-in fishing trip to Canada with the Booes and Sean Smith. He was reluctant at first and Mom was concerned about him being out of contact and away from civilization, but the smile on his face in old pictures tells you that he was exactly where he needed to be, on another grand adventure with a hint of the unknown and unexpected.
While I was attending school at Bemidji State, I talked dad into canoeing from Lake Itasca to Lake Bemidji. There was no shortage of mishaps on this adventure, from getting lost in the giant floating bog to pressing on toward the next campsite when we came across Coffee Pot Landing, where the picnic table was still smoldering in the fire and the water pump had been pulled out of the ground. We also might have flipped the canoe and had to give our gear the ol’ heave-ho to the shore before making camp and starting a giant fire to dry out. No complaints from dad, but I was freezing and practically stood right in the fire we built. All part of the adventure.
When we canoed from Lake Bemidji to Cass Lake, Dad turned in for the night on Star Island while Jim and Patti went out fishing. Upon hearing the whooping and hollering from Patti after she caught a walleye, he crawled out of the tent, cleaned the fish in the dark — cheeks and all — washed his hands, and crawled back to bed.
As his health was failing, I planned fishing excursions. On one of our last ones, I had hooked a nice walleye and was having trouble getting it landed as it kept diving under Dad’s boat. Dad jumped up and grabbed the net to help me land it, but lost his balance and nearly fell out of the boat while dropping the net over the side and to the bottom of Sissabagamah. I asked if he was ok. He said he was and I finished landing the fish. We both sat in silence for a while before Dad asked me, “Did that just happen?”
“Yeah, it did,” I replied.
After a few more seconds of contemplation, he said, “Well, it was a pretty shitty net anyway.”
His health was just another complication to overcome on his adventure through life.
Dad passed away in the night. I think it was because he didn’t want to cause a fuss and often said that his condition was hard on your mother. He wanted to protect us from the pain of losing him. I think he saw his condition as an adventure he needed to meet with the same grit and ability to overcome and handle with grace. In his suit pocket are teeth from the two elk he harvested. There was always a reason for the things my dad did, so I wondered at the significance of this request and looked into it. In Native American cultures, elk teeth represent honor, strength, love for family, and spiritual protection. Lloyd Henke knew what he was doing and prepared himself for this last adventure.
