The Standard

October 14. My father's birthday. He has been gone 12 years, but for those who knew him the plaque on his headstone is still vibrant in their lives: "His Patient Wisdom Was of Great Benefit to All."

I knew Paul Judson Eldredge in ways that few sons are able to know their fathers. We were both engineers. We both worked at Exxon's Baton Rouge Refinery. I took over the big crude units at Baton Rouge 31 years after he held that job. We philosophized together about the work, the men, what motivated them, and what motivated us. Six men worked for me who had worked for him in his time and they shared their opinions of each of us with the other. Through my own work experience I understood the full dimensions of his actions and the respect they had earned him. Being "Paul's Boy" made me widely known, which was an advantage only if I earned it. It could be a short trip from "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree" to "He's just not the man his father was." Over the years I came to command respect of my own, and he understood its full dimensions. In the end we both knew that we had enhanced each other's reputations. I can never measure which of us was prouder to be counted with the other.

It was memorable, and funny, the first time somebody referred to him as "Walt's Dad" instead of me as "Paul's Boy." I remember the day I realized I had worked at the refinery longer than he had. It felt like I had committed sacrilege.

He was a mortar company commander in Italy in World War II. In adopting his battalion as a foster family, and writing a book about them, I came to see him through the eyes of the officers and men who fought with him. Through them I found the early signs of the qualities our co-workers saw in him decades later. Comparing my experiences with his in the workplace, I could sense the tumult in the young engineer, the uncertainty in the young supervisor, behind the calm and wise exterior he projected. I could sense the scared young lieutenant desperately maintaining calm and wisdom as the shells came in around him, because he knew that others depended on it.

When he left the battalion, one of his men exclaimed, "Damn! Our good lieutenant is leaving!?" He told me he was proud of that reaction. I wish he had lived long enough to know how fully I came to understand how he earned it.

He called his father "Pop." He once said "I wish you could have known your grandfather. He was the most emotionally stable man I ever knew." I don't know how long my mouth hung open, because my father was by far the most emotionally stable man I ever knew. I once characterized him as "quick to teach and slow to anger." He said and lived that "the only acceptable reason for raising your voice is distance." Ventilation of anger was beyond him. He told me once that anger is what tells you there is something wrong, so that you can make it right.

When my boys came along, my grandmother slipped me the word that he would be delighted if they called him "Pop." They did, and he was. When our grand daughter came along, Peggy asked me if I wanted to be called "Pop." It scared me. I think the life I have lived allows me to hold up my head with honor as his son, and I know he admired much about me. I know he would be the first to tell me that he fell short in many ways, and my head tells me that must be true. But I didn't see his failures; and in my heart he left an unbroken string of successes that set the standard for me. I have always aspired to that standard, and my own life and others have been better for my efforts. To allow myself to be called by his name would suggest I have met his standard, and I'll never be able to believe that.

I hope that as "Dad," as "Mister Walt" and as "Grand-Daddy" I can instill that same commitment to building the community of man, without leaving the incorrect perception of the unmatchable example.