Sound Bites - "He was a real jokester." - "This is Fred McCullough, heir to the McCullough millions." - "Humor is a very, very big part of who we are."
Summary Tom McCullough reflects on his father, Fred McCullough, and the impact he had on his life. Fred was a humble and humorous person who grew up in a large family and faced poverty. He transitioned from working on a farm to becoming a successful industrial real estate salesman. Tom admires his father's humility, tenderness, and hospitality, and aspires to embody those qualities. He also values his parents' strong and loving marriage. Tom wishes he could ask his father about the secrets to their successful marriage and how he found a balance between work and life.
About Tom Tom McCullough is a renowned figure in the field of wealth management, with a distinguished career as an author, educator, and thought leader. His insights and contributions have shaped the industry. And he's earned some incredible accolades, including best individual contribution to thought leadership in the wealth management industry for North America from 2020 out of the Family Wealth Report Awards.
Takeaways
Growing up in a large family and facing poverty shaped Fred's character and values.
Fred transitioned from working on a farm to becoming a successful industrial real estate salesman.
Join Us Visit us at storykeep.com/podcast to learn more about how StoryKeep is preserving family histories. Subscribe on your favorite platform to catch new episodes released bi-weekly, available in both audio and video formats.
Join me, Jamie Yuenger, as we go on a journey of remembrance and discovery, celebrating the stories of those we cherish. Don’t miss our enriching journey—subscribe today and be part of "Who We Remember."
Credits Produced by Jamie Yuenger and Piet Hurkmans. Our show’s musical intro and outro is taken from the track “Thursday” by the independent artist Nick Takénobu Ogawa. You can listen and support his music on bandcamp here
Sound Bites - "He was a real jokester." - "This is Fred McCullough, heir to the McCullough millions." - "Humor is a very, very big part of who we are."
Summary Tom McCullough reflects on his father, Fred McCullough, and the impact he had on his life. Fred was a humble and humorous person who grew up in a large family and faced poverty. He transitioned from working on a farm to becoming a successful industrial real estate salesman. Tom admires his father's humility, tenderness, and hospitality, and aspires to embody those qualities. He also values his parents' strong and loving marriage. Tom wishes he could ask his father about the secrets to their successful marriage and how he found a balance between work and life.
About Tom Tom McCullough is a renowned figure in the field of wealth management, with a distinguished career as an author, educator, and thought leader. His insights and contributions have shaped the industry. And he's earned some incredible accolades, including best individual contribution to thought leadership in the wealth management industry for North America from 2020 out of the Family Wealth Report Awards.
Takeaways
Growing up in a large family and facing poverty shaped Fred's character and values.
Fred transitioned from working on a farm to becoming a successful industrial real estate salesman.
Join Us Visit us at storykeep.com/podcast to learn more about how StoryKeep is preserving family histories. Subscribe on your favorite platform to catch new episodes released bi-weekly, available in both audio and video formats.
Join me, Jamie Yuenger, as we go on a journey of remembrance and discovery, celebrating the stories of those we cherish. Don’t miss our enriching journey—subscribe today and be part of "Who We Remember."
Credits Produced by Jamie Yuenger and Piet Hurkmans. Our show’s musical intro and outro is taken from the track “Thursday” by the independent artist Nick Takénobu Ogawa. You can listen and support his music on bandcamp here
Speaker 1:
Hello, my name is Jamie Younger. Welcome to the Story Keep podcast who we Remember. On this show I speak with a wide variety of guests about one family member's life story that they would love to have documented on film, whether the person is living or now deceased. We explore their spirit and share some of their incredible life stories and surprising histories. Most of us think way too late about capturing the stories of our loved ones. These conversations on this show elevate and honor and speak to that one person's lasting influence. I promise that you will walk away feeling empowered and moved and hopefully inspired anew to think about your life and the impact that you want to make. Inspired anew to think about your life and the impact that you want to make.
Speaker 1:
Today I'm joined by Tom McCullough, the chairman, ceo and co-founder of Northwood Family Office, the leading multifamily office in Canada. His life and story is intertwined with the extraordinary life of his dad, fred McCullough. Tom's father, fred, was a remarkable person. He came from very humble beginnings. He was the eighth child in a family of 11 on a poor farm, and Fred only completed grade nine education. But he rose to become a successful businessman and entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:
Before we fully delve into Fred McCullough's story. Let me introduce you more fully to his son and my guest, tom. Tom McCullough is a renowned figure in the field of wealth management, with a distinguished career as an author, educator and thought leader. His insights and contributions have shaped the industry and he's earned some incredible accolades, including Best Individual Contribution to Thought Leadership in the Wealth Management Industry for North America from 2020 out of the Family Wealth Report Awards. I'm really looking forward to introducing you to Tom in this new way and the special relationship that he had with his father, fred. Thank you, thank you, tom. Thank you so much for making this time to talk with me about your dad.
Speaker 2:
My pleasure. Look forward to it.
Speaker 1:
So I'd love to just start off having you tell me and tell our listeners out of the many people that you could select as the life story that you would want to have documented, why your dad?
Speaker 2:
He comes to mind all the time in decisions I make and he's he passed away in 2020, so, but still comes to mind in things that are funny, things that uh decisions I make, uh interactions with the rest of my family. He's still sort of active in the family, so it was a very logical person from the first person that came to mind. So he's yeah, he's. He lives large in our family, even though he was a very humble person.
Speaker 1:
So his name is Fred. Did he go by Fred or another nickname or?
Speaker 2:
He went by Fred. His name is Frederick Thomas McCullough and my name is Frederick Thomas McCullough, but I go by Tom. He went by Fred.
Speaker 1:
I was intrigued to hear that he was one of 11 kids in his own family. My mom and my dad came from families of eight and nine, so I could appreciate that. What did he tell you about that? About growing up as one of 11? And number eight, I think?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, number eight. He had dozens and dozens of stories. I won't tell them all, but it was a poor farm family near Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada, but it was a rural farm family. Everybody asks if they were Catholic because there were so many kids. Kids, they weren't, they were actually Protestant. But, and I would say it was not a successful farm family. You know, from a money standpoint at all, they were very poor.
Speaker 2:
There's just, you know, the classic story. I don't know if this is just poverty, but you know, 11 kids and one bath water. You know they'd fill it up and they'd start with the youngest and work their way. Fill it up and they'd start with the youngest and work their way up. I think they might have changed the water for the teenagers, but at some point, uh anyway, the water got cold and probably dirty and uh yeah, and you know, they never really, um, they were always, they were always poor. They're always right on the edge.
Speaker 2:
One, one day, my dad was out with his brother and they're walking along, and they stepped on a pound of butter in the field and then so they looked around and then there was another something, a grocery item, maybe some flour or something, and so they thought it was manna from heaven. They gather all the stuff and brought it home and ate some of it. Anyway, the police came around later and I guess somebody had robbed the store and ran from the police and dropped all this stuff. So they had to give back all the things that they hadn't eaten yet. I guess they wished they'd eaten it faster. So that kind of thing was a really big deal because they were really so poor.
Speaker 1:
What kind of thing was a really big, big deal because they were really so poor. What kind of farming was it? And did and did he? I guess he definitely participated in the farming life.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yeah, yeah, everybody did it was. It was, I think it was sustenance farming. I know they had eggs, they had chickens and took eggs into town to sell them and they had, you know, some crops and they had some horses, but I think they were mostly working horses. At one point my dad and one of his brothers cut the horse's tail off, the hair on it, and sold it to somebody who came by for a bushel of apples. His father was furious, but also the apples were very nice on the top but completely rotten down below. Uh, you know, but but that horse here would have been worth a lot of money. And also my grandfather was apparently very embarrassed to be, you know, plowing the fields with horses with no tails uh, and how do you think, how do you imagine uh?
Speaker 1:
I mean just from the kind of person that your dad ended up being how uh, being one of 11, influenced him. How, how was he?
Speaker 2:
there were. Just for context, there were three. Well, there were four boys. One of them died at three years old.
Speaker 2:
Uh, that affected my dad quite a lot, even into his adult life. It was the child that was closest to him and he died of some kind of bowel, twisted bowel or something that today probably would have been quite solvable. So my dad always really felt terrible about that. But it was a very matriarchal home. You know all these sisters and he was young, so he had a lot of mothers but ended up staying close to his family over all the years. So there was 10 of them that lived into adulthood.
Speaker 2:
But actually one of the things that comes to mind about living with that many kids is that he only had two grandchildren my two kids and and he was always sad when they had to go to bed alone. They had to sleep in their bed alone because it just seemed so lonely for them, because he always had like two other siblings in a bed. It was a very small house. I've seen the house that they lived in. It was a very small house. I've seen the house that they lived in. It was a very small farmhouse for 13 people, and so he was, you know so he was.
Speaker 2:
You know he used to lots of activity. He was very precocious and I don't know we never know if it was him or his brother that locked their mother in the um, not the outhouse but some outbuilding. They locked her in there all day and she was a, she was a tough lady, so they were in big trouble. Uh, but uh, but he was very, he was a real jokester, like he into his life. I would say. If people uh think of my dad, people who knew him well, well they would think of his laugh. He had a very loud, infectious laugh, laughed easily and played jokes on people all the time and I think that came from just being in a family with you know we all we also joke about him having. His only toys were a rope and a stick. They didn't have anything, so they just made do with what they had, which is a skill.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, for sure. And he, if I remember correctly when we spoke before he, made a kind of big transition in his life from his first career to his second. What did he do as his first career?
Speaker 2:
I forget well career is a bit of a stretch, I would say he was, uh, he, um, he worked in a butcher shop for a while, uh, and, and, by the way, somebody tied a pings tail like a real live pings tail to the back of his coat and he took this the streetcar home with this on. So there was, that was very much part of their life. Um, yeah, at that age and stage, um, he, I know he worked in a funeral home. At one point he did end up working in a bank, um, bank of toronto, which some of your listeners on the west coast or the east coast of the uS will have heard of, td Bank or Toronto Dominion Bank. But those banks merged in the Bank of Toronto and the Dominion Bank merged in Canada in 1955.
Speaker 2:
So this is before that and he worked for the Bank of Toronto. So that's how old, how ongoing it was. But he had grade nine education, so he really left school to work on the farm and contribute to the family income because it was challenging. But then he started a printing business as an entrepreneur with some other partners and it went okay but not great. They ended up selling it to an American company but didn't make a ton of money and then in the interim, uh, to make ends meet. Before he figured out what he was going to do, he, uh, they um started a coin laundry, a laundromat, to make money, and I remember myself and my parents and my grandmother sitting around the kitchen table once a week counting coins and rolling coins from these machines where people would wash and dry their clothes, and he also delivered.
Speaker 1:
It was what he was doing when, when you were a young kid, they were running the laundry. That's right, yeah.
Speaker 2:
And that wasn't a full-time job. And then it was, and then he also. They also delivered clothes rental typewriters. So think back to the day if you wanted a typewriter to type a paper, if you're a student or type some kind of letter and you couldn't afford to buy one, you would rent one, if you can believe it. So my parents would deliver these rental typewriters. If you really had an extra couple of bucks you could get an electric one versus a standard one. So I remember being in the back of the car pouring rain and my dad, you know, driving around and delivering these typewriters to people.
Speaker 2:
But then at some point he decided that he wanted to. He I don't know what his process was, but he wanted to be in industrial real estate sales, so buying or selling buildings um factories, and it's a very interesting story. He was 40 at the time and he went to the main company that does this and they said you're too old back in the day when I guess you could say that, but at 40, he was too old and also didn't have education, Although I'm not sure how important that was for that. Business per se, it was a very business-oriented guy. Business per se, it was a very business oriented guy and my dad said to the the um, the person who was interviewing him, he said I'm going to be the top salesman in my first year. I'm going to give you one more chance to hire me. And the guy did hire him and he was. So there's a guy with great non-education with, you know, this very sort of checkered past of not checkered but not coming off multiple successes, and he became very successful at that and ended up buying and owning buildings himself and that's where he made his wealth and he ended up being extremely financially successful.
Speaker 2:
So who knows?
Speaker 2:
He always used to answer the phone at home. If you can believe, it Is this Fred McCullough, heir to the McCullough millions. Well, he wasn't anything. He was their debt, if anything at all. But he would do that and people would never quite know how to respond to that.
Speaker 1:
It was like that's a good way to start.
Speaker 2:
Where do you go from there Exactly? That's a good way to start. Where do you go from there?
Speaker 1:
Exactly and like looking back. I don't know if I asked you, if you have any you know recordings of him at all but did if you could go back and ask him now questions about sort of that era of his life. Like you said, I don't really know how he kind of came to the idea of of going into that sort of business, any any questions you might have for him, like uh, about about his life path.
Speaker 2:
Well, one thing I can say I know that he didn't want to be poor. He'd been poor, you know, been there, done that, didn't like it, and so it was, um, he was motivated to make money. He was an entrepreneur. He was, uh, he was an entrepreneurial person. He was always looking for opportunity but he wasn't. He ended up being in that industrial real estate business for the rest of his life so that was 40 to 65 and became very successful at it. So he wasn't, he didn't jump around.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, I think you know and we haven't really talked about this but this was a family of faith as well, so a fairly rigid faith, I would say, you know, sort of Quaker type background, so very, you know, I was going to say frugal, but partly because they had to be, but there was rules and there was requirements for tithing and being faithful and doing the right thing. That was all built in and he took all that and was actually part of not part of that group, but certainly had a faith and a religious practice and an intent of goodness all his life. They were the most hospitable people I know ever my parents, everybody. I can't tell you the number of people who I'll meet and say, oh yeah, I stayed at your house, your parents, when we were living somewhere else, I stayed at your parents' place and the other thing they'd be known for is their marriage. They had the best marriage I've ever come across and it's, you know, takes two, and I think I don't know if I give more credit to one than the other. I think probably both of them, but just you know.
Speaker 2:
So all of his background ended up, you know, like all of us, ended up forming the person he was. And yet in all of that, he was a very quiet leader in some ways, but not. My parents were very, very together. Everything they did was together and one didn't really dominate the other Just because of the age and era. My dad, as the man, was, I suppose, a little bit more out front, but not much. They were a very, very together couple and my dad had a very tender heart. And so you know, I don't know, I mean I suppose we're going to talk about this later, but you know, lots of those things, by osmosis, seep into your own soul and you know, uh, form who you are, and so I you know, going back to I, I think he would have thought that he had a very difficult life growing up and um, and I think he would have felt very privileged in the second half of his life to have found some some, you know financial success and and uh, you know happy marriage and a fantastic son just kidding 100.
Speaker 1:
But speaking to that, what? What uh qualities in particular, have you taken on and and maybe tried to take on, yeah, your dad?
Speaker 2:
yeah, yeah, and he was never the kind of person that sat me down and said you need to do this and you need to be this. You know. You know that expression values are taught, not taught I. That definitely applied in in their case. They were very, um, yeah, they didn't have an agenda that I had to follow. Their view was, you know, do what you can, do the best you can, we'll support. That was sort of the view, and so you know.
Speaker 2:
I mean, actually, one of the things that comes to mind is humor. There was lots and lots of laughing in our family. Actually, one of the things that comes to mind is humor. There was lots and lots of laughing in our family. At my dad's memorial he died in 2020, my daughter, kate, talked about him being a laugher. When you think of my dad, my grandpa, I think of him laughing. My dad laughs like crazy, and I do, and so humor is a very, very big part of of who we are. My dad would play pranks on people too. I think I mentioned that, but honestly, he would do terrible things, like I'd have a friend over and my dad would be stirring his coffee and he touched the hot spoon to the kid's leg and the kid, would you know, bang on the table and everybody would laugh and you know, or he would throw a plastic spider against the, the somebody's window and it would sort of, you know, wander down like I mean, oh my gosh so I'm not making up the humor part, it was definitely a big part of and his family, his, his sisters, were all laughers like if you'd go to that family they would be laughing constantly. So I'd say that's one.
Speaker 2:
And another one that comes to mind immediately is um is tenderness. You know he, uh, he couldn't watch, you know, anything on television or real life. That was. You know, um, somebody was being harmed, you know, uh, particularly children, and he wasn't really an animal person in a big way but couldn't watch any, any thing being harmed. And this is not a, this is a small example of it.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, we have a family cottage on the lake a couple of hours North of Toronto and um, where I live, and uh, at Thanksgiving, canadian Thanksgiving, which is October Uh, it's usually cold, but I, every year, my daughter would jump in the lake in in October and I, so one time it was cold and I said, uh, I'll give you 10 bucks, I'll give you two bucks if you jump in the uh, in the lake. And my dad offered to give her 10 bucks not to have to jump in the lake because he was saying, oh, it's too cold, you don't want to jump in the lake. So very, very tender, tender guy, and I think maybe the other thing I'd say is hospitable, and so all of those things are me. Now. It's just we become our parents in some ways bad ways too, I'm sure, but hopefully in lots of good ways and they're extremely, extremely generous people, and so I aspire to that and hopefully practice some of that in my life.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking when you were talking about how your dad grew up and the humor it just came to my mind in reading Viktor Frankl's book about meaning. I'm forgetting the exact title now, but that search for meaning, man's search for meaning, that you know so many parts of sort of Jewish life has been so difficult. Life has been so difficult and humor has been the anecdote to that. And I mean it sounds like he also, he and his siblings, grew up in this, in this difficult situation in a lot of ways, and they, you know, humor was, you know, sustaining, uh, to a certain degree, total um, but it has, it's continued. Even, you know, even though it sounds like you live an easier life in many ways than you know he and his siblings did, still humor stays.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it ends up being part of the culture. It's the way we relate as a family. And yeah, I mean, a good day for me is when I have laughed uncontrollably. And you know, it doesn't happen all the time, it doesn't happen often, but sometimes you just get beyond yourself and I think to myself wow, I really liked that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, um was so many times with couples. There's sort of the, the straight man, so to speak, and the, the, the other one who's, you know, constantly doing the jokes. Was that dynamic happening with your mom and dad, or what role did she play with the humor?
Speaker 2:
oh yeah, um, my dad was the funnier person, but my mom, you know, was uh not sour. She was, she was great. Um, yeah, and uh enjoyed his jokes. I mean he, she heard the same joke 50 times because he'd tell it to lots of different people and she laughed each time. So she was very, very gracious. Uh, they were just such a great couple in sync. They were they, they were just amazing. They did things together. They were. I had a couple of friends. They were um, you, you know, everybody who knew them thought about them as the best marriage they know, and so they were um, just really, um, you know, really in sync, and I think it's it's unique, it's not, it's, I don't think it's common at all. Uh, I think most of us are normal and, and they were abnormal a little bit in some ways.
Speaker 1:
If you had the chance to ask him about any part of that, about the marriage and what made it work, do you feel like you took it in and understood it, or do you feel like you would?
Speaker 2:
still have kind of a lingering question, if you could now to ask him. I do wonder if my mom was the drive, was the, the, the? I think my mom uh liked peace and uh let a lot of things go early on and I think my dad got into that groove and so, uh, as a I think with a different person, he might have been maybe more combative. So I think she probably set the tone and he thought this is good, let's go with that, that's. That's my guess. I don't really know.
Speaker 2:
Uh, they didn't really talk about it a lot. We didn't sort of dissect the family very much and I was, I was an only child. I don't know if that's come up yet, but you know that's. Uh, yeah, they could, they. I know they had a couple of miscarriages so they had planned to have more kids but couldn't and um, so that was quite a different dynamic. Coming from, you know, a family of 11 on my dad's side, my mom's one of three and uh three, there's three sisters and they they stayed very close all the way along. They were crowded for Christmas and birthday parties and so on and they were extremely close as sisters. So yeah, I don't know, it's hard to know what. I would ask them now going back. But you could certainly tell and other people knew uh as well that that was.
Speaker 1:
You know who they were and do you feel like you take a leaf out of that, that book of kind of like letting things go?
Speaker 2:
no, in your own. I wish I was. I wish I was, uh, that kind of person. I'm high, I'm kind of wound tight, you know. So I don't think either of my parents really were. So that's a, that's an interesting one. You know, I, I was in, I got into business early, I was a it's an investment bank, you know, early on in my career, when an entrepreneur started business 21 years ago and push, push, push, push, push, and you know it's, know it's, uh, I'm, I'm not a relaxed person and I just, you know, I'd like to be more. I don't know if my parents were relaxed, but they were, um, certainly easy to get along with, and I'm less so, for sure I beg to differ, but I don't know you well, oh no no, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:
I have multiple personas, like we all do, Indeed, but I'm more highly strong than I'd like to be, and I think that's a goal.
Speaker 1:
Let's say Well, that sort of dovetails in a question I had about what part of who your dad was and his impact on you and hopefully his legacy what part of that do you feel like you still want to live out that's not quite in its fullest expression yet that you feel like I still want to do this in a way to, I don't know um, take on those those qualities that I respect about him.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's a good question. Um, yeah, you know, I mean one of the things I think about him all the time is his humility and he was respected and a quiet leader and a solid friend. And you know, like, what's wrong with that? Like if that's all we are, that's pretty darn good. And if we can raise some decent kids who try and do similarly, it's good. And so in the business world, and certainly an entrepreneur, there's a lot of drive and push and so on.
Speaker 2:
And my dad, I think my dad seemed to find the balance somehow when he was selling industrial buildings. You know, you might do one or two sales a year and make all the money for the year, or you might do zero, make zero sales, but they were huge. If you made them, it was, you know, one sale could be easily enough money for your whole year. And so we talked about business around the dinner table every night. You know what deals happening, what, when might it close? Will it? What does it need? You know deal's happening what, when might it close? Will it? What does it need? You know, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:
And and um, so you know, I feel, but I feel like somehow he found good balance and you know, nobody talked about work-life balance back in the day, but, uh, I think he found it and, um, you and you know, I aspire to that in my years to come maybe.
Speaker 2:
So that's something that is in my mind. That and his humility, and those are things that I always have as sort of beacons, and you know, I don't know how good a judge we are about ourselves, but I know he was a model for me in those ways and I haven't always followed it, but it's always out there as a thought that you know, my dad was that kind of person and I was very proud of him. Like he was not the kind of person who you, you know people would put up their picture and say this person led many and was ceo of this. He's a very, very humble guy. He would not have thought a lot of himself that he was you know anything special, but, um, and so you know, I I I've probably, probably achieved more notoriety than he did, but he was a beautiful, humble person and I, you know, aspire to that.
Speaker 1:
Um, and I don't know if you had a chance to, you know, spend time with him, you know near the end, or what that was like for you. But, um, I'm curious if you could, if, if you could, say anything to him now. Uh, with some of the years that have passed, um, what would you want to say to him?
Speaker 2:
Hmm Well, let let me back up and give some context. He had dementia. Hmm Well, let me back up and give some context. He had dementia. It came on not early in life, so apparently it's not predictive who knows? But if you talk to people with dementia in their life, you know, people say, you know, you lose them slowly. So by the time my dad passed away, I had, I had lost a lot of him already. So it was a, it was a slow process of loss and um, so, and. And they also say that that, uh, dementia is like swiss cheese. You know if you poke it, sometimes you hit cheese and sometimes you hit a hole, but you never know quite when that's what you're going to hit.
Speaker 2:
And then my mom ended up with dementia later. That was a sort of quite a surprise, because she was always the I don't know. We just never, never thought that would happen. So both of them had dementia and were in the same retirement home because we, you know, obviously we could not care for them and it was so sweet, you know, we'd come and see them and the two of them would be sitting together on the couch, arm in arm, for, you know, a good chunk of their life and a good chunk of their later life.
Speaker 2:
And you know, this is one of those classic sad stories of COVID. But my dad, we believe, died of COVID in the very, very early days in the retirement home and we could not be there. So it was, you know, one of those things. It was all, everything was an emergency. You didn't know what you could do. You certainly couldn't go there, you know. So it was very, very, um, very sad and we didn't have a funeral because it was in the depths, like in the very beginning of covet.
Speaker 2:
So we did have a family reunion on my dad's side of the family at our cottage. Um, when I would, uh, last july, there was 65 people there and, uh, two of the siblings had passed away during covid and we did a bit of a memorial at at that. So there was something that was um. So I I felt like, but I but I just thought, you know, wow, all the people that my dad has influenced, there's 28 first cousins and because he was my parents were near that. My dad was near the bottom of the family lineup. They were closer to the cousins than some of the older people and they were a little bit less traditional, say in their faith. So they were a little freer, and so there's a great love between those 20, whatever it is 25, 28 first cousins and my parents.
Speaker 2:
So anyway, that's a long winded um context, but your question really is about. You know, what would I say to my dad today? And, um, it's funny, it just the things that go in your memory when you have dementia. Most of my dad would ask me the same question 10 times. We met together, but I, one of the things we stumbled upon is looking at old pictures and my, my dad knew poems and so I would say the first line of the poem and he would say the second line of the poem and we would go through these poems and he knew the words of the poems.
Speaker 2:
He didn't know what he had for lunch, but he knew the words of the poems. He's you know beautiful things, words of the poems. He didn't know what he had for lunch, but he knew the words of the poems. He's you know beautiful things, and so I don't know, that's those. That's a real significant memory. But what would I say to him? I would, I would um, thank him for being um, a wonderful dad. Uh, I would thank him for his um model of uh, humility, hospitality, love of my mother, kindness, grace and those are pretty good things to emulate, yeah.
Speaker 1:
It's been a total pleasure talking, Tom. I really enjoyed learning about your dad. Thank you thank you.
Speaker 2:
I I enjoyed uh talking about him and and you know how often do we do this not not very often, not in in this kind of you know, intentional way. You know I might, somebody might, mention something about him. We'll have a one second reference, but I haven't sort of sat down and thought of him for uh for a long time like this, so it's a gift to me as well.
Speaker 1:
So thank you for that yeah, my pleasure, we are off record. Uh tom, that was beautiful. I'm just going to stop.
Speaker 3:
The recording here is Is that what you were?
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of who we Remember. You can see some great photos related to today's story, as well as find out more about our guests and their work. Just go to storykeepcom backslash podcast. Who we Remember is a production of StoryKeep. Storykeep works with exceptional individuals and families to document their life stories and histories through film. You can learn more about our services at storykeepcom.