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The world is a poorer and slightly less argumentative place today. My Dad, Chuck Haspel, died over the weekend, peacefully, at home with my Mom. Since all that’s left is what we know of him, I want you all to know him. May I ask a daughter’s indulgence to introduce you? 
I don’t have good pictures of my parents. We weren’t a picture-taking family and my Mom says every one of her and Dad should have the same caption: The Terrorist and the Imbecile. Dad was the terrorist. But I’ll share a couple of the least bad ones.
He was a deeply principled man who would nevertheless take any side in any argument, just to hash it out. If you’ve ever wondered how I got to be a world-class irritant, well, I come by it honestly. But I also learned that most disagreements have two reasonable sides.
My parents always fought fair and insisted that we did, too. I probably knew what an ad hominem attack was before I was 10. In fact, in 60 years together, neither of my parents ever said a word deliberately to hurt - not to each other, not to me and my brothers.
Vocationally, he was a computer scientist. He did his PhD work in artificial intelligence way back in 1969, and worked on IBM’s early systems. I remember a yellow sweatshirt - the kind you got custom-made at a t-shirt stand back in the 70s - that said OS/VS2.
He had a tin ear for humans, though. He was completely straightforward, and operated as though everyone else was too. Once my brother @ahaspel, maybe 12, helped fix the car. Dad was under the hood, Aaron behind the wheel. “Whatever you do,” Dad said, “don’t honk the horn.”
He was ruthlessly punctual. In the pre-cellphone days he was stuck on a train and missed an evening meeting. The next day he saw a friend who’d attended and said he hoped they didn’t wait long. “Don’t worry Chuck,” he said, “When 8:01 rolled around we knew you weren’t coming.”
He was as generous as he was punctual, never stinting of praise and always picking up checks. I don’t remember his ever complaining about anything. The way he saw it, he hit the life jackpot - a wonderful marriage, interesting work, never knowing want.
He was also political. My parents co-chaired the local ACLU chapter when I was a kid, and I remember campaigning for McGovern. He carried a copy of the Constitution, in very small print, in his wallet.
One of his very few disappointments was not making Old Jews Telling Jokes. He had a well-crafted, funny style. He says that when he got caught in a riptide in Rio and was floating out to sea instead of “I could die” he was thinking about how the story would go.
My parents had an explicit agreement. Dad made the money, and Mom did the kids, house, food, etc. That division of labor made them both very happy for entire life together. And for their entire life together, my dad thanked my mom for every single meal.
When I was 6 my grandfather committed suicide. My parents thought we were too young for that, and told us it was a heart attack. In my 20s, I was talking to my Dad about his own heart issues, and said something about it running in the family. ...
… My Dad told me what really happened and he said, “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.” And then he said the thing that has stuck with me, and which somehow seems to convey the stamp of him: “It was the only deliberate lie we ever told you.”
My father always did what was right, automatically. He never shirked a responsibility or cut a moral corner, either in the flat-out, screw-this kind of way or the much more insidious bob-and-weave, do-I-really-have-to kind of way.
The most important thing, maybe the only thing, parents can do for their children is set a good example; I grew up absorbing ideas about decency, generosity, and partnership. I can’t know how much that affected the person I became or the choices I made but I suspect it was a lot.
I can easily find my father’s foibles in me, but I have to work to hit the mark he set with his strengths. My husband, though, does right as automatically as my father, and I can’t help but think that the example of my parent’s marriage helped me forge my own, with as fine a man.
Dad loved a good meal, and as he got older his wine got better and better. My family will be toasting his memory tonight, and I invite you to join us. He would have loved the idea that strangers are drinking to him just because they read about him on the internet. L’chaim, Dad.
