Memories of My Dad

Jack Crumb 1924-2017

Remarks at memorial service for Jack Crumb, April 22, at First Baptist Church, Interlaken, NY

As many of you may know, my father didn’t much like Democrats—but he managed to tolerate his John Kerry-buddy-Al Gorish-Obama-supporting-Hillary-uggh-voting oldest son. My Dad had very strong beliefs—until confronted by confounding facts. He loved American cars—Fords, Chevvies, Hudsons, you name it, he loved tinkering with it—until he discovered Toyotas. He didn’t much like Japan, having served in World War II, but he loved Toyota’s cars.

My father was a complicated man. He didn’t attend college, but he filled our house with books. And he seemed to have read them all—plus piles of magazines, newspapers, tourist brochures, and maps. My Dad had a map for virtually every state, and every county in upstate New York—in many cases, maps going back to the 1930s, when his father was a highway engineer and state parks engineer. On one old map, Dad noted the route he and his brother Ed took in riding their bikes from Jacksonville around Seneca Lake and back home—in time for supper, if I recall the story right.

My Dad also liked to collect calendars with photos of airplanes, cars, waterfalls, covered bridges, flowers, wildlife. He also liked to collect old tools, old license plates, old bicycles, and anything else that caught his eye at a lawn sale.

From the time he was a kid, Jack loved to drive cars. In “retirement,” he drove cars for Maguire and other car dealerships—cars that needed to be taken for trade to other dealerships across New York state, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New England.

Many of us here may recall the time my Dad said “let’s go for a drive”—and, as he narrated the history of everything of interest we passed, we’d end up at Niagara Falls, or Oswego on Lake Ontario, or Harris Hill, “the soaring capital of America,” where gliders swooped over the magnificent terrain near the Pennsylvania border.

As everyone knows, my Dad loved to tell stories. No doubt, you have at least one favorite story you heard him tell.