Howard A Pentoney

I wish I had a picture of my father on my computer so I could post it here. I don't, nor do I have a scanner. I would love to post the one taken with John Wayne, because my dad was much better looking than the Duke. He had movie star good looks. He looked a bit like Cary Grant. He was larger than life, in many ways. He was 6'3", strong and imposing. He was also very lovable, and the huggiest man I have ever known. He sang a lot, he laughed a lot, and he loved his family fiercely. His passion was the outdoors. He taught us to be conservationists years before people talked about it, and I suspect he got that from his own father. Fly fishing was his first love. He also loved to hunt ducks, but it was the fishing that made his spirit soar. Standing in the Eel or the Klamath river in his waders, surrounded by all that beauty, was all the church he ever needed. When he was a kid, his dad took him to Northern California to fish. They lived in Riverside, and my dad fell in love with the rugged beauty of the north and the fishing. He moved us there in 1964, and I will forever be grateful that I grew up a Northern Girl, not a Southern California Girl.

After WWII, dad went to UCSB and majored in sociology. He lived in Santa Barbara when it was small, and so was the school. Next he attended law school at Hastings in San Francisco, where he met his lifelong friend, John Rhoades. After law school he moved to San Diego, and so did John Rhoades, who eventually became a Federal Judge. Dad met mom in Dallas, and she looked him up on a family trip to San Diego. They ended up married, and she had to return to Dallas to break up with her fiance after she was married! They lived at the beach, in the days when San Diego was small and not the concrete jungle it is today. They made friends with John and Doris Starkey, and John married Carmel. The Rhoades had 5 sons, and they became like brothers to us. After we moved north we visited them often, and in the summers we used to switch houses. They'd go to our beautiful summer home on the Smith River, and we'd stay in their beautiful home on the bay side of Mission Beach, right on the beach. Many times we were all at one of those two places together, and that was the best. The Starkeys had a daughter and a son, and Doris was my mom's dearest friend. Every Spring Break mom would take us to their house in Point Loma, and to me a house with a swimming pool was paradise. In August we'd join them for a week at their house in Del Mar, which is right on the beach. With Desi Arnaz living on one side and Jimmy Durante on the other, there was never a dull moment. Doris Starkey is the only one of the group left now. It's hard to watch a generation disappear.

Daddy died in 1999, close to 15 years after suffering a major stroke. It changed all of our lives. Our big, handsome, strong father spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair, his brain a fragment of what it had once been. In one instant, the stroke took most things he loved from him. He could no longer practice law, fly fish, enjoy the outdoors...he was left with a family who loved him and a wife and a daughter who sacrificed their lives to care for him.

I never think of him that way. I have no pictures of him in his wheelchair. I have pictures of him the way he wanted to be remembered. He had so much love in his heart I can feel it now. After he died, I went back home and came down with a bad case of the flu. One morning I was awake but had not opened my eyes yet. I could feel my dad, sitting on the bed next to me, holding my hand. He had big, strong hands and their touch was distinctive. I could feel his presence; it was palpable in the room. I knew in that moment that there is an afterlife. I also knew that is doesn't matter if your church is a cathedral, a synagogue, or the Great Outdoors. My father was a good man, and I know he is somewhere, fishing alongside my mom, his dad, my cousin Ricky, and all the other avid anglers who are there with him. I have felt his presence on other occasions, just like I've felt my mom. It gives me peace to know they are together, and that someday I'll be with them.

Not for a long, long, time, however. I have roads left to travel and it's not time yet for my journey to end.

I love you, Daddy. Thanks for taking me to beautiful Northern California when I was 4 and for giving me an idyllic childhood. Thank you for teaching me to respect the environment, how to hug, how to laugh and smile. Thanks for all of the times you kept me safe. Thanks for marrying my mom and giving me such a strong, powerful example of womanhood to emulate and to love. When I think of you both, I picture you laughing, singing, hugging and dancing together. I would give anything if you were both still with us and I was at Dolbeer st house this Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day and Namaste,
Jill