From Richard Smith

One night about six months ago I found a copy of Cicero’s On A Life Well Spent that
had been on a shelf for some time - perhaps it was one of the many books that,
unsolicited, Dad sent me over the years just because he thought they would interest
me - or perhaps because his devotion to books exceeded his available storage
space.
Cicero wrote a very short introduction and it was immediately clear to me that it
summarized both Dad’s life and the way I viewed him. It provided me with great
comfort as I have reread it several times over the following months reflecting on
Dad, his failing health and how the way that we measure a life that deserves
admiration is universal. I repeat it here as my memorial to him.
The best armor of old age is a well spent life preceding it; a life employed in
the pursuit of useful knowledge, in honorable actions and the practice of
virtue; in which he who labors to improve himself from his youth will in age
reap the happiest fruits of them; not only because these never leave a man,
not even in extreme old age; but because a conscience bearing witness that
our life was well spent, together with the remembrance of past good actions
yields an unspeakable comfort to the soul.
We will both go on with our lives, missing him as the constant that has always been
there - but just as surely we will wonder at the good fortune that gave us such a
father. Dick

Milt Smith as a Father - Perspectives of His Second Son

Although it wasn't his style to try to control the direction of his children's life paths, my Dad had a strong influence on my development, in many ways. I think I may have inherited a sense of humor closely akin to his. I have always been impressed and inspired by his intellectual and academic achievements. His fervor for college football was clearly catching. Besides these influences, I recall several important episodes that I carry around which were most important to me...

My First Nickname:

I think it was 1956. It was an election year and Eisenhower was running for re-election. It must have been on the radio or maybe we had our first TV by then, but the effect of the enormous crowd at the Republican convention chanting "We Like Ike!" over and over was mesmerizing. It somehow infected me. I started saying "I like Ike!" around the house and posted similar signs on the walls of my room. I told my Dad and Mom that, if I could, I would vote for Ike. Of course, they were both strongly democratic and were for Adlai Stevenson. Compared to the cheering going on for Ike, I just couldn't get excited about the intellectual "egghead" alternative. Although my parents may have been appalled, they were committed to their children having open minds and expressed only mild annoyance at my juvenile political expressions. Shortly thereafter, Dad gave me my first nickname, at least that I remember - "Shit for Brains", or SFB for short. My Dad could always make me laugh
and I thought this was hilarious! That it could be construed as demeaning or disrespectful never occurred to me - it was part of my Dad's way of showing affection. He wrote postcards to us when he was away at meetings and would put in "say Hi to SFB". I think SFB eventually got discarded, especially four years later when John Kennedy ran against Richard Nixon. At that point, a rejection Nixon was somehow easy, even though he had served a Ike's VP, and I regained some political capital around the house. But SFB stuck with me somewhere, at least subliminally. It was like an intellectual gauntlet - maybe I really did have shit for brains. One way or the other, I was never overconfident about my brainpower and worked extra hard to compensate for not having what seemed to come easy for others. Ultimately, I think the SFB designation helped me in the real world.

A High Sierra Difficulty:

My father always loved the mountains. He became active as a volunteer parent in our Boy Scout troop and would go with us on 50 mile backpack trips in the summertime. I must have been around 10 or 11 when I went on the first of these. I remember being very excited because I was finally allowed to go along with my older brother on a real adventure. The old photos show a ragged troop of gangly kids marching up the trail with three or four parents along as leaders. It was hard work climbing the passes, but the views were unlike anything I had ever seen – incredibly blue sky and stark granite crags. At night, we slept in thin sleeping bags laid over ground tarps. The sky at night was amazing! One night early in the trip, I woke up with pain in my abdomen. It was severe enough to give me quite a fright. Everyone was sleeping and it was very cold. I crawled over to where my Dad was sleeping and woke him up. Of course he was concerned but was also reassuring - I knew he would take care of me. He told me to use his sleeping bag since it was warmer than mine. I will never forget that bag of his - it was plush green cotton flannel with pictures of pheasant, and hunters - and it was incredibly heavy but very cozy and warm. He must have stayed with me until I was sleeping, then used my thin short bag the rest of the night. In the morning, the pain was gone, but the memory of that frightening night and my Dad's caring for me never faded. It was a guiding experience during my own parenthood experiences.

High Up on White Mountain:

When I was about 10, my father took me on an adventure. I remember him waking me at about 4 AM - "Lloyd, we need to get up and get ready to go!" We left before dawn, and I must have slept – the next thing I remember is early morning somewhere on highway 89 and then the beautiful descent on the eastern escarpment of the Sierra down to Highway 395. There was "Deadman Pass" and then "Conway Summit" with a view of Mono Lake that still thrills me every time I see it. There might have been a brief stop at Bridgeport for an ice cream cone. Finally, we drove through Bishop and up the slope of the White Mountains to the east. The long trip was capped by turning onto the grated gravel road that climbed upwards to the White Mountain High Altitude Research Station - really 3 stations at 10,000 feet, 12,500 and the little hut at the top at 14,000 feet. I had to earn my room and board by helping my father with tasks – one I remember was helping with construction of a building at 12,500 feet for the experimental chickens to live in. The altitude made it very hard to work for very long without resting. I remember my father being especially careful about getting things right - this was his funded research project and he was determined that it would succeed. He also took time to take me around to see the "sights." The ancient Bristlecone pines are an indelible image for me from that time. He also showed me where you could look for Indian arrowheads, just laying on the ground. If that wasn't fascinating enough, we got up one morning before dawn to see the "flash" in the east from the latest nuclear bomb test hundreds of miles away. Then there was the day we got into the jeep and rumbled up the steep trail, through magnificent meadows flush with wild flowers and dotted with springs, and up the very steep and narrow trail that clung to the hillside and eventually to very top of White Mountain. Oh, the view to the west of the Sierra - another indelible image for me. I am still impressed by that trip and that my father would take along his youngest son, who undoubtedly got in the way and must have demanded constant attention. He made the effort to provide special experiences for both of his sons. This one always stayed with me.

Dad as Career Advisor:

The years flowed by and I grew up. Inevitably, I was drawn to the attraction of a career as a scientific investigator, as my father had been. Looking back, from junior high school on, I don't think I seriously considered anything but science. The question, as always, was did I have what it would take? Dad always encouraged me. I think he was happy about my choices, even though I went into molecular biology and didn't even take one undergraduate physiology course, his area of expertise. Then, it was on to graduate school for a PhD, like him. A curious thing happened then. The science was fascinating and I have never encountered anything so intellectually challenging or stimulating as laboratory research. But something was missing for me. After five years and the end in sight, I started to look around for jobs and consider what kind of career I was going to have. Part of me was not being fulfilled and I really didn't know why or what was missing. We spent the Christmas and New Year's holiday in Davis and I had the opportunity to talk to my Dad about my uncertainties. We were discussing my career path on January 1, 1975. I was feeling like I had disappointed him and was very confused about the future. That is when he said to me "Why don't you go to medical school?" This was like a lightening flash - I had never considered myself as doctor material. But from the moment he said it, things inside me started to fall into place. His insight literally changed my life, and, as it turned out, he knew things about me that were not obvious to me!

Around the Campfire:

My father loved the Bohemian Grove and to sit around the campfire at Sons of Toil Camp discussing events of the day, ancient history, the foundations of modern science and of course telling limericks. Once I became a professor, I became eligible to join the Club as a Faculty Member. I did this with some reluctance, but thought it might be a good opportunity to spend some time with my Dad, something we seldom had done. I am so glad I got this opportunity, not only to be with him, but to experience the fellowship and warmth of his campmates. We had nine Grove Encampments together, far more that I initially expected because his health was already dimming in 1998. It was becoming very difficult for him by 2006, his last Encampment. I remember asking him if it was too much of an effort for him to make the trip. His response was "it is just good to be here". He enjoyed every minute and especially those times with his old friends around the fire, unexpected happenings such as a poetry reading or port tasting, the talks and performances and dining under the redwoods. I think I got to know my Dad a lot better because of these experiences and will always be grateful for that.

Milt-isms:

My Dad loved to utter funny quips and epithets. If someone would ask him "Did you get your hair cut?" he would say "I got all of them cut!" One favorite saying that seemed to come up repeatedly was "What do you think it is, your birthday?". This was used especially on birthdays. There were a couple of fairly predictable responses to whining: "My heart pumps piss for you!" or "You want sympathy? Look into the dictionary, right between shit and syphilis." My Dad tended to minimize any discomfort or distress from his illness. When asked "How do you feel?" he might say "With my hands." Or, I might ask him "What did you do today?" He would say "Oh, just donating my time!" And then there were the limericks. A few of them became iconic for me, especially the one about the poor Scotsman Jock. On more than one occasion, while answering a call of nature on a camping trip, I considered poor Jock's plight:
"There once was a Scotsman named Jock,
who had a terrible shock.
He took a shit in a leaf-covered pit,
and the crap sprung a trap on his c - - k."

The Quercus Lobata:

In 1941, my Dad bought a red filter for his 35 mm camera. He had been taking black and white photos for a couple of years. He had been told that the filter would be good for landscapes and clouds, accentuating the contrast. One afternoon, he took a series of photos of the landscape just north of Davis - along the county road that would become Covell Boulevard and near the intersection with Pole Line Road. The photographs show the typical agricultural landscape of Yolo County - great flat expanses of plowed loam, interspersed with stately valley oaks and scattered farm houses and their barns. These pictures have resonated with me for years since I discovered them in the 1970s. There is just something so beautiful about the land, the trees and farms, and I still depend on seeing such views every day as I return from work in Sacramento. One of the views looks east toward the Sierra Nevada, banked with high cumulus clouds, a backdrop for a farmhouse, barn, a graceful drainage ditch and a lonely windmill. Another picture looks west and captures a farm that is still in existence just north of Covell across from the Nugget Market. The last and most indelible picture is of a great Valley Oak, an older tree with some loss of branches, but still strong and wildly throwing its arms to the sky. I have thanked my father many times for these photographs and have copies in my office at work. They are a touchstone that connects me to the landscape and to my Dad.

Road Trips:

There are many memories of my father at the wheel of our car as we head out for an afternoon ride or a longer road trip. Once early on, it was just to see the odometer on the old Pontiac turn to 100,000 miles. On longer trips, my brother and I would be in the back seat and if there was too much enthusiasm there was always the long arm of the law that could reach back and deliver unprejudiced discipline. I think I was usually the one who insisted on knowing "if we are half way there yet?" On one such occasion, a trip to Berkeley to visit my grandmother, my father responded by pointing to a little white cloud above the western horizon. "See that little cloud? It is right above Grandma's house. Just keep your eye on it!" There was a long trip to Vancouver to a meeting my father was attending. We stopped each night at a motel - it had to have a swimming pool so my brother and I could play "marco polo".
My father loved to explore back roads, with map in hand, and look for points of historical interest. He had so much information in his head and you just sat back and learned about California history - the origin of the term "carneros region", or the old route of Highway 40 from the Bay Area through Jamison Canyon, or the fact that Pope Valley was once planted in pistachio orchards... Once he began flying small planes, he would be able to tell you about the entire region he flew over, and liked to make quick stops at historically important places. Later when his health began to be an issue, he stopped flying and there were fewer road trips and I think he missed exploring a lot. When we started to go to the Grove together, I would drive and ask him which way he wanted to go. He would get out the map and direct me - we took many different routes and I saw a lot of California I had never seen before - and of course heard a lot of its history. We would drive though the beautiful Pope Valley and then up over the pass and down to St. Helena, a breath-taking view; or we would make a special stop at the Buena Vista winery - California's first commercial winery; and of course he knew all the "watering holes" between Davis and the Grove.
One afternoon more recently, after visiting the doctor in Sacramento, I suggested that we drive down the river road toward the delta. He got out the map and off we went, through Courtland and south through the ag lands and then along the levees and finally across the water on a ferry, emerging east of Fairfield. Of course, it was just the kind of thing he loved to do. I often think of how happy he was that day!

Fare Thee Well:

I loved my Dad and will miss him continually. Even now, I find myself thinking of things I need to ask him. I received a really great letter of condolence from an old friend who had lost his father decades ago. He told me that he still has conversations, in his mind, with his father. In his words: "Dads are forever." I am counting on it.