7 Days of Bob: Me and My Dad

Happy to be home with the birthday boy.

7 Days of Bob: New Grandfather

(And now, Sister #2....)

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I’m the science person in the family – not the writer. That said…

Wedding Day -- August 7, 2004

I’ve always felt blessed to have the father that I do – kind, generous, loving, interesting and interested, funny, likable. Being a grandfather has simply magnified those characteristics that I admire in my father.

69th birthday -- 2/7/2011

My sons are so fortunate to have a grandfather who is a regular part of their lives – always ready to read with them, do puzzles, cuddle, take a trip to the park, share a snack – and always willing to pull the EARLY morning shift on the occasions when he and mom come to be our fill-in daycare.

Great heads look alike:  reading with Henry.

Puzzles with Oliver.

BTW:  Bob has gained a new appreciation for the STRONG coffee that brews in our kitchen every morning. The first time he tasted it he quite literally spit it across the room. I’m not exaggerating. Now it is a staple of his early morning at the Habeck house.

We love you Bob / Dad / Papa Bob!

-- Missy, Chad, Henry & Oliver

7 Days of Bob: Uncle Bob

I grew up with two Uncle Bobs in family parlance. The other was a Great Uncle by the technical definition and much farther away geographically.

But this Uncle Bob was close. Just 62 miles north of my hometown, those cousins and aunt and uncle are my second nuclear family.

And yet for years, Bob was a mystery to me. Completely and utterly.

For one, he's tall. Much taller (particularly to a child) than my average-height father. Louder. Booming voice, boisterous laugh. My father loves jokes but his laugh is less in the face than uttered or, more precisely, set loose as Bob's is. Bob's is contagious and clear: appreciated joy!

Business owner and Boss, Bob ran the newspaper. He had a large office, he walked the floor there with purpose and some measure of humility. I recall the old building and its machines from olden days, I recall helping to paint the new building (early '80s?). I recall picking up sticky paper bits from the floor, rolling them onto sheets, but not really knowing why other than that Bob needed or wanted it done and was willing to pay us. Adulthood has since explained the 'need' for jobs for little girls and an excuse to give them some pennies. I recall being a newspaperboy ("Extra, extra, read all about it!") for the Record-Herald's float in the 1984 Centennial parade. And I recall thousands of trips up to "the shop" when I was in Cando and we'd all go, just to stop in or for someone to cajole some pocket money for treats or a movie rental.

But, I always felt shy around Uncle Bob.  Even though I knew my cousins loved him, I just didn't know what to do with this tall, loud red-haired uncle. I watched, I wondered. I saw hugs, I watched him play cards and support family members.

Then one time, he bought my cousins a giant stuffed elephant, quickly christened Walter. And Walter was lounging in the entryway when I came to visit. And that was the first time I understood: Uncle Bob was whimsical. He was sweet on his daughters and cared for them deeply. That gift of an elephant peeled away a layer to Uncle Bob that allowed me a glimpse of who "Poopsie" was to them.

I later spent not just weekends or holidays up in Cando, but two full summers, as I worked on the seed potato crew and BobKat were gracious enough to host me for free. By that time, in college, I could hold real conversations and engage in serious topics (OJ's trial, sports, smalltown life and North Dakota politics). I saw a much more holistic picture of a man: father, newspaperman, son, husband, uncle, neighbor and community member.

And I enjoyed Bob. I enjoyed his unexpected wit and laughter, I admired his commitment and dedication to Cando and its people, I aspired to his knowledge of history and analysis of current events. And I reveled in finally understanding his humanity. And thus, my Uncle Bob became great Uncle Bob, too.

Happy Birthday to you!

--Cousin J

7 Days of Bob: Accurate caricature

Dad was president of the North Dakota Newspaper Association nearly 20 years ago.  At his going-away banquet, the board gave him this framed, poster-sized cartoon composed by an old friend of my parents, Steve Stark of the Fargo Forum.  My sisters and I enticed Dad to pull it out a couple weeks ago so we could use it as the basis of a "remember-it's Bob's b-day" mailing.  

I think we had all forgotten how accurate the likeness is and was:  ... the ubiquitous turtleneck with grey sport coat, the red curls and the white beard, the rolling pica tape and the layout ruler in breast pocket, the Coke can, the paper-strewn desk, the honest enthusiasm in his smile.

7 days of Bob -- Still "Scoop"

For 30 years my parents owned the weekly newspaper in my North Dakota hometown, Cando. Dad trained as a teacher and taught high school English in Minnesota starting in 1964. In 1979 they bought the business from my grandparents, who themselves had owned it for 30 years after buying it from my great-grandfather ... who became editor many years earlier while still working as a Presbyterian minister and siring 6 children.

(Tangentially ... the story for years was, through college and for several years in the 1990s when I worked as a journalist myself, how and when I could potentially be the 4th generation owner. Considering I still have trouble balancing my checking account and have never made a single major financial purchase in my 38 years, it seems odd now .... as odd as it would have been for me to never have come to Boston. But I had emerged as the foremost writer in a generation of good writers. To not have my family be a part of the Towner County Record-Herald was once unthinkable. The closest I ever got to it was writing an MFA thesis, in 2002, about the family’s history with it and how I perceived my father felt --disappointed on a level, but circumspect and realistic-- about my inability to take on the life he had curated. He was incredibly patient taking my questions on the subject.)

My current career, in finance, takes up a lot of my time and energy and I enjoy it more often than I don’t. But it doesn’t entirely define me. Life small-town businessman defined my father. The man with the enormous camera bag and legal pad, ubiquitous at high school sporting events. Who spent his Saturday afternoons at the office doing the payroll and enlisted teenagers to develop and print all his photographs. ho advocated for Chamber of Commerce memberships and renovation of the crumbling World War I-era Audi (link) into an arts center. Who drove rural roads 90 to 100 miles a week to solicit advertising from the tiny cafes of Bisbee and Calio and the grain co-op in Churchs Ferry and, when the money trickled slower from those sources, the 72-miles round trip to Devils Lake. The man who rarely left town for more than a few days because there are 52 weeks in a year and a newspaper doesn’t get a vacation.

When Mom and Dad sold the Record Herald to another local publisher in late 2007, it was time. The children and grandchildren-to-be were 8 hours away in Minneapolis. The energy to keep up with the schedule had fallen back. There was a sense they needed to learn to do something else before they didn’t have the energy to learn how to do something else. So after years of considering it, in a quick year they made the business sale, made the house sale, and moved to Minnesota.

Dad now defines himself as a grandfather and frequent babysitter, as a singer in a men’s chorus, as a friend to many in the church where my parents have made a home. He struggles to find sharper focus, though, and I know this troubles him. He’d like to be known for more, to more people, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Thirty years as “Scoop” is a tough act to follow.

7 days of Bob: A patient life (among women)

Yesterday, Kristin noted (accurately) that our dad is among the most patient of men. He grew up with a strong-willed mother and 2 sisters. He married Mom, herself strong-willed and one of 3 sisters; together they went on to have 3 daughters and, for a time, a female dog for a pet.

Coincidence? I’d like to think not although, only having met my father when in his mid-30s, I can’t firsthand analyze the chicken-egg order of said patience. The women I’m closest to who have known him the longest, Aunt Kathi and my mother, would probably testify to a history of acquiescing to female opinions around him. Or at the very least, a mature and healthy ability to listen our rationales for all things ... and realize that to fight them would be more pain than reward.

Noble on many levels. This has led to a level of patience bordering on conflict avoidance ... which in and of itself has been an occasional source of conflict over the years. After years of depending on Dad to be the guy who will go along with anything I (or my Mom or sisters or aunts) decide, I don’t really have the right to be frustrated when it takes what feels like eons for him to make a decision, eh?  Or do any of us?  We’ve helped shape his patience and need to have patience ourselves with what we hath helped wrought.

Dad smiles a genuine smile when he does, and he can look as perplexed or as pissed as anyone if provoked.  But this picture one I think best represents his typical countenance: bemused observance and reflection. (Or, were this a Sunday afternoon and there were a television to the far right of this picture and a PGA tournament in mid-stride .... zoned concentration.) 

We were gathered as a family, pre-grandchildren, for my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary in August 2005, on the North Shore of Minnesota. We chose the place not only because of the lake’s woodland beauty in the heart of summer, but because of the particular place it holds in my parents’ hearts: where they lived and worked for the 9-year period during which the 3 of us were born, when he was still in his first career as a high school English teacher, when they were a young couple learning to be parents of girls and making lifelong friends in the same position.

I imagine him here, the lake in his glasses, thinking of how much it means to him when he is with his daughters all together. Thinking of the times 30 years hence, in this place, when he used to have more influence over our decisions. In this late afternoon on a Saturday, a few years before retirement from owning the newspaper, how nice it is to have rare downtime from the business. How strange it feels to be the subject of a photograph when, so often in life, he was the photographer. Glad he could lounge in an Adirondack chair, unburdened for a few moments at least, waiting for whatever his women might decide to do next.

7 days of Bob: Say hi to "Poopsie"

Dad turns 70 on Tuesday, February 7 .... 7 days from today.

So ... what better time and excuse to provide 7 days of tribute to the inimitable Bob .... teacher, singer, golfer, editor, world-champion television-sports watcher, grandpa, unpaid family historian, advisor, quiet man in a sea of loud women and, like anyone who has made it to 70 successfully, so many, many more things.

You'll see tributes to the man in this space for the next week.  I've asked some other family members to chip in with their thoughts.  My older sister Kristin, a paralegal in Minneapolis, the girl whose birth made him a father back in 1971, goes first.

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"For some reason that I can’t recall, I’ve always called my dad “Poopsie”…. I’m not sure when it started, but it had to be when I was in elementary school.

Not long after I learned to type, at least with two fingers, I was trying to figure out a way to finagle something from my dad … probably cash for some purchase that I wanted to make.  In an attempt to butter him up,  I worked up my request on one of the old Smith-Corona typewriters in the office and headed it with the now-immortal:

“To my dearest, darlingest, most wonderful, most handsome, most fabulous, amazing fantastic POOPSIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

(And yes, with that many, or more, exclamation points.)

Bob signs the final paychecks at the
Towner County Record Herald --
Dec. 2008 retirement party

I can't remember if my sucking up got me what I was seeking. But what I do know is my dad kept that typed note of flattery taped to the lamp at his desk at work for, truthfully, decades after I wrote it.

As editor of the county newspaper, Dad was able to satisfy his love of (almost) everything sports-related by being a constant fixture at the sidelines, courtsides and bleachers of most every high school sporting event in Towner County and beyond. Even though my sisters and I were might have rolled our eyes at it, he got a real kick out of the high school kids calling him “Scoop” – it was a title that he wore with obvious pride.

How Dad survived 20-plus years of being the only male in an entirely female-dominated household, I don't know. Even our first dog was a female. I have to give him lots of credit for putting up with my sisters' and my mother's mood swings, our petty disagreements, innumerable ballet costumes, prom dresses, hairspray-soaked bathrooms, and silly dinner table games.  (Frequently we would be sitting at the dinner table, already eating, when he arrived home from work, and rather than happily greet him someone might whisper “let’s go hide in the garage” or “let’s pretend we’re all asleep” or “let’s say body parts backwards and try to guess what they are."  Sinep, anyone?)

Dad – my "Poopsie" – is one of the kindest, most loving and most wonderful people I have the privilege of knowing .... even when he doesn’t bid on the King of Clubs and it's the last hand of Backstreet Bridge.

I wish him nothing by love, joy, laughter and happiness as he turns 70 years old. I feel very blessed to have him in my life.

Much love now and always, 

Kristin