June 20, 2010

The Plumber’s Tale

A message delivered by Scott R. Cooper

at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Prineville

June 20, 2010 (Father’s Day)

My father would have been 71 this year, had he lived.

He was a good man, my father. He was quirky and independent and a model of self-sufficient. And he imprinted his values very strongly on me. For the most part, I liked him, and I remember him fondly this Father’s Day. At the same time, I freely acknowledge that like most father-and- son relationships, ours was complicated.

Dad’s life and mine have taken sharply divergent paths. I enjoy different pastimes than he did. The lifestyle that I have chosen is different than the one he chose. He was very much a product of his generation and his Oklahoma roots. I am very much a product of my generation and my Oregon values. But notwithstanding the differences, I recognize that there is still a lot of him in me. Even though it has been 10 years since I lost him following a cruel, brief and emotionally searing battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, I still find myself using his ideas, his values and his frame of reference to answer the questions of the world, both big and small.

Let’s take plumbing, for example: