John Laurits Watkins confronting his tomato doppelgänger,one of his favorite pictures of himself.

Death of an affectionate manby John MacBeath Watkins

Somehow, though I knew he was mortal and in ill health at 87, I never could quite imagine my father,

John Laurits Watkins, dying. Somehow, I still expect to walk in the door at my folk's place and see him

working on a crossword puzzle or playing solitaire. He died April 22, 2011.

Both of my parents contributed to my love of books, but my father introduced me to my favorite

author, P.G. Wodehouse. My father was, as viewed by me during my youth, the greatest interpreter of

the Pogo comic strips, doing the definitive Albert the alligator, loud, enthusiastic and self-assured as

you would expect the character to be.

He also introduced me to the sport of sailing when we lived in Maine, and when as a teenager it

was hard to communicate about other things, we could always go sailing together.

Of course, he was also a career Air Force officer who served in B-17s in World War II and was

awarded the Air Force Cross, helped start a school for training Air Force non-commissioned officers

during the Korean War, flew with Strategic Air Command as a navigator/bombardier during the Cold

War, and flew on C-130s into some pretty hot spots in Viet Nam, including Khe Shan and A Shau,

where the aircraft got shot up a bit and he won the Distinguished Flying Cross for getting supplies to a

surrounded firebase with a precision air drop under enemy fire and in horrible weather. Not long before

his death, he told me a West Pointer came up to him in Viet Nam and remarked that it must be

something for "you flyboys to see some real combat." During World War II, the heavy bombers he

served in sustained such heavy losses that among heavy bomber aircrews that completed 30 missions,

71% were killed or MIA. Military Air Transport was surprisingly free of losses during Viet Nam, he

felt.

Part of that was associated with improvements in Air Force safety made during the 1950s. Even

in peacetime, losses in training had been too high. One of the improvements the Air Force made was to

have officers who were particularly good fly with others in their squadrons and check on their

competence. It was called Stanboard (military speak for standards board) and in the 1960s, when my

family lived on Okinawa, he would fly a month in Viet Nam and a month of Stanboard out of Naha

AFB.

He retired from the Air Force after 27 years service, taught school for a while (as he had done

for a while between the end of WW II and the beginning of the Korean War), sold real estate for a time,

then taught himself the math behind the tables he had used as a navigator, taught himself to program

palmtop computers, and started Celesticomp, which as you might guess sold palmtop celestial

navigation computers. Some were used by blue water sailors, some by merchant marine officers, some

by navigator/bombardiers doing his old job in SAC, and one by a record-seeking balloonist.

There is a film about military brats which talks about how harsh some military fathers could be,

and all the problems the families sometimes had. My family was nothing like that. My father loved to

travel and loved to take us with him. When we lived in Maine, we would read plays together. Dad's

humor, his humanity, and his love for his family were perhaps not exactly the image of a military

officer, but then, few officers are that image

He also taught me critical thinking. When we discussed something, his expectation was not that

I would meekly accept his authority on every subject, but that I would be able to discuss it intelligently

with him. In high school, one of my best friends was riding with us in a car while Dad and I discussed

something, and when we got out, my friend, who was a Navy brat, said he couldn't believe I talked that

way to my dad. His would never have accepted such debate.

A few days before his death, my dad was still saying things he knew I'd take issue with, to tempt

me into a political argument, still mischievous as ever. He liked debating history and politics with me

more than he liked being agreed with, and I think he was proud to have a son who could argue him to a

standstill. He taught me to be relentlessly reasonable, which is why I've never been kicked off an

Internet forum, and he taught me to be sure I had my facts straight and could back up my assertions and

my logic. I'll miss his brilliance, his humanity and his humor, but even more his love.

I've known some people who were in such bad relationships with their parents communication

completely broke down. There were fathers who said "I have no son," people my age who had

completely stopped talking to their parents (or, often, one of their parents.) My father didn't always

agree with his children's choices, but he never stopped supporting us and loving us. His care for his

family went beyond us, of course. He organized family reunions, wrote family history, and kept in

touch not just with his brothers and sister but with his cousins as well.

I think much of this came from his father, Amos Watkins, a farmer who was born in England

and came to Oregon as a child. Amos was a gentle, quiet, affectionate man with a wry sense of humor

and an extensive knowledge of literature. When he and dad were milking the cows, he would recite

poetry to dad. Sometimes, the cows complained because they were so engrossed with the literature that

they left the milking machine running too long. He loved his farm animals, and never owned a tractor

until his sons went off to war, preferring to plow with horses.

One of their favorite poems is also one of mine, Ozymandias, a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Selley:

OZYMANDIAS of EGYPT

I met a traveller from an antique landWho said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains: round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Dad was emphatically not that guy. Perhaps a sneer of cold command would have gained him a

higher rank in the military, but the Air Force got a better deal, a man who advanced by knowing how to

do things really well.

Once, in Hong Kong, a young Chinese woman came up to him and asked if he was a

missionary. He said sorry, no, but why do you ask?

"Kind face," she replied. Some people can just judge character.