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Eulogy for Horace Franklin Knox

March 13, 1922 – June 5, 2009

Robert A. Knox

June 19, 2009

Most eulogies begin with a recounting of the accomplishments of the

deceased and end with the lessons the speaker learned from his or her

life. But today I am going to do this ass backwards - as Horace would

say. I’ll begin by telling you the lessons about life I learned from

Horace, and then I’ll share some stories to illustrate these lessons which

are about decision making, risk, judgment, trust and confidence.

Amazingly, I learned almost everything important from Horace by the

time I was 20 years old. And I learned it primarily through flying

airplanes with him. And I mean intense, often reckless, and way too

many times, near death flying. As I’m sure most of you know, Horace

did not have the fear gene, he was simply not born with it. And he also

did not have the "I’m immortal” shutoff switch that usually kicks in for

most of us at about age 25. In fact, he thought he was immortal until he

suddenly wasn’t - just two weeks ago today.

Strangely, it took me until sometime in my late twenties or early thirties

to understand what I learned from Horace and to realize that I had

learned it from our flying adventures together.

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When I started my own venture capital firm at about age 30, I began to

notice a pattern of business colleagues telling me in one way or another -

and some cases in a very unpleasant way – that I made decisions too

quickly or too damn quickly.

Generally, these decisions involved buying or selling companies, hiring

or firing CEO’s and the like. And all of these decisions involved risking

millions of my own dollars and millions of our investor’s capital. It was

then that I began to understand that most people make decisions in a

very slow and deliberate manner - and are only comfortable in making

decisions when they think they have all the facts.

Believe it or not, this struck me as odd then, and it strikes me as odd

today. It was certainly different from the way I thought about risk and

the way I made decisions. And so I had an epiphany of sorts back then,

because I suddenly realized that flying with Horace had taught me to be

comfortable in making many decisions – basically one decision after the

other – which is exactly what is required to competently fly an airplane.

Of course, the quest to know all the facts before making a decision is

just human nature, it is simply how we attempt to reduce the risk of

making mistakes. But in piloting an airplane, as we all have learned

from captain Sully Sullenberger’s heroic landing on the Hudson,

sometimes critical decisions must be made instantly without the luxury

of time and with only the limited information at hand.

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In my investment business and in my life, I developed a series of rules,

all based on my flying with Horace, that have proved critically important

for me and I largely credit for whatever success I have achieved.

These rules are very simple. And many who know me, and certainly

everyone who has worked with me, have heard these rules, especially

the main rule which is: give me 50% of the facts about a given situation

and I will make a decision that will usually - not always, but usually - be

as correct as the decision one would make after knowing 70 or 80% of

the facts.

Of course, experience, judgment and intuition are also required to make

good decisions. But you will probably never know 100% of the facts

before you have to make a decision, and it is my personal experience

that knowing the last 20 or 30% of the facts rarely changes the decision

you would have made earlier by acting on less information (and more

instinct). It’s also extremely boring waiting for all of the facts - and I

get bored very easily!

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And so you might ask why it is valuable to become comfortable making

decisions quickly? Well, obviously in flying an airplane, it can save your

life. But in business, it’s my strong belief that if you can make quick

decisions, even if you are taking more risk than the “gotta-know-all-the-

facts-crowd”, you will gain the enormous advantage of seizing an

opportunity ahead of a more cautious competitor who will take the time

to ponder and gather ever more facts. I have used these decision making

rules consistently during my career to acquire companies, to buy or sell

art work, real estate and numerous other kinds of assets.

Flying in emergency situations, and flying with Horace was almost

always an emergency situation, also taught me not to become distracted

by any one decision. I learned not to agonize about or revisit a decision

once it was made. Just go on to the next critical issue – or crash and

burn!

Now, I’m well aware that many find this kind of thinking arrogant or

just plain foolish, or both. But I strongly disagree, because I believe it

works, or at least it has worked for me. So when people think I’m being

reckless or acting before knowing all the facts, and have the courage to

tell me which is pretty rare, I smile and think of Horace. And I thank

him for my mental deficiency, which is a great gift from him.

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Horace had unlimited confidence in me and trusted me with his own life,

and way too often, with the lives of others. When I was 18 and a

freshman at Boston University, I had come home for a weekend after

being picked up in Boston by Horace in 4655 Delta, a Beechcraft

Bonanza, which was one of the high performance planes Horace owned

at the time. The Bonanza cruised at about 200 miles per hour and had a

variable pitch prop and retractable landing gear. After the weekend, we

were returning to Boston in the Bonanza and, as always, I was flying left

seat as the pilot in command. The weather was pretty bad, but bad

weather never stopped Horace from flying.

Now, I have to do a little sidebar here on Horace’s belief that he could

safely pilot an airplane in virtually any weather conditions. A typical bad

weather flight would begin with Horace reluctantly calling the FAA

flight service for a weather briefing along our route. And while I was

standing there listening, he usually did a pantomime act like he was

talking to, not a trained meteorologist, but maybe an insane asylum

inmate. Horace would shake his head, roll his eyes, and give the thumbs

down sign as he was told that it would be unadvisable to fly.

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The call would often end with Horace hanging up on the weather man,

saying “bullshit”, and then telling me to fire up the airplane. He

reminded me often that most of the weather briefers - who he called

“chart professors” - were not even pilots. And in Horace’s world, not

being a pilot was a serious disqualification from any claim to credibility

on any subject.

I once heard Horace say to a weather briefer after being advised not to

take off during a thunderstorm: “what the hell – we’re at the airport

already, we decided to fly when we left the house!” Horace’s dangerous

default decision of flying in any weather conditions, when combined

with his genetic overconfidence, created the perfect storm of bad

judgment.

Although Horace was an excellent instrument pilot, he did not have an

instrument rating which is called IFR for “Instrument Flight Rules”. Yet

he proudly proclaimed that he was an IFR pilot because Horace’s

definition of IFR was “I Follow Roads”. And he did, usually just a few

hundred feet above the level of car traffic!

Horace’s other favorite solution to bad weather was to fly over it, which

is called flying VFR on top. This means flying by “Visual Flight Rules”

above the clouds. Even in the 1960s and 1970s, VFR on top was

thought to be basically unadvisable.

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But Horace was always confident that he could find a hole in the clouds

to go up through after take off, and another hole to go down through and

land, hopefully over his destination. If Horace could not find a hole in

the clouds at the destination, he would simply go to the closest hole he

could find, spiral down to a couple of hundred feet, and then proceed by

IFR – “I Follow Roads” - to the destination airport.

These Horace “I Follow Roads” navigation adventures in severe

weather and sometimes at night were unforgettably harrowing

experiences. After years of flying with Horace, neither I nor any of my

siblings have ever been frightened by horror movies, ghost stories or any

other kind of sissy stuff.

Anyway, now back to the flight from Caldwell to Boston to return me to

Boston University. The weather was poor with rain and heavy cloud

cover, but the tops of the clouds were fairly low, so Horace, of course,

decided that we should fly VFR on top. As usual, we were lucky, and

after takeoff from Caldwell, we found a hole, circled up through it and

got above the clouds, heading northeast for Boston.

We were probably at ten thousand feet somewhere west of Hartford

when we heard a loud bang, the windshield was completely covered

with what looked like oil, the prop started racing at high speed, and the

plane started sinking. This all happened in an instant.

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I asked Horace if he wanted to take the controls and his response was

“you’re the pilot in command, you fly the plane.”

One of the interesting features of the H model Bonanza was that it only

had one yoke – there were no duel controls. You could switch the yoke

between pilots, but only one pilot could fly the plane. This meant that

Horace could not override any mistakes I might make, and we were

headed for a certain intersection with the earth in just a few minutes!

Horace took over radio communications and he called in a mayday to

the controller at Bradley International Airport in Hartford, which we

thought was the closest major airport.

But we did not know our exact location, and I was flying on instruments

due to near zero visibility out of the oil covered windshield. Soon we

descended into the clouds and had absolutely no visibility. The engine

was racing at high rpms, as the plane was losing altitude at a steady

pace. We quickly figured out that the hydraulic pitch prop mechanism

had exploded, and coated the windshield with hydraulic fluid. The prop

pitch had gone totally flat and, therefore, the engine could not produce

enough thrust to keep the plane at altitude and we were relentlessly

sinking towards the ground.

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We were simultaneously worried about a number of critical problems,

including: Could we first find, and then make it, to Bradley Field before

losing altitude, or would we have to find the best place to ditch the

airplane? Would the engine blow a piston or otherwise fail due to the

strain of the high rpm’s and require us to do a Captain Sully type glide to

a ditching?

We were immersed in discussing all of these problems as we descended

blind on instruments through the black clouds, while being vectored to

Hartford by the controller for a straight-in emergency landing on runway

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Just recalling this today is truly frightening, although I don’t remember

being scared then – because there was only time to make decisions and

no time to be scared.

And so there I was at age 18, sitting next to Horace , a superbly skilled

Navy pilot with thousands of hours of flying time, and an experienced

instrument pilot to boot, which I was not, and he was simply acting as

the radio man while I was piloting a sinking semi- glider!

Although I only realized this years later, it was simply beyond stupid

that Horace was not flying the plane. Horace had complete confidence

in me, trusting me to pilot a crippled plane to a certain intersection with

either a runway or some other really unfriendly part of the ground while

he calmly handled the tower communications.

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With our blown prop, there would be no chance of using power to reach

the runway if we were short, so a normal approach would be impossible.

Of course, this was not the first emergency I had lived through with

Horace, not even close. So we just continued making scores of

decisions as we descended through the soup, hoping there would be a

runway within sight and within reach before we ran out of altitude or

power, or both.

Horace’s only direct advice was to ‘keep as much altitude as you can

until we see the runway, then dive it down to gain airspeed, leave the

flaps up, put the gear down over the threshold and fly it onto the

runway”.

Amazingly, we broke through the cloud ceiling at about two thousand

feet and saw the runway dead ahead and the controller cleared us for a

straight-in landing. I put the nose down and picked up huge airspeed

which was very dangerous for landing, and Horace called the timing for

putting down the gear. Lowering the gear slowed the plane dramatically

and I aimed for a mid runway touchdown as we passed over the

threshold at exceedingly high speed. It was difficult to get the plane to

land at high speed, but somehow I managed to force the wheels onto the

tarmac and almost stood on the brakes to come to a stop just before we

ran out of runway.

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To say I was relieved to be alive would be an understatement, but

Horace was already thinking about how he would get me back to college

in Boston. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We got the plane

towed to a hanger to be repaired, and Horace rented a car and drove me

to LaGuardia where I got the Eastern Airlines shuttle to Boston. Horace

apologized that I had to fly commercial. He thought flying commercial

was almost as bad as driving, and so do I. And to this day, I try to avoid

it at all costs!

Horace loved to perform all kind of stunts in airplanes and was

extremely pleased to teach me to do the same. One move that became

his signature stunt was to wait until the last possible second to lower the

landing gear when executing a landing. This sometimes caused near

pandemonium at airports and in control towers, as people thought they

were going to see an ugly belly landing by a bozo pilot who forgot to put

the wheels down.

Typically, upon contacting the tower on approach for a landing, Horace

would request a Navy landing. This is a high risk, high speed approach

to a landing patterned after that which can be used to land a plane on an

aircraft carrier. If done correctly, the pilot turns the plane almost

inverted over the approach end of the runway, drops the flaps and gear

in a steep dive and greases the wheels onto the threshold of the runway.

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During a Navy landing, if the pilot makes a mistake and starts the diving

turn too low, it is difficult to recover and he usually pays with his life by

“auguring in” - that’s pilot talk for when your propeller digs your grave

right before your eyes!

Horace became very annoyed if he was not given permission for a Navy

landing and his typical response was to do a modified Navy landing

anyway, and then keep the wheels up on final approach. He would

refuse to acknowledge the controller’s increasingly panicked warnings

on the radio that his landing gear was still up as his plane neared

touchdown.

With Horace going radio silent, the one way tower communication went

something like this:

- Bonanza 4655D on final for runway 22, no gear visible, please

acknowledge!

-Silence

- Bonanza 4655 D on short final for runway 22, still no wheels visible –

are you having a gear down problem and would you like to fly by the

tower for a gear check? - please acknowledge!

With still no response from Horace, the controller would shout:

-Bonanza 4655 D over the threshold no gear!, no gear! - abort landing!,

abort landing!

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Just a second before the expected crash, Horace would put down the

gear and grease the wheels onto the runway, laughing and shaking his

fist at the control tower. There was very little margin for error in this

kind of stunt and, because it was extremely dangerous, Horace was

always thrilled at executing a dramatic touchdown.

Occasionally, there was a follow up inquiry ordered by the air traffic

controller, and Horace would say he just forgot the gear until the last

minute, and he was having radio problems and could not hear the

controller.

Of course, no one believed him, but his Navy top-gun piloting skills and

roguish charm, foreclosed any further disciplinary actions, as he knew it

would.

Now, I hope there are no FAA or government officials here for this story

which involves many serious violations of flying rules, as well as

violations of restricted national airspace. Of course, Horace did not think

these rules applied to him.

This is what we called the Statue of Liberty ride, or the Hudson River

tour, and I see a few people here who have actually taken this ride. This

was a nighttime only adventure, and we would ask our passengers

whether they had ever seen the Statue of Liberty up close, and how

many spikes were on Lady Liberty’s crown.

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Many people had visited the Statue, of course, but almost no one knew

the number of spikes in the crown. But after the ride, no one ever forgot

how many spikes were on the crown – and by the way, the answer is

seven - because after the ride you had seen the Statute closer from the

outside than anybody except the Statute painters!

The Statue of Liberty ride was carefully planned as a stealth flight, at

altitudes below the radar capabilities of the major New York area

airports. We would take off from Caldwell, head north at a few

thousand feet and then turn east to a point over the Hudson River just

south of the Tappan Zee bridge. We would then dive down on the deck,

about 50 feet over the Hudson River, and turn off the exterior running

lights of the plane.

We were now below the radar tracking capabilities of LaGuardia,

Kennedy and Newark airports. Our first time passengers, all of whom

had barf bags, would realize they were in for either the thrill of their

lives or the most frightening experience of their lives, as the George

Washington Bridge came into view, far above the airplane.

We passed under the George Washington bridge and continued south

well below all the office buildings in New York looming on our left. We

had to pull up for ships and barges, or do tight turns around them, which

provided even more thrills.

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As we approached the southern tip of Manhattan, we would bank right,

climb to about 300 feet and head directly for the torch of the Statue of

Liberty. We began doing 360 degree turns around the Statue with the

starboard wing locked on the torch no more than about 50 feet away.

The Statute was always well lit at night, and you could see every detail

of Lady Liberty's features, up close and personal.

By the second 360 degree turn, the Newark control tower operator, who

was only about 7 miles away, would broadcast an angry blast on an

emergency channel, demanding that the aircraft violating national

airspace at the Statue of Liberty identify itself. This was our signal that it

was time to leave, pronto.

Horace typically would respond with a fictitious aircraft identification

number, and we would dive back down on the deck about 50 feet above

the Hudson. Once again under the nosey radar, we retraced our route

back up the Hudson River, heading north, again passing under the

George Washington Bridge, and then ascending to normal flight levels

for the return trip to Caldwell. Believe me, no one who took this

patriotic ride to the Statue of Liberty will ever forget it!

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There are many more Horace flying stories, and I encourage you to ask

Ken, Sue and Ray about the details of their winged adventures with

Horace. Ray has his own special inventory of terrifying tales flying with

Horace, as he moved up to co-pilot after I went to college. I think that

explains his gray hair!

I would love to tell you more of these stories, but in the interest of time,

I’ll just give you a few of the headlines:

The Apollo 15 launch in the summer of 1971. Remember how exciting

the moon launches were in the 1970’s?

While having dinner and watching the evening news on a Saturday night

late in July featuring a story about the launch of Apollo 15 the next

morning, Horace said: “what the hell, we can jump in the Bonanza and

be down there by 1 or 2AM, sleep on the beach, see the launch, and be

back tomorrow afternoon!”

And to Claire’s horror, that's exactly what Horace, Sue, Ray and I did.

We grabbed some sleeping bags and got to the airport for a take-off at

about 8PM.

The highlights of this trip include running out of gas immediately after

touchdown at Cape Kennedy, sleeping on Cocoa Beach right across

from the launch pad, and being awoken by a crop duster at dawn,

spraying DDT directly on us from a hundred feet above our heads.

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And, oh yeah, we almost got knocked off our feet from the heat wave

blast produced by the Saturn V rocket lifting off just two miles away.

We were eyewitnesses to a moon launch. What a thrill – an absolutely

unforgettable memory!

The beat Claire to Florida in an ice storm flight. This is a Sue and Ray

ride of terror with Horace. When Claire wisely refused any further flying

with Horace for fear that we would be left orphans, Horace set out to

prove that flying a private plane to Florida to see my brother Ken swim

was superior to flying on a commercial flight which is what Claire

booked herself on.

Claire headed to Newark Airport where she discovered that her flight

was cancelled due to near zero visibility and dangerous weather.

Horace, Sue and Ray headed to Caldwell Airport, which had equally bad

weather, but no authority to stop Horace from taking off.

Horace took off and did his “I Follow Roads” routine down the Garden

State Parkway to Atlantic City, where he had the plane de-iced and

refueled, and then continued the thousand mile flight to Florida at just

300 feet along the coastline. Horace beat not only Claire but everybody

else travelling from New York to Florida that day, as virtually all

commercial flights were cancelled.

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Horace, Sue and Ray spent the night at Miami International Airport,

sleeping in plastic chairs, waiting for Claire to arrive on her commercial

flight the next day. As usual, Horace thought he had brilliantly proved

his point, but no sane pilot would ever pull a stunt like that, especially

with kid’s lives at risk.

And my final Horace flying story is one I had forgotten about until I was

looking at some of my old pilot logbooks just the other day - and it is

truly wonderful. You peaceniks and flower children of the sixties will

really appreciate this!

In August of 1969, the then 47 year old Horace and I went to the famous

Woodstock festival together. And we were no more than 300 feet from

the stage where Joe Cocker, Jimmy Hendrix, Credence Clearwater and

the Grateful Dead were playing!

That's right, Horace the hippie, and I were circling at about 300 feet over

the stage at Max Yasgur’s farm, doing tight turns right above

Woodstock nation, in Bethel, New York. I bet I was the only 17 year

old to be at Woodstock with his father!

As you can tell from these flying stories, it would be an understatement

to say that Horace had some radical views about raising children, and

about how much responsibility should be given to children as they grew

up. Basically, Horace assumed that once you could talk you were a fully

functioning adult that could and should take care of yourself.

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He modified this assumption as each child was born, moving the bar for

the test of adulthood down from talking, which was the standard that

applied to me, to merely being born, which was the standard used for

Ray. Yes, by Horace logic, Ray was born an adult. Explains a lot,

doesn’t it?

As the first born, I was allowed to drive cars with the whole family on

board, at age 15. This was shortly after I started flying airplanes. I got

my pilot’s license at age 16, a year before my driver’s license.

My brother, Ken, who became a world famous and world record holding

swimmer, was allowed to swim over two miles from our Highland Lakes

house to swimming practice at the other end of the lake when he was a

young teenager – probably 12 or 13.

I’ve always wondered whether Horace was prescient, and knew Ken

would become a swimming phenomenon, or if Horace let him do

something so criminally dangerous that - if he survived - he would

become a championship swimmer! We should have a vote on this later.

Sue came next, and she could do anything she wanted as well, but there

was some kind of genetic flaw, and she turned out to be a sane,

responsible, organized and caring person.

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Sue immediately realized that without her empathy, support and comfort

our mother, Claire, would die at a very young age of sheer fright due to

Horace’s antics, and increasingly those of his three sons who he had

recruited to the dark side! Sue did more than any of the males in our

family to care for Claire and Horace, and they both adored her.

And Sue, I want you to know, that Ken, Ray and I are looking forward

to having you care for us in our old age, as well. And thanks in advance

from all of us!

By the time Ray was born, Horace just assumed that kids grew up by

themselves. In the first three years of his life, while officially under

Horace’s supervision, Ray was rushed three times to the emergency

department of the local hospital near Highland Lakes. At age one,

Horace placed Ray on a blanket while he mowed the lawn.

Unfortunately, the blanket was on top of a bee's nest and Ray was

discovered by Claire covered in a swarm of bees with hundreds of

stings. Ray almost died. That was hospital visit number 1.

The next year, Ray nearly choked to death on a carrot that a Horace

thoughtfully provided in adult sized pieces. That was hospital visit

number 2.

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Horace thought he had the supervision thing mastered by the next year,

when he devised a harness and tethered Ray to a backyard clothesline.

Of course, Horace thought with something as ingenious as the

clothesline harness, he did not actually have to watch Ray. Once again,

this proved unfortunate, as the paint shed was well within Ray’s roaming

range, and he helped himself to a drink of turpentine from an open can.

So then it was off to the hospital for a stomach pumping, and Ray’s third

near death experience in three years under Horace’s care.

Horace was also an amateur explosives aficionado, which is my polite

way of saying he was an explosives nut! All of us kids were allowed to

smoke cigarettes for several days leading up to the Fourth of July. Of

course, this made perfect sense to Horace, because we needed to light

ash cans, m-80s, roman candles and bottle rockets supplied by fellow

fireworks co-conspirators, Dr. Bob Zammit and Bob Johnson.

Both Bob Zammit and Bob Johnson are here today by the way, and

probably with a good supply of fireworks in the trunks of their cars!

According to Horace, all real boys of age 9 or older were expected to

have a lit cigarette in one hand in order to ignite powerful explosives

that were held in the other hand and thrown in the air, or in the lake, or

at other fun targets.

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It’s the height of irony that Horace did not die violently in a plane crash

or a car crash, while the four of us kids survived many dangerous and

some near fatal experiences with Horace, and still have all of our body

parts. But the four of us are uniquely richer and unusually fearless, or

maybe just fearlessly eccentric, for having passed the lifetime Horace

survival test. In any event, we are safely on our own now!

Of course, we also had a powerful ally and a super protector in our lives,

and that was our mother, Claire. Claire provided the strong foundation

for a family life which was obviously offbeat and sometimes a bit crazy,

but rich in excitement and adventure.

Claire had the unique power to impose peace and ordain sanity in

Horace’s chaotic world. Claire was, simply and profoundly, the perfect

antidote to Horace. During their 52 years of marriage, she became the

editor, the refiner, and the governor of his larger than life personality.

With her iron will and steadfast resolve, Claire took on the full time job

of containing Horace within some boundaries of a normal life. And

Horace would be the first to admit that he got the better deal in their

half-a-century long partnership.

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Claire thought Horace’s flying adventures and many of his other antics

were “nutso”, or “looney-tune”, as she would often say. But we always

knew that she accepted, secretly admired, and was even charmed by

Horace’s roguish behavior, love of life, and wild sense of humor. Claire

knew the risks of living life large with Horace, and she cheerfully and

graciously accepted the consequences.

And, as everyone here knows, Horace lived a larger-than-life kind of

life. Even in his last days in the hospital, Horace’s doctors and nurses

referred to him as “Horace - the character in room 140”. Horace never

met somebody he could not make a friend – and he made many that

became lifelong friends. There is no greater measure of a successful life

than the quality of a person’s friendships. And Horace was indeed rich in

friends, especially those of us here today.

Despite living through the hardships of the Great Depression and World

War II, Horace was an unrestrained optimist and always looked forward,

never back. With an abundance of confidence in himself, he was always

prepared to take risks, and often daredevil risks, to achieve his goals.

As my friend Tom Wilson, the son of one of Horace’s oldest friends,

Gene Wilson, said to me a few days ago, Horace lived life with no

regrets and had a blast along the way!

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Horace’s standard response to adversity was to say: “We shall

persevere.” And that is great advice from Horace to all of us today.

Horace - we shall persevere in your memory.

And we shall persevere in your honor.