Eulogy for Jack Pardo - “Smiling Jack” - Jacob Aaron Pardo   11/27/1918 - 8/19/2015

I want to thank everyone for being here today to honor my father - unfortunately I am not able to be with you in person. I especially want to thank my brothers, Arthur and Don, for being there for dad and taking such good care of him.

Jack Pardo: He was my father and I love him and miss him. He was the biggest and most positive influence in my life. He was intelligent and curious and a man always on the go. I thought of him as either the Energizer Bunny or asleep. There was little in between. He was friendly to everyone, always wanting to help, doing things for others. His father, my grandpa Aaron, was this way as well - someone looked up to in his community, someone people went to for advice and a helping hand. And my father always helped.

He was generous and gregarious, and hosted my mother’s large family almost every weekend. BBQs in the back yard in the summer and sled rides hitched to the back of his truck in the winter. Grandparents and relatives stayed with us for weeks, sometimes months at a time. His own family was important to him - he always honored his own parents - and he especially loved his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who brought incredible joy into his life.

He loved and adored my mother completely. They may have bickered a lot, but to him she was always “My Favorite Blonde,” and he would do anything to make her happy. Right to the end, when they no longer lived together because of her medical condition, he would ask about her to make sure she was okay. Only then could he feel okay as well.

My father looked at everything as a challenge and was always up for it. He would find broken things - chairs, bikes, vacuums -  and bring them home and fix them. And then give them away!If he wanted something built, he would figure out how to do it and do it himself. One of his many sayings was “If you want something done, do it yourself.” I guess I think of my father as a Renaissance Man - he did it all. He was a terrific, creative cook, taking after his mother. He sewed, both by hand and with a sewing machine - his father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress. He had a great sense of style and taught me the ins and outs of clothing, and what to look for to see if a garment was well made. He had a green thumb, as did his mother, and all his plants thrived. He had his old-fashioned wooden shoe-shine box, and taught us how to care for our shoes to make them last. He taught me how to ride a bike, how to drive a car, how to handle tools, how to fix things, how to paint walls, how to wash cars, how to garden, among many, many other things. 

He was an inveterate, immoderate, and creative mangler of the English language. It gave him great pleasure to call Casablanca, where he was stationed in WWII, Cash-a-blank-check. He called Oprah, Okra. Frank Sinatra, my mother’s heartthrob, he renamed Frank Sinister. One of his pet phrases was “What’s on your alleged mind?” When leaving, “Au Revoir" became “Au Reservoir,”  “I’ll be seeing you” became “Abyssinia” and “Arriverderci” became “A River Dirty.” He was not self-conscious nor concerned about being politically correct. He made himself laugh with scatological humor, much to my mother’s dismay. She called him “Peck’s Bad Boy.”  But we all laughed at the kitchen table together.

He was stoic and never complained. My mother woke to find him passed out on the floor of their hotel in NYC during one of their weekend get-aways to “The City” before he would complain about pain. They had to take him to the hospital for what turned out to be kidney stones. He fell once and wouldn’t let anyone help him until his finger got so swollen he couldn’t resist our imploring him to have it looked at. “I’m fine!” he said. But the finger was broken.

The two of us used to drive out to Jones Beach in the summers, getting up at 5:30 in the morning on a Sunday to beat the crowds. We’d sit out there together, in silence, reading. I would watch him swim in the ocean with his graceful, slow crawl, going parallel to the waves. It was when I thought he looked the most relaxed.  Then, and when sitting in the sun in the backyard, on a lounge chair, asleep, with a book open on his chest.

He was a voracious reader, consuming several books each week. He would come home from the library with a tall stack and return them all - read - the next week. He used to tell us how as a young boy he read all the books in his local library in Brooklyn - from A to Z. He was interested in everything. When I was young he read non-fiction - history, science, biographies. When I was in college he discovered fiction and he was entranced. It was as though he had entered a new world and he was fascinated by it. John Irving was a favorite, and he read all his novels. He never believed in buying books - that’s what the library was for. But he was thrilled to get the Oxford English Dictionary and a set of The Interpreter’s Bible to call his own.

I could go on and on, and I know each one of you here has his own favorite story and memory of my father as well.  I will end with one of my favorite times, a memory of us all - mom, dad, Arthur, Don, and me - sitting in the back of the car, driving who knows where, on Long Island, singing along to Dad’s favorite army songs: The Caissons Go Rolling Along, It’s A Long Way to Tipperary, I’ve Got Tuppence.  Of all the songs, though, his favorite was always “You Are My Sunshine.” I wish I could sit next to him again, right now, and we could sing it together. Dad, you are my sunshine - rest in peace.