My eulogy for my father, Stanley J. Baran May 10, 2012 I’m here today to celebrate and honor my father, Stanley Baran. I hope you’ve all had a chance to read the obituary that was included in the mass program. It told about his life and accomplishments. What I wanted to share with you were all the other things about my father which were not included, but would give you a much more personal and intimate feeling about him. My father was a very compassionate and loving husband, father and grandfather. The times he enjoyed most were being with the family, whether it was teaching someone how to build something, do a project together, or help us solve whatever problems we had. He always pushed us to try our hardest and shoot for the stars. Dad was a very hard-working, strong individual, as well as very strong-minded and at times, short-tempered and stubborn. You would get along with him great if you did things his way or you might find yourself in an argument with him quickly if you didn’t. I always remember growing up, when we would get together with his brother Ted’s family. My cousins and I would place bets on how long it would take for the two brothers to get into an argument and then we would all crack up laughing. Dad would always use these terms of endearment for those he was closest to – KNOTHEAD and CHOOCH. When we were growing up, he would be actively involved in whatever my sister, brother or I, or our children were involved in, including Boy Scouts, being the bandmaster for our band, swimming, lacrosse, toastmasters, baseball, taking his grandchildren on trips to help them pick the college of their choice, and many, many more. He never missed a concert, a school play, an awards ceremony, an athletic event, a debate tournament or any other activity one of his grandchildren was in. Dad was the type of guy who had to accomplish 10 things during the day, in order to feel good about himself when he went to bed that night. Believe me, he pretty much accomplished that every day of his life, almost until the end. He loved doing projects and building things with us. I remember the moped he built with my brother Mark and me. And when Mark cracked up on it, he never heard the end of it from my mother. As you probably know, he was a Tool & Die maker and had a machine shop in the basement as a second job that he went to every evening. To make sure he spent enough time with his children, he built us small tool benches near his in the basement, so we could work beside him and he would teach us things the Stanley Baran way. He had a famous saying that we all knew….. “When I work….everybody works!” My father always had a thirst for knowledge and wanted to learn everything he could. When he retired, the kids bought him a used IBM computer 26 years ago. That was the start of a new learning and teaching adventure for him. He taught the grandchildren how to use the computer. He taught them how to take them apart and rebuild them. He found countless tutorials online, which would teach him and the grandkids endless new things about computers and the Internet. He had his iPad with him in the hospital until just a couple of days before he died. His emails were endless. I will miss them very much. In recent years, he got into cooking. His quiche was pretty good! He was always asking Tola for recipes and sending new ones to her by email. He just bought a new set of sauté pans that he saw online. My mother hasn’t even taken them out of the box yet. Many years ago, I remember asking my father if there were any secrets to a successful retirement and after thinking it over for a bit, he said the following: 1. Give back to your family, friends and community. That could include giving your time to help other people in need. My father donated his time doing senior citizens’ tax returns, raising money to install park benches in the county park, forming a support group for men with prostate cancer, etc. I’ll never forget how my mom and dad, and Uncle Teddy and Auntie Annie took such devoted care of Babci in her failing years. And the hours and hours of free babysitting my parents did for all of their grandkids. 2. Keep your mind active and learning all the time. He did this through taking computer classes, surfing the Internet, and becoming involved with his grandchildren’s schools and projects, cutting the word-jumble out of the paper every day, scanning it and emailing it to everyone in the family. 3. Keep your body as active as you can through exercise. He said this will become harder as you get older, when things start breaking down. But hopefully, you can prolong the inevitable and have a better and longer life. He continued to work out every day until 3 days before he died. 4. Keep your faith and religion and remember to thank God for all he’s given you. My parents always prayed together every day. They prayed for the intentions of everyone in the family - that one of their kids or grandkids would pass an exam or recover from an illness or get the job they were hoping for. They prayed for their siblings when they were facing health issues. They prayed for the souls of their parents in heaven. My kids knew if they were hoping for something important, they could ask Mama and Papa to pray for it. 5. He then hesitated and said that there actually was a secret to getting old. I said, “What’s that Pops?” He said that as you get older, those aches and pains start hurting more and more. When someone asks you how you are, say you are fine and doing great, because people will enjoy talking to you more, rather than hearing about your problems. For those of you who know my father, you know that he always had everything well planned out the Stanley Baran way. When he passed away on Friday, my nephew Justin sent us all an email that my father had asked him to send when he died. I would like to share what he said in that email so you all will be able to appreciate his spirit, his humanity and his humor. First, he shared his life accomplishments, which you hopefully had a chance to read in the mass program. He didn’t do it to brag about his remarkable life. He did it to make it easier for us to write his obituary, and make it easier for his grandchildren, new great-grandchild and those yet to be born, to remember him. Second, he included a bunch of jokes to read because he wanted everyone to be happy and laughing today. As some of you may know, especially if you witnessed him as the MC at AARP meetings, my father’s jokes, at times, were somewhat off color. My mother has forbidden me to tell those jokes, so I’ll try to keep it clean. Here’s one of my father’s jokes: Error in the Bible: A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks copy the old canons and laws of the church by hand. He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the Abbot to point out that if someone had previously made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies. The Abbot, says, “We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son.” He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. Hours go by and nobody sees the old Abbot. So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing. “We missed the R! We missed the R! We missed the R!” His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old Abbot, 'What's wrong, Father?' With a choking voice, the old abbot replies, “The word was.......CELEBRATE!!” Here’s another one of the jokes my father left for us, and this one had a notation after it that said, “This one is my favorite.” Holy Humor: A small boy says to his father proudly, "Daddy, I know what the Bible means!" His father smiles and replies, "What do you mean, you 'know' what the Bible means?” The son replies, "I do know!" "Okay," says his father. "What does the Bible mean?" "That's easy, Daddy," the young boy replies excitedly. "It stands for 'Basic Information Before Leaving Earth.” Third, everyone knew how frugal my father was. Isn’t that right, Mom? Well, one of the things he included was an advertisement for an urn that he suggested we consider buying for his ashes. Here’s a picture of it with a notation that it was on sale at COSTCO. That’s Stanley Baran. Fourth, my father gave us his unfinished, 2-page TO DO list, which I will be passing on to his grandchildren later today. It included: • Set dummy alarms on cellar windows; • Install all free apps onto iPad; • Store paint cans in overhead I-Beam; • AARP report for Tuesday; • Pay tax bill; • Use election sign to cover washroom window; • Get a new recliner for mom; Last and most important, which brings everything home is this message from my father, which he concluded his long email with: “Please talk about all the good times we had. I am the luckiest man – to be envied. I had the best, ever-loving wife, caring and devoted children, with their spouses and children. Love you all – will be watching over you.” Please join me in raising a glass to my father, Stanley Baran.