He had on his game day Cal shirt. His dad (101 years old, who started my family's Cal tradition the year Cal last won the Rose Bowl) and family was with him.
He posted here, but as he aged, he mostly waited for me to come over and make me defend my opinion in my posts in person. "What's your evidence" must have been said to me at least once for every damn thing I ever said.
He took me to every home game for 30 something years, until I started taking him. His last game was the Redbox bowl in seats that were "too expensive" that my cousin (another Cal grad) and I conspired to buy for him and Gramps.
My dad started worked at Berkeley Labs, I can't recall when, but walking past Soda, he would often comment on the emergency response when they accidentally set off an alarm for the reactor under Etcheverry. My first binders were what held the calculations of trajectories for the first ballistic spy satellite coverage of the Soviets and the trajectories for our nukes, before we could guide them in space. Every few months he would tell us about some newly declassified thing he did decades ago. He spent most of career at LLNL doing whatever it was he did, leading his division.
My dad was nearly always the smartest person in the room (except when I was about 13 to 18, and he was the dumbest), regardless of where he was. The Pentagon, Langley, Capital, Lab etc. Always ahead of potential problems with potential solutions... but it bit him in the ass when he didn't realize that sometimes you have to actually put in the work and failed out of Cal and had to work his way back in.
His parents met at Cal. My parents met at Cal undergrad and grad. My uncle's went to Cal. My sister went to Cal (but I detoured to the Marines). My cousin iirc has the on base percentage record for Cal, playing shortstop and catcher before he coached for the bears. A few other cousins went to Cal. His brother did the seismic reports for the stadium rebuild... We are a Cal family if such a thing ever existed. All of our "Cal group" my whole life was his friends from school 60 years ago. They became my family as much as they were his. When I was late for ITB because of 9/11, it was that family that got me to Pendleton.
During high school, my dad got tickets for Rittenberg (the ESPN guy), who would always come to games with us, and watch away games at our house. My dad taught him what it meant to be a Cal fan when he jumped up to celebrate our win at WSU when we got to the two yard line an the snow. "It isnt over yet, Adam..."
My dad, since high school always joked "find yourself someone who has a graduate degree from Cal and keep them," bragging about my mom, "that will stimulate your mind and keep you happy." I met my wife in undergrad at Nevada and tricked her into applying at Cal (she was certain it was out of her reach), and only told her after I put a ring on it.
It worked, because I was able to fool my wife into bringing my dad to every game for the last decade or so (thanks to Lynch ridding the cart her first game), and my life has plenty of intellectual stimulation.
Because of his personality and work with Nukes, we always had a fully stocked and rotated fallout shelter ready to deploy. (Why not a bunker? Because we would only need it if the Soviets missed, a lot. If they didn't, a bunker wouldn't matter). Able to seal up the house, suits to go outside, food, water, fuel, and of course massive amounts of toilet paper, in every box, everywhere. My mom threw it away when getting ready for a remodel in late 2019. In March 2020, he just smiled and shrugged.
He got to go to the 2019 Big Game with his first grandson (6mths then), and close out his football experience with wins on TV over Furd and SC. His mind was going, so he was able to re experience finding out Cal beat Furd and USC several times, watching clips from both games, and watching a post USC game video I took for him.
He was reading California Math and Stanford Math publications in his last days, learning to the end. He had hoped to see the images of James Webb, but he knew it had unpacked and was on its way.
I love Cal because he loved Cal. I love the band because he loved the band. I stay to the last play because he was too depressed to stand up for The Play. I love campus because he loved campus. I love top dog because he loved top dog... And so on.
Go Bears!
He posted here, but as he aged, he mostly waited for me to come over and make me defend my opinion in my posts in person. "What's your evidence" must have been said to me at least once for every damn thing I ever said.
He took me to every home game for 30 something years, until I started taking him. His last game was the Redbox bowl in seats that were "too expensive" that my cousin (another Cal grad) and I conspired to buy for him and Gramps.
My dad started worked at Berkeley Labs, I can't recall when, but walking past Soda, he would often comment on the emergency response when they accidentally set off an alarm for the reactor under Etcheverry. My first binders were what held the calculations of trajectories for the first ballistic spy satellite coverage of the Soviets and the trajectories for our nukes, before we could guide them in space. Every few months he would tell us about some newly declassified thing he did decades ago. He spent most of career at LLNL doing whatever it was he did, leading his division.
My dad was nearly always the smartest person in the room (except when I was about 13 to 18, and he was the dumbest), regardless of where he was. The Pentagon, Langley, Capital, Lab etc. Always ahead of potential problems with potential solutions... but it bit him in the ass when he didn't realize that sometimes you have to actually put in the work and failed out of Cal and had to work his way back in.
His parents met at Cal. My parents met at Cal undergrad and grad. My uncle's went to Cal. My sister went to Cal (but I detoured to the Marines). My cousin iirc has the on base percentage record for Cal, playing shortstop and catcher before he coached for the bears. A few other cousins went to Cal. His brother did the seismic reports for the stadium rebuild... We are a Cal family if such a thing ever existed. All of our "Cal group" my whole life was his friends from school 60 years ago. They became my family as much as they were his. When I was late for ITB because of 9/11, it was that family that got me to Pendleton.
During high school, my dad got tickets for Rittenberg (the ESPN guy), who would always come to games with us, and watch away games at our house. My dad taught him what it meant to be a Cal fan when he jumped up to celebrate our win at WSU when we got to the two yard line an the snow. "It isnt over yet, Adam..."
My dad, since high school always joked "find yourself someone who has a graduate degree from Cal and keep them," bragging about my mom, "that will stimulate your mind and keep you happy." I met my wife in undergrad at Nevada and tricked her into applying at Cal (she was certain it was out of her reach), and only told her after I put a ring on it.
It worked, because I was able to fool my wife into bringing my dad to every game for the last decade or so (thanks to Lynch ridding the cart her first game), and my life has plenty of intellectual stimulation.
Because of his personality and work with Nukes, we always had a fully stocked and rotated fallout shelter ready to deploy. (Why not a bunker? Because we would only need it if the Soviets missed, a lot. If they didn't, a bunker wouldn't matter). Able to seal up the house, suits to go outside, food, water, fuel, and of course massive amounts of toilet paper, in every box, everywhere. My mom threw it away when getting ready for a remodel in late 2019. In March 2020, he just smiled and shrugged.
He got to go to the 2019 Big Game with his first grandson (6mths then), and close out his football experience with wins on TV over Furd and SC. His mind was going, so he was able to re experience finding out Cal beat Furd and USC several times, watching clips from both games, and watching a post USC game video I took for him.
He was reading California Math and Stanford Math publications in his last days, learning to the end. He had hoped to see the images of James Webb, but he knew it had unpacked and was on its way.
I love Cal because he loved Cal. I love the band because he loved the band. I stay to the last play because he was too depressed to stand up for The Play. I love campus because he loved campus. I love top dog because he loved top dog... And so on.
Go Bears!
