"The Best Man I Ever Knew"

The night before his eightieth birthday, Papa holds little Matthew Sterling Haeberle.

Theodore Roosevelt called his father "the best man I ever knew." That's a big statment coming from anyone. After all, we get to know a lot of people as our lives go by. And TR got to know more people than does the average person. He met thousands of ordinary Americans, for some of whom he seemed to feel great respect, such as cowboys and soldiers, football players and manual laborers. He knew literally all the great leaders of his time, not only in the USA but in Europe and much of Africa as well. He got the Nobel Prize for peace for brokering a cease-fire between the Tsar and the Emperor in the Russo-Japanese war of 1907. He got along well with some of them, but found most monarchs self-centered and out of touch with the realities of the world.

He actually said of Wilhelm II of Germany, "I found his point of view very sordid." That means low and dirty and even filthy. To say that about any emperor would take a lot of courage, but then TR was filled with that. To say it about Kaiser Bill was almost a prophecy of what would happen four years later when Worl War I would break out, an event for which many people felt Germany, and especially the Kaiser, should bear the brunt of the blame. Actually placing that blame on Germany in the 1919 Versailees Treaty and forcing her to pay restitution while struggling to rebuild after the war only further enraged the defeated German people, leaving them ripe to fall into the clutches of someone who said what they wanted to hear. And when he said it, they followed. But that's the story of World War Two.

My point here is that TR said the words in tonight's title about his father. He had known many people in academia, business, government, sports, entertainment, and in the hunting fields of at least two continents. He was friends with those he admired. He thought a great deal of Ernest Thompson Seton, the great artist,naturalist, and author, who helped found the Boy Scouts in this country. Muir, the savior of the woods, was a close friend of TR's. But it was his own father that he admired the most.

I bring this up so as to be taken seriously when I proclaim here for all the world to know that my father is the best man I've ever known. I've felt that way most of my life. His father died when my father was two. He admits to trying his beloved mother terribly at times, along with his brother, Herman, who was even wilder. Once, at age 12 or so, my father hopped a freight train and rode it to the state capital just to see what it was like. His frantic mother may never have fully recovered from that one. He has often expressed to me his regrets at the worries and trials his youth brought to his poor, widowed mother.

He served 8 years in our country's Navy. He loved being a salt water sailor and would have stayed in until retirement, but his in-laws talked him into getting out at the end of his second hitch. He tried broadcasting. His manager told him that if he couldn't lose the country boy accent he would never make it in the business. But he overcame that and went on to be the best-sounding announcer I've ever heard. I still judge announcers by him. He was a broadcaster for more than forty years.

He joined his good wife in accepting the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Together they've served faithfully in that Church since 1959. Impressive number, eh? They have raised their children to received testimonies of the truth of the Church. All their sons were missionaries. All their married children were sealed in the temple. He still loves to serve in the temple and in the genealogy library.

And now he's in the hospital with pneumonia. Nothing in this life scares me more that his mortality. I feel that, when he goes, I will break and be unable to function any more. But I kept on going after Shayne was taken, albeit in blind, painful, and confused ways. I suppose it'll be like that again. I hope it doesn't happen soon. There are still so many things to say to him, every one of which, in essence, means "I love you."

Here are some shots of the canoe trip we took together one day maybe 15 years ago or more. There are many experiences I have wanted to have with my parents. This was one we actually got done.