Rodney C. Hineline Eulogy

Originally posted on http://www.people.ku.edu/~tkrieshok/rodeulogy.htm

August 11, 1928 – December 6, 2008

My name is Tom Krieshok, and Rod Hineline was my father-in-law. Over the last couple days the Hineline family sat around and re-told countless stories of Rod, his life, and the wonderful world he knew and helped create around him.

Rod was born in DeSoto Nebraska, but grew up and claimed Blair as his hometown. His parents, Clifford and Florence had three sons, Leland (who went by Buzz), Gary (who went by G) and Rod (who went by Rod). The boys were raised on a farm in a time and place where there was little, but little seemed to be enough. Perhaps it was that upbringing that gave Rod his unusually optimistic and grateful outlook on life. As a youngster he went to school in a classic one-room school house that held all 8 grades in one room. When he got to Blair high school, he was noted for his athletic abilities, including baseball and football (where he played center at a mammoth 150 pounds). This past year, as he was doing a lot of reflecting on his life, he pulled his oldest son Rodney aside and reminded him 'I was pretty fast you know'.

His love of sports lasted throughout his lifetime. He continued to play ball for years, and beyond that he coached Rodney and Terry in baseball and fast pitch softball. He was quite the bowler until his back started giving him trouble. But instead of sitting around complaining about his back, he went out and created a new sports passion for himself, golf. And what a passion it became. Golf was a window not only into decades of outdoor exercise, but more importantly, it was an opportunity for him to make and stay connected to some of the best friends he had in his life.

Throughout their youth, Rodney and Terry had access to their dad as coach, somebody to play catch with, and somebody to hit balls at. Terry says he can't remember a time when his dad refused to go out and play catch with him or throw batting practice to him.

After high school he enlisted in the Naval Coast Guard, another part of his life about which he was very proud. He was a radio man up in Alaska, and his claim to fame was that he never got seasick. No matter that his ship was being tossed and rolled, and his body was being smashed from wall to wall in the closet of a radio room, he never got sick. All of his fellow radio men got sick from time to time and he had to cover for them, so that every time they pulled into port he would have days off to go ashore and enjoy some r and r while they had to pay him back for covering their shifts.

Dorothy Grim grew up in Omaha, and her mom had always told her to stay away from the gypsy woman who lived down the street. But, one day Dorothy and a friend wandered down the street to visit the woman. The gypsy lady told Dorothy that she would meet and marry a man who was at that moment on a boat. Dorothy had grown up in Omaha, in Nebraska, in the Midwest, where there just aren't that many boats, and Dorothy had no intention of moving from Omaha, Nebraska to a place where there were many boats. Remember that at the same time, Rod was in the Coast Guard off the shore of Alaska. Shortly after he got out of the service, he was home in Omaha hanging out with one of his friends who introduced him to Dorothy Grim. Three months after Dorothy and Rod met, they were married, and earlier this year, on Rod's 80th birthday, they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

Rod worked for Roberts Dairy for a number of years, getting up early to run routes might have felt normal to him after growing up on the farm in Blair. He would rise at 3:00 in the morning, and Dorothy would make him breakfast, pack his lunch, and get him out the door. The kids remember the great Roberts Christmas parties, with carols, gifts, and even Santa Claus.

But it didn't take him long to find his eventual niche at work, when he became an agent for State Farm Insurance. He loved being an agent, and he loved working for State Farm. Several of Rod's good friends at Roberts eventually were his good friends at State Farm, many of those to this day. Those serving as pall bearers today are counted among Rod's very best friends, many of whom worked with him at State Farm, and a couple of whom will be speaking here after me. Even in retirement, Rod was able to combine two of his greatest passions, golf and his State Farm buddies, as they hosted an annual golf outing up in Minnesota. This year was the first time he missed that outing.

Rod loved to rise to meet a challenge, at work or at home. One year he and Dorothy decided to take the three kids and the family dog on a little vacation, from Omaha to California, then up to Washington to see his parents, and back through Montana to visit friends. Did I say they did this in a Ford Falcon, with no air conditioning? Did I say that for much of the trip Peggy and Terry would hit each other and insist that the other started it by crossing over the imaginary line drawn somewhere a third of the way across the back seat of the Falcon? Did I say that the kids remember this as the best vacation they had ever had?

Part of the way Rod would face a challenge was by organizing. His attention to detail is legendary, again both at work and at home. When Terry was finally ready to learn how to bowl, a moment he had been waiting for for quite some time, Rod had him go to the desk to rent his shoes, pick out his ball, go to the lane and get set up, and just at the moment when Terry was ready for his first lesson, Rod delivered that first lesson by marching him to the men's room and instructing him that when you bowl, you never use the urinal, but instead use the toilet, as guys have a tendency to be rather messy when using the urinal, and the undesirable liquids you accumulate on the bottoms of your bowling shoes will not allow you the proper sliding technique. Lesson 1 complete. Next lesson.

His ability to organize came in handy a couple years ago when Peggy talked him into making a DVD detailing the family history. He threw himself into the project like a man possessed. Whenever we would take out a batch of old photographs, it was remarkable how much he could remember about each person in each photo. He organized a great many of the family photos and selected those that would allow him to tell the Hineline story from as far back as history would allow. Just a few weeks ago when he asked me if I would be willing to speak at his funeral, he wanted me to be sure to say that anyone who wanted a copy of that DVD could have one, so for those who are interested, let me know, and I can get that DVD Hineline history to you. It really is quite well done.

His ability to organize carried over to most everything he did. While he excelled as a State Farm agent, enjoyed playing golf, and dearly loved the neighborhood in which he lived, he always gave back to the groups that had given him so much. He became a manager for State Farm, he served on the board of directors for the neighborhood association, and he organized senior golf tournaments around the state. He is a good model of what it means to give back to the community, putting his skills to work not just for his family, but for his larger family as well. I know that many of those from the neighborhood are here today, and you should know how deeply Rod felt about living among people he considered his great friends.

There were lots of other things that Rod loved:

• The Cubs...most of the time. Shortly after Lori and Terry were married they took a trip with Rod and Dorothy up to Chicago to catch a Cubs game. They got off to an interesting start as for some reason Rod kept refusing to stop for gas, against the recommendations of Terry and Dorothy. In the end, they had to stop on a county road to beg gas from a farmer.
• Nebraska football. He was especially proud that one of his nephews (Curt) played for the Huskers.
• Nebraska basketball. While his love for it paled in comparison to his love for Nebraska football, he did enjoy coming to visit Peggy, me, and the kids, and we would take him and Dorothy to Lawrence to see Nebraska play Kansas. On one trip a few years ago, they came within one last second shot of upsetting those Jayhawks.
• Actually he could watch and enjoy most any sporting event. One of his grandson Ryan's favorite memories is sitting on the couch with Grandpa in his chair, the two of them watching not one but two TVs, both showing sporting events. Ryan remembers thinking the idea was pure genius, and now that he has a job, has been talking quite a bit about which TV set he will buy to sit next to his main TV to get maximum sporting entertainment.
• Peggy remembers a similar scene, perhaps after the kids were in bed, of Rod watching two TVs, with one still on a sporting event, but the other tuned in to CNN or Fox, with Rod keeping up with the events of the day. He was always very well informed, and into the evening, he and Peggy enjoyed respectful debates about the state of world politics.
• his brothers and his brother-in-law. He always had a fierce loyalty to Buzz and G. and Vearn; their wives, Mary, Shirley, and Lucy; and to their families, all his nieces and nephews whom he loved to tell stories about to all of us in the immediate family.
• his grandchildren, Julie, Amy, Lindsay, Abby, Mitch, Brett, Ryan, Benj, Aaron, and Gabe. His attention and devotion to his grandchildren seemed boundless.
• his dogs, Muffy and more recently Rusty
• big family get togethers, often with Rodney's wife Terri's family, the Caccachios, where Rod and Dorothy rarely missed a birthday, baptism dance recital'
• eating sweets, especially ice cream. The kids remember many trips to Irvington for great ice cream. I remember many nights spent at the Hinelines when just before bed I would get talked into a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce all over it. Mmmmmm.
• Mitch's baseball games...almost every one of them. Even in the last year, after fighting through lung cancer, he would carry his lawn chair for awhile toward the stands, and when he got tired, would open it and rest a few minutes, then get up , fold up the chair, and continue on his way to the stands.
• music. Peggy remembers him always listening to the radio and whistling in perfect pitch to the songs. He and I, while driving around often in route to pick up doughnuts, would listen to the AM station 1490 and have a friendly competition about what the name of the songs and the artists were of every song that was played.
• golf with his grandsons.
• golf with his grand sons-in-law.
• golf with pretty much anyone.
• the 15 hole at Oak Hills country club. As far as he knew, he was the only person to get two holes in one on the same hole at Oak Hills, and it was the 15. He owned that hole, he was king of the 15.
• his hair. One of the few times I did hear him complain was between chemotherapy treatments. He had lost his hair, but it was coming back in. But while his original hair had been a consistent black, his re-grown hair had some brown in it, even some grey. and it didn't grow forward like his original hair, but fell down flat. I made him stop and look at my head. I said, 'Rod, you have hair'.

After being free of cancer for 5 years, it returned earlier this year in the form of liver cancer, then later as brain cancer. He knew early on that things didn't look good, but he had the best attitude. He would say, the last 5 years since I beat the lung cancer have been like a gift. I have been grateful for every day, and I wouldn't do a thing differently in my life. I am a very lucky man, he would say, I have no regrets. He was, in death, as he was in life, very well prepared.

So what do I want to make sure you remember about Rod Hineline?

People were drawn to Rod because he was unusually easy to like. They were drawn to him because they could tell right away that he was a genuinely good and decent person, someone they could trust. Two weeks ago, when Terry and Lori took Rod to the hospital, Dorothy talked to Lori at length about what a good husband and provider Rod had always been, and how good he had always been to her.

I want to close by reading part of an email sent to me by my son Gabe, who is in the Peace Corps in Madagascar and cannot be here today. After remembering a couple of personal stories, he writes, 'What sticks out isn't specific stories or anecdotes, but the years and years of warmth that he offered. When we (my brothers Benj, Aaron, and I) became members of the Hineline clan, Grandma and Grandpa didn't miss a beat in welcoming us into the fold with open arms. Holidays and weddings in Omaha (and once in Florida!) were celebrated occasions for me, punctuated by the ritualistic Nebraska Huskers game on TV and the extreme coolness of a golf hole in the basement where we kids practiced our short game (mostly swinging clubs at each other).'

Gabe continues, 'I wish I could have known him better, as most kids and grandkids would say, and I wish that he could have been around forever to see the continued growth and success of his family. He was a man of solid character, and utmost respect. One could be in awe of him, if he hadn't had such a disarming and amiable personality. His great loves of Golf, College Football, Family, and Friends (not sure about the order) were supreme, and reminded all of us that the secret to a happy and fulfilling life need not be complicated nor secret at all, but as pure as a Sunday afternoon tee-off and as genuine as family around a warm meal.'

He concludes, 'I mourn for the loss of Rodney Hineline, even if he was the kind of guy that wouldn't want you making such a fuss. Loving friend, husband, father, and because his inviting hug and attention removed the word 'step-' from his title, my Grandfather.'

I have heard my wife, Peggy, Rod's daughter, say countless times that she wanted to be 'like my Dad'. He was her hero. I am sure that the rest of his family and many of his friends had the same sentiments. He was a role model to us all with his kindness and generosity, his competency, his steadfastness in always 'being there', giving his family the sense of security that provides the foundation to his loved ones to be the best that they can be, and to his passion for life.

Today we celebrate your life Rodney Hineline.