Bragging Rights

Last week my brother Chris (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman) earned USC’s highest award for alumni accomplishment. My father, who is 87 years old, earned something as well: his diploma.

During World War II my father (Charles) was a USA senior preparing to graduate when duty called. On his graduation day in June 1943 he was on a shipboard headed for the Philippines, where he joined allied forces in Operation Cartwheel, aimed at isolating the major Japanese base in New Guinea. My father never received his diploma.

So, before presenting the university’s highest award for alumni achievement, USC President Steven B. Sample surprised an audience of nearly 550 and honored my father with the diploma. Something my father had waited 63 years for.

To roaring applause and a standing ovation, Sample handed my father the leather case.

And then something funny happened.

When my father opened the sophisticated leather case, it didn’t contain the diploma. It held a letter congratulating and honoring him with the leather case, the actual diploma would arrive “soon.”

My father raised one eyebrow, turned the case around for President Sample to read. President Sample read it out loud, laughed and said, “63 years and a couple of weeks.”

You can’t write this stuff.

Needless to say, I’m proud of Chris for earning such a great award. He’s an amazing man. But I’m especially proud of the fact that he made “His” night about my father, who obviously stole the show. Tears, laughter, applause…
Good stuff. The stuff memories are made of.

My father has Alzheimer’s and probably doesn’t remember the night. But he was there, in the moment and enjoying every bit of it.

So, each day I’m with my father, I show him the case and retell the story. And he gets to live it again.

In a world of MTV, a psycho- prostitute- soliciting- Governor, and Middle East extremists who hate America, I find this reassuring. There are good people in this world. And they are in my family.