On March 24th my father passed away. At his request instead of mourning him, we had a ceremony to celebrate his life. This was the speech I gave at the ceremony. Hopefully it will give some of you a little insight at what a wonderful man he was.
Hello, my name is Victor Norbert Duepner, and besides my middle name there are a few thing I inherited from my father. A slightly larger than average nose, a slightly smaller than average chin, that's why we are both fans of the beard, a receiding hairline. Although, there we differ. He looked good and made his work were I said "Oh, so you want to recede do you? Nyum nyum!" (sound effect of electric razor)
He also had two quirks. My sister inherited one, which is when they clean their right ear with a Q-tip, they both cough. The one I inherited, and both my children have, is that if we are somewhere were it is dark, and we come out to a bright light, like the sun, it makes us sneeze. Not a bunch of times, just once.
The main thing I inherited from him, which my daughter Dulcinea can attest to is his "corny-ness gene". Her father, just like mine, has a corny sense of humor.
The first night we arrived here I saw her looking thru her suitcase. "What are you looking for?" I asked. "The charger to my phone". Without hesitation I said "Now that we're here, I guess that makes it a San Diego Charger" and I realized that's the kind of thing Dad would have said .
I remember one time when we lived in Missouri, I was eating breakfast and my Dad was looking out our backdoor into the back yard. "Come here son" he whispered. "What is it Dad" "See over there? That rabbit in the back yard?" "Yes" I said. "Doesn't it look like he's eating something?" "Yes" I said with intrigue. Then he yelled out "Are you eating Bugs Bunny?" and we both proceeded to laugh our heads off.
Another thing I remember about growing up is that sometimes we would have a game night and many times we would play password. It was usually boys against the girls, so the teams were my Mom and Julie against my Dad and me. Many of you know my Dad was a man of few words, but he knew how to make them count. I remember one particular game, the password was "canoe". My mom gave the clue "boat' "ship" Julie guessed. Now it was our turn. My dad used the same clue, but he also used his fingers to make Indian feathers. "Boat" he said, with the non-verbal Indian clue added, it was obvious it was canoe. My mom and Julie accussed us of cheating, but we won.
The other thing about playing Password with my dad was that if I got the clue right, he would say "Yes" or "That's right" or something similar. If I got the clue wrong, on the other hand, he wouldn't say anything. He would just do what I came to describe as his "suck lemon face". Say for example the password was "grape", if he said "purple" and I said "Pimpernel" he would go (demonstrate suck lemon face).
Many people claim to have memories of a being a baby in a crib. Others claim to have memories from the womb. From the time I was born, I don't remember anything prior to Kindergarden. I do however have a memory from before I was born. God came to me and told me I was to be blessed. That I was to be born to wonderful parents, Norb and Leti Duepner who would be the best parents anyone could ask for, and that I would also have a fantastic sister named Julie who would look after me and protect me. Then he said that he would like to give me a gift. He said I could choose between having the most fantastic memory, to be able to remember everything having only seen it once, or he could make me a terrific lover. You know, I can't remember why I started telling you this story,
The one thing I didn't inherit from my dad was his genius as a metallurgist. I couldn't tell you the difference between silver and platinum. They both look the same to me. I know gold, that's the yellow one. I don't know anything about alloys except that if Iron Man and the Silver Surfer teamed up together, they would be alloys (allies). That's the kind of joke my dad would like.
Besides being funny, he was a great dad. Many boys when they are little have teddy bears. My son still kept his, his name is Rudolph. The bear, not my son. My son's name is Darian. My favorite stuffed animal growing up was a lion. His name was Lion. I'm not sure how I came up with the name. Of course being little, I called him "my liron". One day when I was in Kindergarden, they had show and tell in school. What a treat it was for me, I could bring my liron, my buddy to school and tell everyone how he was my friend and protector. So I did. Then it came time to go out and play, time to go home, time for dinner, watch TV and then time for bed. Where's my liron? Oh no, Ieft him at school! How could I sleep without my liron? He guarded me while I slept. He made sure the monsters stayed under the bed and in the closet so I could sleep safely. I felt afraid, so I started to cry. My mom and dad asked what was wrong, so i told them. My dad asked me if I knew where in the school I had left him. I told him I did, so at night, in the dark, when the school was closed, my dad took me to that school, and convinced the night watchman, who only spoke Spanish because this happened in Mexico, to let us in so I could get my liron. I went home and was able to sleep well knowing I had my protector. Years later I realized that I had many nights of restful sleep because I had my protector, but it wasn't my liron...it was my dad. Love you Dad!