Hello, my name is Dale and I am the oldest son of Darrell Montgomery. We are gathered here to honor his life and memory as a husband, father, family member, coach, and friend. I think he would be a little embarrassed about us having all this fuss but that was a part of his charm.   

He has touched many of us through his acts of kindness and loyalty. It is cliché to say he would give you the shirt off of his back because he would just as easily give you his car if you needed it. His tools though that was kind of a different story. He always kept track of his tools because his occupation demanded it. He was a pipe fitter by trade and spent years of his life rising early in the morning to reach and work on job sites all over the san francisco bay area. He left his mark on many of the commercial buildings and high rises in the city. My stepmother tells a story of going on an early date with my father and driving by many buildings in the area to which my dad kept repeating " I sprinkled that building, and that building, I sprinkled that building etc" And she thought whatever is he talking about?  Well primarily my father worked in the fire sprinkler industry threading, bending, and hanging steel pipe to his will.  


Backtracking a little in the later 80s he met a young woman who was my grandmothers roommate at the time. This very church had brought them together. I remember that I was so jealous that I had to share my father with someone new but in time we became one family. I am so thankful for my step mother Diana's love, support,  and affection for my father. They made each other happy beyond belief. I hear he was pretty romantic too, as long as nobody else was watching.


  Darrell was an old fashioned soul who enjoyed telling a good tale even if you had long since fallen asleep. A few years ago he was my point man on a road trip to the Las Vegas area and boy let me tell you he did love a captive audience. He just talked and talked and talked. I think at some point he was discussing cloud formations as it relates to weather that affects small aircraft. I was reaching my limits of absorption so I decided to put in some ear buds and listen to some music. I think an album or two's time had passed and upon removing the ear buds he was still musing on about clouds and checking if I had been paying attention.   He loved spending time with family and making new friends. To him each new stranger was another friend to be.  I can remember as a kid being annoyed with his gift of the gab as he could talk to anyone he just met for hours. Just you get him started talking about those famous cloud formations, schedule 80 pipe, or his favorite sports teams and it could turn a trip to home depot into something along the lines of an extra innings baseball game.


  Speaking of baseball my father really loved the Giants. Many of my teenage memories are of spending evenings with him at candlestick park watching our Giants get oh so close to the big prize only to fall short time after time. I cherish those memories of time spent with him at the ballpark. As many of you know Darrell, Diana and I were at the 1989 San Francisco world series when the earthquake hit. It was a stressful and memorable time. There was panic and uncertainty all around. The game was cancelled and news was pouring in about fires and looting. We had to evacuate the ballpark and navigate a city that was in a black out. I considered it our own version of a movie like escape from San Francisco. My father was calm and collected and his knowledge of the streets and shortcuts around the city greatly helped us during that time.  


My father was someone who always tried to do the right thing. I remember traveling with him and my sister joy back from a family reunion in Washington state. We were fatigued from a long drive  so we stopped to eat at a fast food restaurant. I must have been 10 or 11 years old. An elderly man fell over to the floor from his seat in the restaurant and looked to be seriously ill. My dad rushed us out so we would not have to see it. But he went back in and checked on the man and wouldn't leave until the paramedics had arrived. Just an example of him always being there for someone in need even a stranger.  

In his younger years he was an athlete and high school sports star. I had often joked with him much to his approval that he had indeed served our country, he played high school football. Football's big when your from Texas or even Oroville for that matter. He was also a skier, racquet ball player, softball player, pilot, spear fisherman and abalone diver in his day. Always a thrill seeker and eager to share his experiences with others but I guess some of you might of called it boasting in good fun..   


In his later years I am so glad I got to spend time with him targeting shooting and riding quads at the R ranch. Two hobbies that gave him and me so much joy. As anyone that knows Montgomery's will tell you competitiveness is in our nature and it was always a game to see who could shoot the fastest or smallest groups or win the quad race down the trails. He really hated losing.

  Like my grand father before him he loved western movies, John Wayne, and the cowboy mystique. You can bet if there was an old western on TV my father would know which one it was and would stop what he was doing to sit down and watch it again. He believed in the good guys and loved watching those happy endings with the cowboy riding off into the sunset. In this new beginning Dad you are riding off in the sunset to the greenest of pastures as the tired and accomplished hero of our story. God bless you. We all love you so much.  

I will borrow one of his favorite phrases when a topic of discussion was ending  "But my point is"  "But my point is"  We will remember him for his dislike of spicy food, his goofy jokes, his big heart, his generosity and most of all his love of friends and family. May his cherished memory be with us always.

  I would like to close with a poem I found that feels appropriate to what my father taught by example. It has been told and retold by the likes of Herodotus, Teddy Rosevelt, and Col. Jeff Cooper.

To ride shoot straight and speak the truth,
this is the ancient law of youth,
old times are past, old days are done,
but the law runs true my little son.