Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979)

Now I didn't come to The Poseidon Adventure until relatively recently (about four years ago) but in the time since I first saw that film it has taken on a near sacred quality to me, being close to the platonic ideal for a film of its type. Almost everything about that film is perfect, the pacing, the effects, the sets, the casting, the characters, it works on just about every level, it ranks alongside San Francisco (1936) as one of the two greatest "disaster movies" of all time. Now that's a lot to live up to, but The Poseidon Adventure isn't the kind of movie that leans itself to a sequel, so its not something anyone should really ever have to worry about. Ahh, but Irwin Allen, he couldn't help himself, in fact it was all foreshadowed in the originals hit song, "There's got to be a morning after", and this is it.

The only thing that really ties this film to the original, that references it at all, other then the ship, is a brief flyby of a rescue copter presumably taking the survivors of the first film to safety. It is glimpsed by the three man (or two man and one women) crew (Michael Caine, Karl Malden, and Sally Field) of a tug boat that somehow survived the massive tidal wave that capsized the titular luxury liner. Anyway the tug, named Jenny (not a Forrest Gump reference) didn't go completely unscathed, it lost the cargo it was carrying and as a result the ships captain and owner Mike Turner (Caine) will probably lose his strangely beloved craft to the bankers. That is until the crew realizes what happened to the Poseidon, they hurry to the upturned vessel in the hope of obtaining some of its doubtlessly valuable cargo under rights of maritime salvage, and maybe save some survivors while they are at it.

 

When Jenny makes it to the big boat they are met by another vessel captained by Telly Savalas. Savalas character Dr. Stefan Svevo claims to be part of a Greek Orthodox affiliated rescue mission, though being Telly Savalas, and given that he's dressed like a yachtsman, has a too fancy looking boat and a team of black outfitted henchman, I wouldn't be so sure. Anyway the two groups decide to team up to look for survivors and loot, they find both, including a blind Jack Warden and wine coinsure Slim Pickens, among others, as well as enough gold from the pursers office to ensure that Mike keeps the Jenny, and that Karl Malden get the surgery he needs for the unspecified illness he's been poorly trying to hide.

 

Anyway all turns out to not be well as  Dr. Svevo is in fact after something mysterious on the boat, which turns out to be plutonium, which is plain ridiculous. Svevo and his men get in gunfight with Turner, crew and the survivors, a shoot out not being something I had expected to see in this movie. Turner and company now must escape the still sinking ship, because in case you forgot it's still sinking, this movie seems to forget that at times, they were racing against the clock in the first film, while in this movie the boat only seems to take on water at random intervals. Anyway the group must escape and make it back to the Jenny, and a few must die in the process of doing so, you know so it means something, and Field and Caine must realize they really love each other. This is a ridiculous movie, so much talent in the cast, yet none of it on display, its pretty much a waist, as has been every other attempt I've seen to try and recapture the magic of the original Poseidon Adventure, I guess sometimes title wave only strikes once. * 1/2

The Poseidon Explosion (1975)

Finally I make it back to the Grindhouse film set. A vessel of Panamanian registry, in an Italian canal, is loaded with fertilizer, diesel fuel and air canisters, and also happens to be on fire. This of course presents an obvious problem, and naval officers, dock workers, and members of a wedding party (seriously) must do their best to prevent the inevitable explosion from leveling a nearby town. The movie spends so much time following city officials reacting to the crises and debating wether or not to evacuate the town, that the story started to feel like it would be more interesting as an episode of Frontline, then the not-quite suspense movie about crises management it ultimately is. In fact you could make an episode of Frontline out of this I suppose, because it turns out (thank you end credits roll) that this story actually happened, only they changed the name of the explosive boat to Poseidon, presumably to capitalize off the popularity of the far superior 1972 adventure film from producer Irwin Allen. This flick is so dry and uncompeling (it really shouldn’t be, I mean a huge boat could explode at any moment) that I read through most of it, a failure as entertainment. Grade: F.

Poseidon (2006)

Weak re-make of the great 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure. This film is hardly worth talking about, an unnecessary and unimaginative, occasionally ridicules re-rending of its iconic predecessor. The characters are not that same as in the original film, but they are stock, and worst of all I didn't care about them. The special effects are largely CG, and not top of the line CG at that. I'm sorry but the film can't work with fake water and a fake ship, its the physicality of the original that lent it such verisimilitude. Anyway don't wast your time. *1/2

When Time Ran Out (1980)

Irwin Allen is generally credited with ushering in the 1970's disaster film craze with the iconic 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure (though a case could be made for the 1970 film Airport being the true origin point of this phenomena). Lesser known however is the fact that it was also an Irwin Allen film, When Time Ran Out (produced by Allen but directed by James Goldstone) that pretty well spelled the death of the disaster film as a successful Hollywood genera until the mid 1990's. People say terrible things about When Time Ran Out, and while I'll admit that the featured volcano is far from credible, I really didn't think it was that bad of a film. I mean its a clichéd film, we've all seen everything it does done better, the love triangles, the Love Boat- esque studding of the film with fading stars, the mass death of extras (note to bit players in disaster films, when the cast starts to divide into two groups, always follow the group with the most big name actors in it, you'll be more likely to survive that way), but I didn't think anything in this film was really bad by genera standards, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure was way worse.

For what it is When Time Ran Out is a serviceable film, which had it come out two years earlier then it did would probably have been a big hit (in reality though the film grossed a little under four million dollars on a twenty million dollar budget). I think the problem was that the market had been saturated by this kind of production for too long, and this movie just happened to be the one released as audience interest for this type of fair plummeted. The movie has workable if paint by numbers drama (two love triangles, a major authority figure who refuses to see the danger of the smoking volcano ect) as well as the kind of cheese and hackneyed writing that is a guilty pleasure, like how Burgess Meredith is introduces as a retired hire wire artist and you just spend the film waiting for a circumstance to develop where his hire wire skills are going to prove essential. So I think this can be appreciated at least as b movie, it doesn't do anything great, but it doesn't do anything completely terrible either. **

San Andreas (2015)

My late father just loved disaster movies and as a result I've developed quite a fondness for the genera as well. In his tribute my mother and I went and saw this movie and we both quite enjoyed it, it does what it set out to do and does it pretty well, an old fashioned disaster outing. That being said one of the reasons I like disaster films are their cliches, and San Andreas is a beautiful monument of cliches, I will now list as many as I can think of at this moment:

The main character Chief Raymond "Ray" Gaines (played suitably by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) works in a field that could have relevance to the disaster (helicopter based rescue for the L.A. Fire Department) and he's really good at it (they have him conduct a teaser rescue at the beginning of the film to show just how good his character is at his job before the real action starts).  Ray has lost a family member (his daughter) and blames himself for not being able to save her (she drowned on a river rafting trip with him).  Ray doesn't like to talk about his pain, this puts stress on his marriage, so his wife Emma (Carla Gugino, who I honestly think looks even better now then she did in her twenty's) is divorcing him. 

Emma has hooked up with a rich developer dick played by Ioan Gruffudd. Ioan takes Ray's other and requisite hot daughter (Alexandra Daddario) with him to San Francisco, though he'd never 'want to replace what you and your father have'. When the (first) earthquake hits Ioan quickly proves himself useless and abandons Alexandra. Luckily Alexandra had just meet cute with aspiring young British architect Hugo Johnstone-Burt and his adorable younger brother Ollie (Art Parkinson), they manage to save her and eventually get her in contact with her dad who basically steals a helicopter and heads up to San Fran to save his surviving daughter, after first saving his estranged wife from off an office tower that is in danger of collapsing.

So there is couple A's journey to and subsequent search of San Fran for there daughter, who forms couple B with Hugo because of course they fall for each other. Ollie has a handy guide book to help in getting around the city as his brother was planing to show him the town, good thing Ollie didn't just download an App for that purpose like most every kid would do now days. Ray and Emma save a few people along the way but mostly this is about saving daughter and (as a consequence) daughters new friends, and surprise couple A's marriage. Daughter of course must end up very close to death at a point at which her father can save her, from drowning no less, in obvious reference to dead sister.

All this is not to mention the B plot of scientist (Paul Giamatti, Yea) who is obsessed with predicting earthquakes and manages to perfect his method just in time for the big one (though of course a close associate of his dies in the process, saving a little girl no less). In a slight departure its not so much that no on will listen to Dr. Giamatti as that he is cut off from being able to get the word out that Big Quake #2 is coming and will be even worse then Big Quake #1 because said Big Quake #1  has disabled most available communications. Good thing Dr. G. just happened to have a visiting reporter on hand at his lab (Archie Panjabi) when disaster struck.

So San Andreas is predictable fair holding few if any surprises, but it hits the high points of its paint by numbers structure well enough for me to enjoy it. One thing that I particularly liked about it is that it wasn't the whole world that was in danger, mostly just California, there has been a lot of disaster movie scope inflation over the years so a few mere 9. something earthquakes seem almost calm in compassion to the world wide disasters of Roland Emmerich and company. Maybe I shouldn't but I liked San Andreas for being what it is. ***

See Also: The Great Los Angles Earthquake, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, San Francisco, Volcano, Independence Day, The Poseidon Adventure, 2012, the complete works of Irwin Allen and Roland Emmerich ect. all.

Earthquake 7.9 (1980)

aka Megaforce 7.9

From the Grindhouse set. A Japanese geologist is confident that a major earthquake is going to strike Tokyo, only various bureaucracies won’t listen until its too late. The disaster strikes just as our geologist hero is grappling with a major ‘shakeup’ in his own personal life, and must chose between his semi-estranged wife and the co-worker who loves him. A lot is made of Japanese concepts of family loyalty and ‘the right way to do things’ against which an individual with vision is nearly as powerless as he is against nature itself. The earthquake in my opinion seems far in excess of the 7.9 richter rating in the amount of damage it does. The movie actually compares fairly well to the disaster films of the time from which it takes its inspiration. In fact towards the end of the film, when the storyline splits in two, you have homages to Irwin Allen classics The Poseidon Adventure (the group trapped in the flooding subway tunnel), and The Towering Inferno (reporter attempts to save love interest from her burning and collapsing building). The very last few shots of the film may even be taken from the end of San Francisco (1936), only without the payoff of seeing the whole of the city in ruin. This grew on me. Grade: C

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Survivors on a capsized ocean liner race against time and their sinking vessel in this nautical entry from the Irwin Allen disaster cycle of the 1970s. Even though this has got to be one of my dad’s favorite movies, I’d never seen it in its entirety, only a few bits and pieces mainly towards the end. This is an exciting movie, there’s a well maintained and genuine sense of tension throughout, the human crowd reaction to disasters is always fascinating, and I was genuinely surprised to see who lived and who died. The cast of then largely second string or ‘has been’ actors (with the notable exception of Gene Hackman), plus the setting can’t help but remind one of the Love Boat, but Titanic would doubtless be a better mark for comparison. Got to say that I liked that the films most heroic characters were an elderly Jewish lady (Shelly Winters) and a radical (in the best sense of the word) preacher (Hackman’s great as this hardline variation on William Sloan Coffin). A surprisingly compact film at just under two hours, I think this running time helps the pace vis-a-ve The Towering Inferno, that pluse more of a sense of realism makes me like this film more. 4 out of 5.

The Million Pound Note (1954)

'The Million Pound Note' is an adaptation of the 1893 Mark Twain short story 'The Million Pound Bank Note' and directed by the prolific Ronald Neame ('The Man Who Never Was', 'Scrooge', 'The Prime of Miss Jane Brodie', 'The Poseidon Adventure'). A precursor to 'Trading Places' the story hinges on a bet between two wealthy English brothers on wither or not they can pass a poor American off as a millionaire. Said American is played by Gregory Peck, his love interest by Jane Griffiths, everyone here does a passable job but there are no stand out performances. At first the movie is largely the same gage repeated, people assume Peck is a dead beat until he shows them the titular million pound note, part of the bet he reluctantly enters into is that if doesn't cash it within a month the rich brothers will give him any job he wants. So Peck finds that the impression of wealth can get you all sorts of free benefits, until it doesn't. A fair outing but nothing exceptional. **

My dad's life sketch, yes I realize I switched formats half-way through.

Stephen Brent Dredge was born August 23rd, 1951 to Nathan Edward and Helen Margret Ivey Dredge in Wendell Idaho.
In his early years my dads father was a sheep rancher and the family moved around southern Idaho a lot, but Nathan went to night school in engineering and eventually got a job with the Highway Department and the family moved permanently to Pocatello.

Stephen had three brothers and there sisters. Anita, Andrew, Cheryl, Terrance, Mary and Wilford. Dad was the 5th of the seven.

Stephen was a quite kid but he was also very curious.

As a little boy he used to collect things, kind of random things, and put them in his pockets. Rocks, nails, bolts, beetles the occasional frog. It got to the point that it made his mother nervous when she had to empty his pockets for laundry.

Because he came from a large family the Dredges always had station wagons, so a sedan with an open trunk was a novelty worthy of being explored. On one trip, while stopped for gas, Stephen crawled into the trunk of a neighboring vehicle whose owners didn't notice and closed the lid on him. After his family figured out what had happened the owner of the gas station knew the owner of the car and the police were called to track the vehicle down and retrieve him.

One can image that scene, the officer, 'we think you have a small boy in your trunk', 'no we don't', 'lets open it and see', the cars owner was shocked, but Stephen was apparently quite calm.

In a large family there is a lot of teasing going on, and while he was low on the totem pole Stephen could give as good as he got. When his dad took the family to the movies each of the kids when get a cowtail, a chewy candy that would generally last one through the movie. Stephen was a natural when it came to rationing, so he would save most of his cowtail, and make a point the next day to be seen eating it front of his siblings who had already consumed there's. He did the same thing with Halloween candy.

He could be frustratingly slow when ordering ice cream, he didn't get it that often and he wanted to make sure he made the right choice when the family went out to get some. He actually kept this indecisiveness in ordering food his whole life, he was always the last person to order at a restaurant.

One day Stephen came out of the bathroom discoursing at length about the tooth past he'd just used. That was weird toothpaste, there was just something real funny about it, what a unique taste. Upon going into the bathroom to investigate his siblings found a tube of brill cream with the cap removed. He was just teasing.

During the summers Stephen would move pipe for money and was obliged by his parents to set some of it aside for school and some for clothing. He hated to shop and he wouldn't spend any money on clothes until his mother dragged him to the store. Some things never changed.

In high school Stephen was in a bad car accident, one that got his fathers auto insurance canceled. He rolled his vehicle, which was full of his friends and several of them were thrown clean from the car, but one had to have a metal plate put in his head. It was because of this incident that he could never quite get angry at me for any car accident I got into.

Stephen Graduated from Pocatello High School with the class of 1970.

After graduation he served for two years in the Indiana-Michigan Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1970-1972. He never talked much about his mission but he always know the area geography really well, and more then a decade ago he was contacted by a woman he'd taught who wanted to let him know that her oldest son had received his mission call.

Shortly after returning home from his mission Stephen's father Nathan died of cancer. This was very hard on Stephen, who very much loved his father and would go on to name me after him. The hymn 'Oh My Father' was played at Nathans funeral and my mom recalls that very early in their relationship my dad expressing his wish that that hymn be played at his funeral, which it will be today. Even just one day before he died when he was gathered with family arranging his mothers funeral Stephen re-iterated that request.

Stephen had no definitive plans about what he was going to do, school and career wise after he returned from his mission. He would receive a little money as a death benefit from his fathers passing, and his mother had noticed in the newspaper that there was a new votch program in microchip design at Idaho State University, and suggested that he should check it out. He did, and would go on to work in the industry for the next four decades.

As the industry was so new Stephen was prepared to work in it full time after only a semester of course work. He took a job in California working for AMI.

Stephen met my mother Janile at a youth fireside in December of 1973. She had decided to take a semester off from BYU to earn money and the two started dating in March of 74, by May my dad was sufficiently solid on my mom that he asked her to marry him, as he would say ' I had to keep her from going back to BYU'. They were married on September 14th, 1974 in the Idaho Falls temple.

As my father and mother we preparing to get married my mothers parents were in the midst of a rather unharmonious divorce, they agreed however to set differences aside for a night to take Stephen and Janile out to eat on the fisherman's warf in Santa Cruz, something that had always been a treat for my mother growing up. Now dad was a beef eater from eastern Idaho, his experience with sea food was limited. But it was important to impress my mom so when she suggested they split a crab louie (a kind of crab and shrimp salad) he agreed. ... Green is apparently a hue that human skin is capable of taking, and my dad did that night.

The wedding reception had a bit of a miss-hap, the cake didn't arrive, so there are pictures from the wedding of my parents cutting a sweet tart pastry, a short notice cake substitute.

After the honey moon my parents settled into the routines of married life, my father moved on to a job with National Semi-Conductor, and my mother worked as a secretary for the Stanford Research Institute.

It took them a while to have kids, but eventually I came along, canceling a planed trip to Hawaii that never got rescheduled, Sorry mom.

Shortly after my birth our family moved to South Jordan, Utah when my dad was transferred by his company.

Perhaps my first memory was of my father. I think I was around 3 and we were at a ward Easter egg hunt, my father spotted an Easter egg hidden on top of a fence post and lifted me up to retrieve it. Dad was good at finding Easter eggs, years later at another ward Easter egg hunt he found a plastic egg with a note inside it which said it could be redeemed for a special prize, turns out there was no prize anymore because that egg had been planted for an Easter egg hunt held several years previously.

In 1983 a second son, my brother Colin came along. He was a very active kid, I think he was my dad's main source of exercise for years.

1987 was a hectic year for our family, National was going to transfer my dads unit back to California and my parents had decided that that was not where they wanted to raise their kids, so when my dads friend and co-worker Randy Whitting offered to take him along to a new job opportunity at Micron, our family moved to Boise. This was complicated by the fact that my mother was pregnant at the time and we moved into the house on Hickory Dr, still the current Dredge homestead, just 2 1/2 weeks before my sister Autumn was born. My dad made sure to pick up a new kid in every state he and my mom lived in.

Stephen was a good father to his children. He spent time with each of us, he'd take us to movies and camping, teach us how to work in the yard, and help with school projects.

In the 1990's, a particularly prosperous period for stock at work I remember we went on three major family trips. In 1994 we went cross country to the Mississippi river, traveled down parallel to it, visited his sister in Arkansas, and then back home. That was the trip where dad introduced me to cheesy tourist traps like South Dakota's Corn Palace, my brother Colin to anything that had a ride, and my sister Auti to Graceland and Elvis

In 1996 we meet up with my mom's dad on a trip to Disney World.

And in 1998 it was off to exotic Canada, the only foreign country my dad ever visited, where we smuggled limited edition Canadian Bennie Babies across the boarder for friends. It was a different time.

Growing up I remember that one of my dads obsessions was the garage door, and maintaining a certain knowledge of its status, preferably closed. "Did you close the garage door" is possibly the most repeated phrase of his life. Coming back from my senior prom I remember remaking to those in the car with me that the first thing my father would ask me when I got home would not be 'how was prom' but rather 'did you close the garage door', and I was right, prom came in second place.

My brother and I would both serve missions to Knoxville, Tennessee, so my parents concluded that they should probably go see the place and went to pick my brother up from his mission in 2004. Some months later Colin meet Sarah and brought Ethan into our lives, he would be Stephens first grandchild

Colin and Sarah were shortly married and there followed grandchildren Brinna and Jaxon. For some reason when he was little Jaxon took to referring to my dad as Gobby, Stephen was a proud Gobby to all of his grandchildren.


I'd like to tell you some things I know about my dad:

Stephen loved babies and had a special rapport with them. If he was in a room with a baby, it wouldn't be long before he was holding that baby content in his arms. When my sister was fussy as an infant, and my mom couldn't comfort her, she would call up my dad and even over the phone he was able to put her at ease. The last picture taken of my dad, which is on the cover of your programs and was taken nine days before he died, is Stephen with a baby, his great grandnephew Wesley Lewis.

Of his many church callings over the years by far his favorite was nursery. But my dad would throw himself into whatever calling he was given, for the last several years that was insuring that this building was clean for Sunday services, and he did that with aplomb, always making calls to those who were to help him clean on a given week, always following up on things, always staying until the work was done, and when there was a shortage of people to help, always calling us to help him. If he were to come back as a ghost, he would probably haunt this chapel to make sure it stayed clean.

For years he worked as a ward clerk, and later with the scouts, making long time friends at Wood badge in the early 90's. He used to haul the water to scout camp, and the camping gear to girls camp. The ward kept a lot of their tents and camping supplies with my dad because they knew he'd always be ready to get them were they needed to go. He also kept Dutch ovens that he would employ in the making of cobbler, his signature dish, at any opportunity that would arise, be it a ward activity, a family reunion, and even one time for his father-laws retirement home.

My dad was a layout designer for microchips, a job that involved squeezing as much stuff as possible into as small a space as possible, and he was real good at it. One day my father came home from work beaming as he told my mother that he had achieved a new level of greatness in his profession, his bosses had told him that on his current project he had made things too small, he had to open them up so they'd be practical. This ability to maximize the use of space spread into other areas as well, you should have seen him load a dishwasher or pack a moving van.

While technically skilled in a great deal of things, there were other matters in which he was often befuddled. The man designed microchips, but if there was a problem with the house hold PC he'd go to my sister for help. For some reason he could seemingly never remember to pack pajamas when he was going on a trip, even when specifically reminded too. A number of years ago he forget his pajamas on a short trip, so he decided to make due with wearing his swim shorts to bed. The sound of the swim trunk material rubbing against the sheets made for a largely sleepless night. The weekend before he died traveling to Pocatello he mistakenly packed a second pair of my mothers pajamas, somehow thinking they were his.

My dad was one of the most friendly people you could ever meet. Even if he'd just meet you he'd like to have a conversation with you and be your friend. He wanted to talk with just about everybody, he was a guy that was sincerely interested in having a conversation with his casher, his waitress, or the guy you pay when you drop a load of garbage off at the dump. There were even times when this was kind of annoying, like any time when you needed to keep him on a tight schedule. He kept stocked M & M candy dispensers in his office at work as incentive for people to stop by and talk.

Stephen was incredibly loyal, to family, friends, and even to people many would never give a second though about. He was loyal to the guy who sold him cars, he was loyal to the man who did his auto body work, he was loyal to his pharmacist, to the lady who would sit us at our favorite Chinese restaurant, heck he even got to know the guy who ran the local snow cone place.

He was generous with his time, his talents, and his money, always willing to lend a hand however it was needed. I've never known a bigger funeral goer then my dad, even relatives that I'd never even heard of, he'd be there if there was any way that he could be.

Stephen loved M*A*S*H and The Poseidon Adventure. He loved American Pickers and NCIS. He loved Chevy Chase and Bruce Willis, westerns and disaster movies, popcorn and popsicles, and The Moody Blues. And don't forget Ham. He loved his friends, his neighbors, his co-workers, and most of all his family. When my brother died four years ago he took it hard, there are no words for how it affected him. He lost a little of his spark, a little of his drive, and a little of his optimism, but he kept going, he kept living life, giving it all that he could.

The last few months of his life were busy ones, in addition to a full load at work, we had extensive landscaping done at the house, and much of the interior painted. He had carpets pulled out and new ones installed at our rental property, hauling multiple loads of refuse from that site to the dump in my sisters truck, which he also helped arrange service on after it was hit while parked in front of the house. One day his father-in-law slipped into an apparent coma, six hours and no one could get him to respond, as the hospice personal came to pick him up it was my dads voice that rousted him awake, he lived for an additional month and then my dad helped plan his funeral.

The Wednesday before he died his own mother too feel into a coma, he made it to her bedside in Pocatello with only a few hours to spar before she passed that Saturday. He, my mother and sister came back home on Sunday, and Monday was to be spent packing and preparing to travel back to Pocatello for the viewing on Tuesday and the service on Wednesday. He went into work on Monday morning, but his friend and boss Paul could see he was upset and advised him to go home. He did. When I woke up Monday morning around 8:30 he was in the family room with my sister, half watching a movie he'd seen dozens of times, but mostly getting a big kick out of our rabbit and our new kitten (the first cat we've had that's ever taken to him) playing with each other on the carpet. Around 10:30 he went down to the master bedroom to rest, close to eleven he called for my sister to get him insulin, within about half an hour he was gone. My sister who had only weeks previously been re-certified in CPR did all that she could, as did the paramedics who were remarkably quick in there response time, even though it felt like it took forever.


I've tried to think of what we might take from his death. For me I know that I took my father too much for granted, he was always there and its easy to not appreciate someone that's always present. He didn't take care of himself like he should have, neglecting his diabetes and at 63 continuing to put as much effort into everything as he did when he was 30. Anyone who is aging or has a serious health condition should take note of my fathers mistakes in these areas. And anyone who may not be fully appreciating their loved ones should take heed as well.

But mostly what you can learn from my father is plain decency. Just be good. Just be kind. Be generous where you can be. Be forgiving of fault. Be the best kind of servant you can be and you'll find yourself. Stephen Brent Dredge is one of the best men I'll ever know, and I hope that I can truly live the lessons that he taught me.