Some may have seen this on FB. Delivered by me at a memorial service.


Thank you for coming.
I want to start with an apology.
To my father.
There was a time when we didn’t agree on much. I was in my first year of college, hadn’t cut my hair since graduating from high school. Dinner included many arguments about Nixon, Vietnam, and so on. That Christmas my gift for my father was a book…an epic poem (or should I say tirade) by San Francisco beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti about Richard Nixon called Tyrannus Nix. I have to admit, Pop, I knew that book was not on your Christmas list. I am betting you didn’t read it. I suppose you got even my next birthday when my gift from you was a copy of MIT Professor Paul Samuelson’s textbook, Introduction to Economics. And I am guessing you knew that book was not on my short list of hoped-for birthday presents. And I will confess now…I didn’t read it.
My father and I spent too much time in those days telling each other what to do.
Him: Cut your hair. You’ll never get a job.
Me: You work so hard all week, coming home after dark. Then on the weekends you work in the yard mowing, digging, planting, sweating. Why don’t you do something fun? “That IS my fun” he would reply. Color me clueless.
My father accomplished a lot in his life and it’s there in the obit beautifully written by Candace and Andrea. I want to tell you about one of his most meaningful accomplishments and gifts to his family.
Growing up on South Street one of my best friends was Andrew Cowenhoven. His family had a camp on a lake called Mountainy Pond in Dedham, Maine. He and his parents invited me to join them several years for a week’s vacation. In fact, two of my sisters, Candace and Susan also had close friends in the Cowenhoven family and there was at least one summer when the Cowenhoven family hosted three Harris kids there at the same time. We would come home and share tales with our parents about this magic place, a pristine lake with no motorboats (other than that run by a caretaker who ferried you to your camp and brought groceries three times a week), no electricity, and most years, about a dozen loons. There are no driveways. You park your car at the end of a 5 mile dirt road and the Fetch, the motorboat run by the caretaker, takes you to your camp. Once on the Pond, transportation is by double ender, kayak, canoe and sunfish. The Pond is 3 miles long and there are 15 camps, all on the east shore so everyone sees the setting sun across the water.
After hearing our stories for half a dozen years, my father inquired whether there were rentals available. It turned out there was a family that was not using its camp much that coming summer and agreed to let the Harrises use it for a month. Rent? Oh, I don’t think anyone on the Pond ever actually rents so we won’t charge you. So the Harris family spent a month on Mountainy Pond that summer in a borrowed house, and in lieu of rent my father rebuilt a rotten front porch. He made similar arrangements the next two summers with a different camp. To say that my parents loved it and felt right at home would be an understatement.
A couple years later, my parents were back at Mountainy Pond, without kids and guests of the Cowenhoven family this time. It was the weekend of the annual meeting and, night prior, a cocktail party that everyone present on the Pond that weekend attended.
I have to pause and interject that I have heard this story told many times and I have never heard either my mother or father tell it without some tears welling up during this next part.
As the party wound down, the Mountainy Pond Club President, then Andy Page, came up to my parents and said “I think it’s time we found the Harris family a place to build a camp.”
My parents say they didn’t sleep a wink that night. They were excited beyond belief, but also worried that Any Page’s suggestion had as much to do with whatever wine he had consumed rather than anything the other members had approved. But there he was, the next morning, knocking on the door of the Cowenhoven camp. “So, do you have any idea where you want to build?”
As it turned out, they knew exactly where they wanted to build.
Two lots, each with 50 feet of lakefront. House site up a hill, making for a great view of the lake and rolling hills to the West. My father loved to negotiate, but he didn’t have a chance in this transaction. When he asked about cost, Andy Page said “Well going back to 1928 every lot on this Pond has been sold by the Club for $500 and you have two, so that will be $1,000.
My parents hired a local builder and my father, more often than not, was right there on a ladder with him. My father designed the house and a separate sleeping cabin, and true to his engineering background, they are solid to say the least. The joke among all the other camps is that if there is ever a tornado on the Pond, the Harris camp will be the last thing standing.
My mother decorated with colorful Marimeko fabric hangings. As the years passed my brother-in-law Rick and I rebuilt the dock. Andrea recently solved the problem of mice in the food by refurbishing some metal pantry cabinets that for many years hung in my parents’ Grafton house. It has been a collective effort.
My parents spent at least a month there every summer and fall. Some of us kids go every summer, more than once. Others less so. But it is fair to say Mountainy Pond is an important place for us all. My kids grew up going every summer and I am betting if you asked each his or her favorite place on the planet…. I cannot begin to describe how meaningful it has been to introduce my own children to all the hikes and secret places on the Pond that I enjoyed as a kid, or to see two of them rowing that heavy double ender in tandem, fast enough to leave a wake. The camp on the Pond is about family and generations. We cook for each other, play music and games after dinner. And this past August, the first of my father’s great grandchildren, Jura, made the first of what will be many visits to Mountainy.
I started this tribute with mention of the differences between my father and me. Truth told, I can see we grew more similar as time passed. The shared Mountainy Pond experience is part of that. And as an attorney I worked long days, often getting home after dark. All week I would just think about getting to the weekend, when I could be out in the yard, mowing, digging, planting, sweating. That is MY fun.
Fifty feet or so behind the Mountainy camp is a cluster of boulders and trees that my mother loved. It is in large part why they wanted to build on that site, and in 1999 we buried her ashes there. My father will join her there in July.

Beautiful, Jack.

That is beautiful, Jack.


My random number generator selected Dan!


Decorate away, buddy!

Thank you for sharing with us. Beautiful.

Jack, Thank you for sharing your beautiful memories of your beautiful family (and their beautiful summer retreat).

The story glows.