I am Stephanie Winter, Chris’ youngest “sprog” as he liked to call us. This is the first memorial I have ever been to, but my dad was always a big proponent of learning through experience and by golly, he’s done it again. Before writing this speech I decided to read through the eulogy my dad wrote for his little sister, Judy, who passed away about a year ago. When I finished reading I thought to myself, “well, shit, dad, you’ve set the bar rather high for the rest of us”. One thing I hope I inherited along with terrible vision and useless nasal passages is my dad’s phenomenal writing ability. Every letter, email or speech he wrote was laced with a dry humor and poignant insightfulness that was immediately distinguished as exceptional. My dad first got me into the humorous travel writer Bill Bryson, and after reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, written about Bryson’s childhood growing up in Iowa, I was thoroughly convinced that my dad should write about his own experiences in Kansas. My sister and I grew up listening to stories that I’m sure were embellished but enjoyable nonetheless, about my dad, often aided and persuaded by his best friends Judd Shelito and John Hodges doing things like running a hose down a gopher hole and turning it on, while the other children stood over the other holes waiting to catch a gopher attempting to escape the flood. These stories were priceless and made me pine for an earlier time when kids had nothing better to do than snatch rodents out of the ground. If you ever got a chance to hear him read some of his writings aloud or hear him speak at all, boy, you were in for a treat. Chris was known for his voice, it was incredibly smooth and deep. Hearing it was like watching melted chocolate being poured, or maybe like the feeling of petting a sleek black panther. I would often tell my friends that I expected Darth Vader to remove his helmet and my dad would be underneath. A family friend of ours was a linguistics specialist who always marveled at my dad’s unique voice. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away some time ago, but before she left the world she would call dad just to hear his deep, calming voice. There never was nor there ever will be a voice like his again, which is a real bummer because his is the voice I would like to hear announcing that a nuclear war has broken out. My dad and I always had a different relationship than my sister and him. My sister was first born and my parents were all about the nurturing and productive learning environment, by the time I came along, my dad was ready to sit back and watch me grow up, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have our bonding moments. During a vacation in Italy when I was around six months old, my dad scooped me up and put me on his shoulders, I apparently thought this was the greatest thing on earth and expressed my sentiment by puking on his head. My dad being my dad, stood there with baby barf dripping down his face, indulging my mother and sister while they roared with laughter and took photos. When I was a bit older I would constantly tell my parents “boo by self” which meant I wanted to do it myself, at that point, my dad realized that I was an independent sort of girl. However, just because I was independent, didn’t mean I couldn’t weigh in on all of my dad’s lifestyle choices. He would put up with my sister and I cutting all the fat or skin, all the “good bits” as dad used to say, off of his meat and feeding them to the dogs, he always took my recommendation on fashion advice, including a pair of brown sneakers that I told him made him look like a cool, hip professor (he purchased them immediately) and whether he asked for it or not, I was always ready with a remark about his balding, hearing capabilities or being blind as a bat. You have to have a thick skin as a parent because your kids can be harsher than those terrible 7th grade cyber-bullies. The mornings my dad would take me to school we would put the top down in his convertible. I would pop in my latest rock obsession AC/DC or Van Halen, and we would roll up to my all girls private school blasting Jump. He probably thought that I was trying to look cool in front of my friends, but in all honesty, I just wanted my dad to think I was cool. Aside from rocking out in convertibles, another activity that my parents thought was cool and roped me in at an early age was cooking. Whether we were cooking for a crowd or just Saturday night dinner for us we would throw on the tunes and start chopping away. Cooking was something my whole family did together, and when we had dinner guests over, yep, they were in the kitchen helping too. We would dance around, dad usually bringing out his famous “walk like an Egyptian, googley eyed dance” and sure, we would screw up a dish or two, but we would have a ball just goofing around, sharing stories, wine, and of course have dinner after 10. Dancing and cooking in the kitchen with my parents taught me that good friends and family, good wine, good music and a good sense of humor are all you need to have a truly great life. When I was 14, I went to boarding school in southern California, which turned interactions with my parents from an everyday sort of deal to every few months. My dad compensated by driving down to Ojai a few times a year, which would result in us planning surprisingly cultural things such as trips to the Getty Museum or trying to sneak into the La Brea bread bakery and on occasion buying the local grocery store out of top ramen. In recent years, going on trips with my dad was my absolute favorite thing to do. Dad was always so fun to go on trips with because he would get us both really excited before hand by buying these extremely touristy guidebooks to places that we would look through together and circle spots we wanted to visit. We would always try a few words of the local language, which got pretty tricky when heading to South Korea and Japan. When we would get on the plane, he would hold my hand during take off and put up with me digging my nails into his arm every time there was a bump. When we got up in the air dad would promptly snooze off while occasionally being jabbed by me asking if he had heard that noise or whether the fact that we hadn’t heard from the captain in a while was a bad sign. Our trip to Prague and Vienna was truly magical. My dad managed to pick a hotel on the only street in Prague that was ugly, which my sister and I managed to give him a hard time for. We got into the armor at the Prague Castle where dad rummaged around to find a particular horned helmet that made even him look ferocious. At one of the local restaurants, dad made the astute choice of ordering “the Delight of Prague”, which tasted and smelled identical to cat food. In Vienna, we attended the Imperial Ball on New Years Eve. While dad was not exactly light on his toes, my sister and I enjoyed being whisked around occasionally bumping into others or tripping on ourselves in a Waltz that would shame any tailcoat owning gentleman. My dad and I’s last grand adventure together was when he visited me in Beijing in the fall. I’m sure a lot of you have heard the various stories and mishaps that we got up to while he was there, but we had a magnificent time. I am so fortunate that my father and I had that time together and even if I knew it was the last time I was going to see him, I wouldn’t change a thing about that trip, oh, except for getting food poisoning. On each of these trips, it was the misadventures that brought about the most laughs and stories, as my dad was able to deal with almost any situation with humor and light-heartedness. Even for an old geezer, he was unwilling to quell his desire for adventure and passion to try new and weird things. From my dad I learned humility and modesty, and how to not exercise it; the importance of planning, and how all your well thought-out plans can go to shit; patience, also known as living in a house with three girls and one bathroom; living and enjoying life in the moment; good food and wine; and most importantly, believing in your own capability, which is the reason he was able to beat a type of cancer that many people can’t, it was the reason he was able to solve impossible problems at work, and it is the reason he was able to raise two daughters who speak so passionately and lovingly about him today. Dad, I wish you could have stayed around awhile longer, but I'm sure as hell glad I had the time I did with you.