A Tribute

 My dad owned his own insurance agency called Ringham Financial Services in which he sold life Insurance, annuities, retirement plans and other financial securities. My dad was a good man and taught me many things and I miss him. He was a steady Eddie--a man of integrity who led by example using few words. 

Growing up in a suburb of Minneapolis, my friends and I often engaged in delinquent activities that ranged from smashing the candle wicks on the church altar so the acolyte would struggle to get them all lit before the church service could begin, to playing bike tag in the junior high during the hot summer days when the janitors had left the doors open to air out the building, to turning out the lights at night on a nearby little league football field just after the opening kick off, to throwing snowballs at cars in winter. It was all fun and games until someone got caught.

On one such occasion my friends Tim Blair, Jeff Peterson and I were throwing snowballs at the back of Emmer’s long driveway that faced a well-traveled road called Antrim near the Edina High School. It had been close to a record snowfall that winter in Minnesota and the snowbanks on each side of Emmer’s plowed driveway were as high as we were tall and because of that, we couldn’t see the cars coming up the road, but we could hear them and would time our throws accordingly. I don’t remember how long it was we were throwing snowballs at cars that afternoon, but it was long enough for Mrs. Emmer to recognize me and call my dad and tell him what his son was doing.

Living three blocks away, my dad got in his big green Buick Electra 225 in search of his son. We never saw him as he drove up Antrim Road that afternoon. All we heard was another car coming, then we timed our throws accordingly and all three of us hit him broadside. As Curt Gowdy used to say during the prelude to the ABCs Wide World of Sports: “It was the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” And that is exactly what I felt as the stark realization hit me of how familiar that car suddenly looked that was now skidding to a stop.

As the three of us ran behind Emmer’s house that afternoon, I could hear my dad shout out my full name—the naughty name: the Robert Clark Ringham name. While Jeff and Tim ran for the security of their own homes, I was not afforded the same luxury. As my father continued to call out my name, I found myself running around in circles, not knowing where to go. When I finally came out from behind Emmer’s house, he was just standing there in the driveway with a look of disappointment. I then got in the big green Buick Electra 225 and we drove all of three blocks back home--down Antrim road then left on Chapel Lane then up to 6000 Erin Terrace where we lived. It was the shortest and most uncomfortable trip I had ever taken with my dad--and the during the whole time, he never said a word.

I played quarterback for St Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. And my sophomore year, I started against my parent’s alma matter: Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. My parents had come up to see the game and visit some of their friends and college classmates who lived in the area along with my aunt Marilyn and uncle Dewey who taught Political Science at Concordia. It was a big day for us Ringhams, and expectations were at an all-time high. The pregame warmups went great--then came game time. Confident, I stepped on to the field that afternoon and proceeded to throw three interceptions in the first half—a St. Olaf record that still stands to this day. Needless to say, I was yanked from my starting role at quarterback that afternoon and sat on the bench for the remainder of the game. When it was finally over, I made a bee line to the lockers, hoping I wouldn’t see anyone when I heard my dad’s voice call out my name from the among crowd. I turned and saw his face--only this time it wasn’t that of disappointment of throwing snowballs at cars--but that of encouragement. 

My dad died in 2001 and after the service I was getting ready to leave the church, when a good friend of his by the name of Bob Solheim approached me. Bob had worked for my dad as a general agent in the insurance business until he founded his own nonprofit hospice called N. C Little Hospice—that is now Minnesota’s longest servicing residential hospice. 

“It was your dad that not only encouraged me, but helped me get my hospice off the ground,” he told me that afternoon. 

“I never knew that about my dad,” I replied. 

He would go on to tell me he was one of the most honest and encouraging men he had ever met. 

A few years ago, my siblings and I were cleaning the basement of the lake cabin my folks had bought years ago, and I found some of dad’s old business cards that included the logo and the script font you now see on this site. I had always liked the logo and the script so had a graphic designer add the word “ink” in the same style to match his original font. To me it is a reminder of the legacy he left behind.

My mother’s name was Ruth, and it means compassion. It was compassion that I remember most about my mother, and you could see it most clearly after the bills were paid and the house was in order. 

Having grown up on a small farm in Lac qui Parle County Minnesota, then moving to the small town of Madison, she had compassion for the down-and-out and the underdogs of the world.

When my parents and I took a road trip to Bismarck, North Dakota for the baptism of my niece, we stopped at a small-town cafe along the way. After we had finished lunch, my dad went up to the front counter to pay the bill as my mom and I went towards the front door. Along the way, however, we came upon a middle-aged man sitting by himself at a table staring out into space as if lost.

My mother passed him then stopped and turned back. 

“Is there something wrong?” she asked him. 

Startled, that a complete stranger would care enough to stop and ask such a question, he struggled for words: ”I’m  just going through some stuff,” he replied.

Then she took his hand in hers and gently tapped it.

“It will be alright.” she assured him. “It’ll be alright.”

He nodded and we left.

Who he was and what he was going through, I would never know, but what I did know was that my mother cared enough to stop and ask a total stranger if he was OK because compassion rose up within her that afternoon and could not keep silent.

My mother loved English and taught English--something I could not understand or relate to growing up as a kid because to me English was all about grammar and spelling and essays. But what I could relate to were her stories of life on my grandpa’s farm. 

There were stories about Red, the kind and well-meaning hired hand who boxed at the local carnival that came to Madison each summer. Red was always trounced in the ring, yet every year when the carnival came to town, Red was there to take another shot at the title. And every morning after his bouts, he would explain away the cuts and bruises on his swollen face by telling my grandpa that he had fallen off the honey wagon.

There were stories about Shep, my grandpa’s sheep dog, that saved the life of my mother and uncle. My uncle was around 8 years old and my mother around 6 years old when they were walking home from school along a gravel road that led to their farmhouse when a neighbor came up over the hill driving his pickup truck and going over 40 miles an hour. He would have hit my mother and uncle had it not been for Shep, who instinctively herded them off to the side of the road just moments before the truck had passed. So impressed was that neighbor from the nearby farm, that he stopped and told my grandpa about what his sheep dog had done.

It was a hard day when my grandpa had to put down Shep. Old and barely able to walk, Shep just stood there according to my grandpa’s story—looking at him as if he knew what my grandpa had to do--and had given him permission to do so.

Like my mother, years later I would discover my love for English and storytelling in Mr. Fehner’s Freshman English class at St Olaf College. And there I would recall these and other stories my mother had told me--after the bills were paid and the house was in order.

Thanks dad and mom for leaving a legacy in your children and by giving us a foundation upon which to live and conduct our lives.