Paul Phillips, Nov. 3, 1938-July 16, 2008

Fifty Things You May Not Have Known About My Dad

1. he was born in Hong Kong, the son of missionaries
2. he could still count in Cantonese decades later
3. he lived on a commune as a kid
4. his first degree was in chemistry
5. he loved going down into caves and mines
6. he would rather spend two hours making something than buy it even if it cost a dollar and did carpentry and basic plumbing and electrical work
7. he built furniture, a 26’ sailboat and a house (with the help of family and friends)
8. he learned to play banjo from a record by Pete Seeger called “How to play the banjo”
9. he also played guitar, concertina, fiddle, mandolin, autoharp, bouzouki, piano and pretty much anything he put his hand to
10. he sang in the chorus of the Manitoba Opera for thirty years
11. he was the workshop stage manager for the Winnipeg Folk Festival
12. he skied, sailed, played hockey and tennis when he was younger, and until he moved to Vernon played polo
13. when he was asked how a socialist could play polo he said ‘nothin’s too good for the worker’
14. he sang Oggie Man to me when I couldn’t sleep and would sit up with me when I was sick
15. one of his favourite dishes was lamb stew and for years he got fresh oysters for Christmas breakfast
16. he loved really really bad puns and wrote poems to put on the tags of Christmas presents
17. he always bought special Christmas wrap that he only used for mom
18. he made his own beer and wine
19. he loved to play darts, especially with Peter
20. he could recite Albert and the Lion from memory
21. his handwriting was illegible even to him
22. he ran for the NDP federally and was campaign manager for William Deverell before Deverell began writing legal mysteries
23 he played crib with us in the evenings on summer holidays when he wasn’t reading mysteries
24. he loved Perry Mason and Charlie’s Angels and British mysteries on tv
25. he loved James Bond and Carry On movies
26 he painted with oils and did some wood carving when he was a young man - when he was older he turned his creative gifts to making toys for us and then for his grandchildren
27 he was a pilot in the Air Force
28 he liked the CFL and NHL but as a kid liked the Dodgers too
29 he was a Maple Leaf fan and loved Davy Keon
30 he played rugby when he was in the Air Force
31. he thought everyone should learn to type and to mend clothes
32. he learned Serbo-Croatian because he was teaching in Yugoslavia every spring
33. the older he got the more Welsh he got
34. he loved teaching and cared deeply about his students and colleagues although they may not have known it since he was pretty inward about his feelings
35. although he didn’t say much about how he felt he gave great hugs, held hands and gave smoochie kisses
36. he smoked a pipe and cigars for years and was really annoyed when he quit and mom didn’t notice for weeks
37. he loved Bruce Springsteen and Dr. Hook
38. he didn’t like sweets much but would get Goodies at the movies
39. he ate cheddar cheese on his apple pie
40. he ate a tomato every day - a cherry tomato from his garden was one of the last things he ate
41. he gave up wearing ties in the ‘70s because he said they served no purpose and were really uncomfortable
42. he didn’t like his middle name and wouldn’t use it
43. he loved to cook but wouldn’t follow recipes meaning he had a hard time replicating successes
44. he started baking cookies when he got older (presumably he followed recipes when he baked)
45. he always wanted to open a restaurant that specialized in soups
46. when he retired he began to write a column on economic issues for a seniors’ newspaper, started a Welsh men’s chorus, sang at Carnegie Hall and began to act
47. he could be phenomenally opinionated about everything especially things he didn’t know much about
48. but he also was interested in a phenomenally wide range of things and knew stuff about surprising things
49. although his mother drove him crazy he became more and more like her the older he got
and 50. this you probably did know, I really miss him


Things I've Inherited from My Father

a prominent chin
thick hair and a thick neck
square calves and knobby knees
a love of all sorts of music
the habit of resting my chin between my thumb and forefinger while sitting at my desk
a love of bubbly water
a love of tomatoes
a passion for social justice
a tendency to strong opinions
a tendency to get up on my soap box
a tendency to confuse matters of taste with moral judgments
a capacity for friendship with all sorts of people
a tendency to see the good in situations and people
an appreciation of the theatrical
a love of cooking without following a recipe

thanks Pops

Economics - The Dismal Science

I've been thinking about my Dad today, how he served for five years in the Air Force despite being a pacifist. And then I read Patrick Deneen's great post on economics over at What I saw in America and heard echoes of my father speaking. Dad shared many of these criticisms of the discipline of economics and rarely went to meetings of economists. He thought it was a mistake to think economics was all about manipulating models as if it could be divorced from political life in the broadest sense. He would be one of those heterodox economists Deneen mentions.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today would have been Dad's 70th birthday. I don't know which is harder to get my head around, that Dad isn't with us anymore or that he could have been 70. Here I am approaching 50 and my Dad still seemed to be in his 50s to me.

Glorious Concert

At yesterday's convocation at the University of Lethbridge Ben Heppner was given an honourary degree and then today he gave a concert to raise money for music scholarships. It was a glorious concert! There were four standing ovations including one in the middle of the concert. He was incredible.

The heart of the concert for me were two operatic pieces. The first was from Massanet's opera Le Cid. It is this beautiful prayer - the lines that especially moved me were "O sovereign, O judge, O father, always hidden, ever present, I loved you in times of good fortune and I bless you in times of sadness!" The piece that did me in though was the next aria from Andrea Chenier by Umberto Giordano. It is an indictment of French nobility who turn their backs on the plight of the poor and the final line is, "love is a gift divine, do not despise it, the moving spirit of the universe is love!" Dad was very present to me while Dr. Heppner sang that piece. I wish it had gone on a lot longer.

Today I was very proud to be associated with the university.

Dad and the Academic Life

Grief ambushes you. It doesn’t come up in the places you expect it. It leaps out at you and clobbers you in your chest when you aren’t looking.

I went to a funeral recently expecting to find it difficult but it wasn’t. It was sad. I liked the man who had died. It was obvious his family really loved him. Afterward I realized that I had been bracing myself for extreme emotion but it hadn’t come. I was glad I went.

The first week of classes I went to the university to pick up my mail and start getting ready for a new school year and I was so overwhelmed by an awareness of Dad and of grief that I couldn’t wait to get off campus. It was partly the pile of sympathy cards in my mail which I hadn’t checked all August. But mostly it was seeing all the students walking around. I hadn’t realized how much my sense of Dad is tied up with the university, any university.

My relationship with Dad has been shaped from the very beginning by the university. He and Mom were students at the University of Saskatchewan when I was born. I was raised on stories of their student days, the poverty, their involvement in the Folk music revival, the many moves. We lived in Saskatoon, London (the real one in England), Vancouver, Victoria, and then Vancouver again before finally settling in Winnipeg when Dad got his first permanent teaching position at the University of Manitoba.

The Economics Department was a wonderful place to be in the early ‘70s. My sister and I seemed to be the only kids our age in the department but all the adults seemed to take us under their wings. And we saw them a lot. Those early days were filled with toboggan parties, and skiing parties, first down hill and later cross-country, and corn roasts and Grey Cup parties. Always it seemed these events were followed by chili and onion soup mix dip with crinkle chips and Dad’s home made beer. Dad also played on the departmental hockey team and then curled in the Saturday morning faculty curling league. We seemed to socialize a lot with Dad’s department and when I asked him about it recently he said my memory was correct. He said that Clarence Barber, who was then chair and who had hired him, had brought together a really interesting department of people from diverse backgrounds and approaches. He really enjoyed being a part of that department and although there were opportunities for him to move to other places over the years I never had a sense that he seriously thought of leaving.

As I grew older I became more interested in the academic side of Dad’s work. Dad thought of academics as a form of craft and believed in the old guild system when apprentices worked alongside masters to learn their craft. So he apprenticed me. In those days before computers he would sometimes have me do calculations for him of columns of figures or mark the true or false and multiple choice portions of his exams. Later he began to teach me how he graded essay questions and have me read answers and tell him what I thought they should get and why. He began to explain to me how he did research and gradually gave me little projects for him. I would take his library card and go over to Dafoe Library and find articles or Statistics Canada tables for him. I loved to go to his office at University College on Fridays because the college had a lunch in the Senior Common room and then every one would sit and talk about their work and ideas and things they were reading. Even though I didn’t understand much of what they were talking about I loved the atmosphere and longed to be a part of it when I was older.

By the time I was in high school we lived on an acreage outside of Winnipeg so sometimes I would drive into the university with Dad in his ugly turquoise Mazda diesel truck. We’d talk about his work and my classes and sometimes he’d lend me books to read about things I was interested in. It must have been really annoying to teach me history in High School, particularly anything that related to a left-wing topic. I was the one who caught the errors in our grade 11 textbook’s treatment of the Winnipeg General Strike and I had a lot to say about Franco when we covered the Spanish Civil War too.

In those days Mom and Dad had a tight circle of friends who sang folk music together. Dad taught labour history and John taught war history so once a term they would do a history of the labour movement in song and war songs for their respective classes. It was my responsibility to help carry their instruments and remember the words when they forgot. When I sing to my classes or use music to bring religious history alive I’m conscious of carrying on a family tradition.

When I was an undergraduate his publisher told him that he needed a woman to co-author a book he proposed to them on women in the labour force so he asked me to write it with him. I was finishing my degree in Religious Studies with a minor in History and had done some work in labour history. Dad proposed that I write the historical sections and he would write the economics sections and I would do a lot of the research for his sections since they were about 75% of the book. Theoretically it meant we were dividing the work in half but in reality he was mentoring me through the whole process. It was an incredibly generous opportunity to give a young student. From the early research to proofing the galleys he pretty patiently guided me through the writing of the book and it was an incredible experience. Then when it was published we flew to Toronto and did a day of media interviews. At the beginning of the day I was so terrified I could barely talk but he knew when to step in and bail me out when an interviewer put me on the spot. By the end of the day I was an old hand at it and we had fun switching who answered which questions. We did two more editions and worked on another couple of projects together.

Recently we had worked with another friend to try to get a project going on employment issues in the church. The project didn’t get off the ground but it was fun to talk about it with Dad and plan how we might approach it. And I enjoyed being able to initiate projects with him now. He had treated me as a partner in the writing of the book and it felt good to have grown into that role.

In recent years we’ve talked about our projects when we’d get together. We managed to drive everyone away from campfire at a family reunion by getting into an animated discussion of church state relations. And I’d send him postings from the blogs I read and he reciprocate by sending me discussions from his Progressive Economist listserve. It is hard to get my head around not being able to do that any more. I still read something or hear something on the radio and think, I have to tell Dad about that.

I learned a lot about university life from my father. He worked hard and he worked long hours. The two of us were the family night owls and I would often come down at night to find him reading at the kitchen table. He also took his briefcase with him on holidays and while we read mysteries or played cards he’d be reading a book he was reviewing or using in a class that fall. Yet when I said how much I loved Paper Chase with its depictions of students pulling all nighters he told me that that was unhealthy. He always managed to combine his academic work with a wide variety of hobbies and community involvements.

He also told me once that there were two kinds of scholarly writers. There were the ones who wrote one book, often some seminal study, but only the one book because it had to be perfect. He admired a number of scholars who were these kinds of perfectionists but he also lamented that their ideas didn’t have the broad impact they should have because they weren’t accessible enough. The other kind of writer was the kind of writer he was. They published often knowing that there were more things to consider, other things to read, because what they published was part of a conversation. Those other things would be integrated into the next article or the next book. Dad saw the intellectual life as a communal life, and he was very much a part of that community.

That community also included students. He was generous with his time, and kind to his students. He wasn’t impressed with students who cheated but he was gracious to students who made mistakes or ran into troubles. And he never spoke badly of poor students although he was impatient with lazy students. He was tolerant of many of his colleagues’ foibles but he was completely intolerant of those who abused their authority over students.

His sense of community included secretaries and staff. He told me how frustrated he would get with some of his colleagues who would talk about solidarity with the working class and then treat the secretaries badly. His sense of community reached wide and included many people of different disciplines and politics. When he retired I wrote some words of tribute for him and asked a mutual friend to read them for me. When I told the chair of his department who I had asked to read it, he was surprised. He said it wouldn’t have occurred to him to invite this particular fellow. He and Dad were in different academic areas, were members of different colleges and had rather different politics. Yet I knew how much Dad liked him and how he would think to include him even though the department chair didn’t.

After Dad died I was checking his email for Mom and letting his colleagues and students know that he had died. I was struck by how many of them spoke of his graciousness and generosity. Of all the things I learned about the academic life from my Dad I think the thing that I will always value most is that it is a life lived in community, a diverse community, held together not only by a shared concern for ideas but a shared concern for the welfare of others.

Winnipeg Service for Dad

Friday evening Dad's friends in Winnipeg held a service for him. It was at the Ukranian Labour Temple in the north end and the Opera Chorus and the Labour Choir, both of which he sang in for years, sang. A number of his friends spoke. Our dear friend, Peter Usher, had this to say about Dad:

Paul Phillips’ memorial – 26 September 2008

Our friendship took root in a few years in Vancouver in the mid-60s. We met at the Folk Song Circle, and we soon found we shared a love of singing, particularly in the British tradition; the songs of Ewan McColl and Bert Lloyd (notably sea shanties which Paul could bellow out with the best), along with Phil and Hilda Thomas’ discovery and setting to music the lyrics of BC working people. We had lots of music parties, which were conversation through singing, often at Paul and Donna’s flat in Kitsilano where a lot of us lived. These parties were fueled by enthusiastic music, lively talk, Paul’s home-made beer, all under the gaze, from a poster, of a female Swedish athlete completing a long jump with the message “look what socialism did for Sweden.” It didn’t take long for us to find we also shared a passion and commitment to democratic socialism and political action, inspired by such figures as Tommy Douglas and the great Welsh socialist, Nye Bevan, much influenced by the fact that both of us had spent time in Britain.

In those few years together in BC we forged a friendship that, despite living thousands of miles apart ever afterwards, deepened and strengthened. Such was the bond among the four of us that, for a time, we agreed that should through sudden misfortune our own children be orphaned, the other couple would become their guardians. Shortly after I moved east, Paul sent me a copy of No Power Greater, which he inscribed “Remembering the many hours of song, talk, and intellectual discourse”. That book, still remembered and appreciated by many, was an inspiration to me of how an academic could contribute to the struggle. Our conversations and common concerns came to encompass the political economy of the hinterland, property and markets, free trade, the direction of the NDP, and in its early days, the latest issue of Canadian Dimension.

Fortunately for me, my work often took me to Vancouver and later to Winnipeg, so that we continued those many hours of song, talk, and intellectual discourse -- at the house on Oak Street, at the A frame at Oakbank, and at the house on Machray. In the years my son was growing up in Winnipeg, I always had a place to stay when I came here, and I am eternally grateful to Paul and Donna for putting me up so frequently in those days – good food (often Donna’s Chinese food), good drink, good song, good talk, good company. Those evenings invariably ended with a session of darts in the basement – our talents being equally mediocre, we were evenly matched.

And the music parties continued, often well-attended. One particular occasion at someone’s house here in Winnipeg in the mid-70s stands out in my mind. It followed, as I recall, the founding meeting of the Public Petroleum Action Committee of Canada (perhaps some of you were there). The singing went on for hours, fuelled again by much beer. It sounded great at the time and people seemed to like it, but it’s probably just as well it was never taped for posterity.

What I came to appreciate about Paul over the years was that he was a man of keen working class sensibilities with a drive for knowledge, learning, and its practical application to human well-being. It is sometimes said of economists that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing. This was most certainly not true of Paul. His values and his intellectual work were driven by his passion for social justice and well-being. He was an idealist but not an ideologue. He was not one to select the facts to fit the theory, but was always prepared to confront uncomfortable truths squarely and in a practical way.

Here was a man small of stature but also of extraordinary vigour. His musical tastes were broad – he sang in the opera, the Welsh choir, and the labour choir. He was physically active – polo, golf, sailing – but these were not the solo pursuits of the weekend warrior, they were just another way of doing things with other people. Paul always seemed to know how to balance work with so much else – music, play, travel, and community events such as the Winnipeg Folk Festival, as well as his family. As a secular socialist he was at first bemused by his daughter Erin’s religious conviction, yet I think he came to appreciate that social science and political action do not invariably provide all the answers and explanations that we seek in life.

He understood the working man’s pride in craft, which he carried into his own life as an artisan in wood and soil, evident especially in the environment that he and Donna created at their place in Vernon after his retirement. He honoured the past and had an eye for the future. He was the first of my friends to get a computer – an Osborne if any of you remember this machine, with a tiny screen that you had to scroll not only up and down but side to side to view the page. I learned a lot about living from Paul, not by his instruction, but by his example.

Unfortunately we saw little of each other after he and Donna moved to Vernon, although we always exchanged musical gifts. Yet as I contemplated the events and issues unfolding over the last decade I often asked myself, what would Paul have to say about that? We might not always have agreed, but his thoughts would certainly have enlightened me. So when Donna told me he was ill, I resolved to visit. Sadly, by the time I arrived, the planned music party was not to be. Yet even in his last days he was keen for us to catch up with each other again, and we talked and sang. Engaged to the end, he came to the breakfast table and asked Nicky about the news, and albeit with difficulty on his part, we talked about both his recent column for the Vernon newspaper, my current work, and questions of sustainability, living standards and social well-being.

There is no such thing as a good death, but the manner of our dying can signify a good and virtuous life. In his last days, Paul was surrounded by family and friends, their love and support of him obvious. His daughters applied their special capabilities to care for him in body and spirit, and he accepted that with dignity and grace. They are a tribute to him and Donna. And so in the end Paul also taught me about dying.

One of the joys of very close friendships is that no matter how long you are apart, the conversation is so easily and effortlessly resumed upon meeting again. The pain of a close one dying is that the conversation suddenly and permanently ends. But the memories do not. I will remember Paul’s personality and friendship always, and will remain always grateful for both.

Peter J. Usher

Death of a Hero

Ron Lancaster, quarterback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders when I was a kid, died today of lung cancer. My Dad was a huge Roughrider fan and I grew up watching games with him and admiring Ronnie Lancaster. Like my Dad he was only 69 when he died.

It is hard losing heros.

50 Years Ago Today

My parents, Donna Speers and Paul Phillips, were married fifty years ago today. I'm sad my Dad didn't live to celebrate today but I'm grateful for all the opportunities he had to give thanks over the 49+ years he did have with Mom.

Lots of Memories

Found in a box

Dad and me in '62
Four members of the Moose Factory Assiniboine Park Zoo Incredible String Ensemble and Marching Band
Now that is classy bbqing
Pilot
The family circa 1969
The family circa 1978

I've been spending time thinking about Dad and going through boxes of old photos. I love these images.

More images of a rich and full life

Fictive Family

I just watched a sweet film starting the marvelous Joan Plowright entitled Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. It is about an elderly woman who moves to London where her grandson also lives. She encounters a young man, a writer, and they become friends. The other residents think he is her grandson and since her own grandson never visits she allows the misunderstanding to continue. It is really about the way in which fictive family, that is family that is established by the participants rather than by birth, adoption, or marriage, can be much more profound than the family we have from circumstance. As someone with a large fictive family I quite delighted in the film.

Star Wars' Birthday

Just read an interesting post over at Episcopal Princess about tomorrow's 30th birthday of Star Wars. She may have been in diapers when it came out but I was 15 turning 16. My Auntie Ruth of blessed memory took me to see it while I was in Victoria that summer. I remember enjoying it immensely. It was a summer of the arts. My aunt was also stage manager of a production of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and well and Living in Paris and took me to see it. I fell in love with the music. A few weeks ago I listened to all of it again for the first time in years and sang along with much of it.

Kum ba yah Christians

There is an article in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine about BattleCry, a youth crusade that whips kids up into a frenzy and gets them to commit to rejecting anything that the organizer, Ron Luce, doesn't consider Christian. This includes their non-Christian friends. According to the article Luce tells the kids, "The devil hates us and we gotta be ready to fight and not be these passive little lukewarm, namby-pamby, kum-ba-yah, thumb-sucking babies that call themselves Christians. Jesus? He got mad!" You can read more here. Or you can read the whole article in the latest issue on stands until the 19th. You can read a really good analysis of this movement and why it isn't what Jesus would do at Internet Monk here.

By the way, they sang Kum ba yah at my beloved grandfather's funeral. He spent ten years in the mission field teaching young people. He spent the rest of his life committed to caring for the vulnerable. It was this grandpa who first taught me the grace of forgiveness when I was four years old. I had been playing in the basement and my family were terrified that I had wandered off. Since my grandparents lived on a winding road with poor visibility, a block from the ocean, they had reason to be terrified. As I stood in the midst of some very angry adults it was my grandpa who pulled me up onto his lap and held me.

What kind of face do we want young people to associate with the Gospel?

Happy St. David's Day!

Today is the Feast of St. David, the Patron Saint of Wales. My father's father came from Wales. His father was a coal miner and they came to B.C. to work in the mines there. From that side of the family I learned to support unions and sing in groups. From Tom Graham, one of my religious studies profs at the U of Winnipeg, I learned to wear a leek on March 1st. Well, okay, he wore a leek on March 1st and I learned what a leek was. Can't say that I've ever actually worn one but I do like eating them now. If you don't like leeks eat a Welsh cake instead (too bad they have raisins in them - yuck). Now if only I had been named Philipa Phillips!

   Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, 
 pilgrim through this barren land.  
 I am weak, but thou art mighty; 
 hold me with thy powerful hand.  
 Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, 
 feed me till I want no more; 
 feed me till I want no more.

 Open now the crystal fountain, 
 whence the healing stream doth flow; 
 let the fire and cloudy pillar 
 lead me all my journey through.  
 Strong deliverer, strong deliverer, 
 be thou still my strength and shield; 
 be thou still my strength and shield.

 When I tread the verge of Jordan, 
 bid my anxious fears subside; 
 death of death and hell's destruction, 
 land me safe on Canaan's side.  
 Songs of praises, songs of praises, 
 I will ever give to thee; 
 I will ever give to thee.
  William Williams

Molly Phillips (1909-2006)

On December 1st, 2006 my grandma died. Molly Phillips was 97 and she died a good death. My uncle and aunt were able to be there and it wasn't drawn out or painful. Her health had been deteriorating for the last few years but for over 90 years she lived an amazing life. She was born in the China, returned as a missionary in the thirties and then returned 26 times in the '70s, '80s and '90s. She was president of the Canadian Chinese Friendship Association and every year for a time she would travel across Canada giving talks and meeting with local groups. I was living in southern Ontario at the time and we'd get together for a visit. One year she came to Hamilton and stayed with me.

My grandma played a big role in my coming to faith as a teenage. Never underestimate the influence a grandmother can have on her grandchildren when she knows how to tell Bible stories well. Nonetheless we couldn't have been more different theologically. Grandma was rooted in the social gospel and was thoroughly United Church in her ecclesiology and liturgical tastes. She couldn't understand how I could stand being an Anglican. She couldn't understand how anyone could put up with bishops and repeating the same prayers every week.

Grandma also encouraged me in my studies. She flew out to Winnipeg for my BA graduation and was always interested in what I was doing. She had gone to university and studied theology and then English and spent most of her life working as an English teacher.

I was fortunate to be able to go to Victoria for her memorial service and see family I haven't seen in years. My cousin, who has been living in exile in Florida, was able to come too despite snow in the States and wind on the coast. She just sent me a copy of Grandma's graduation photo - here it is:



Rest eternal grant unto her, O Lord.
And let light perpetual shine upon her.