Wednesday, July 22, 2015
I'll always think of Howard Page as a friend's father, although he was certainly more. But, early on, after having already been through the high school years of Steve and Scott, Mr. Page definitely seemed to have an elevated awareness that Phil and I were generally up to something. He never said anything about it; his wry smile did all the talking.
One high school night, Phil and I tried to slide out of the Charter Place house unnoticed, but Mr. Page the Do-It-Yourselfer was painting an upstairs bedroom and called us in. Standing on a ladder, paintbrush in hand, he bungled an attempt at a reason for delaying our advance but quickly got around to what he really wanted to say: "Boy, I think I'm getting a buzz on!" A grin of satisfaction spread across his face, confident that he had expressed himself in the proper teenage vernacular of the day, thus "bonding" with us. Alas, he was a little off, but the desire to be a "cool" dad was not lost in translation.
Later, in the fall of '85, Mr. Page the Scientist came to Chapel Hill with valuable cargo---his freshman son and an IBM computer. Commonplace now, that PC may have been the only one in the 500 dorm rooms in Hinton James. For decades afterward, my own parents would recount---with respect and a touch of humor---the care with which they witnessed Mr. Page assemble and fire up that machine. He wanted to provide every advantage he could.
As the years passed, my relationship with him remained amazingly consistent. I'm not sure I ever got anything past him. He would just chuckle, close his eyes, and slightly shake his head. My memory of Howard Page will always be as an amazingly intelligent person from whom subtle expressions of caring came without the expectation of getting something in return.
