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My father would have been 95 today. I've been thinking about that and about him and about his life. There are lots of things to remember, but some are special.

I want to remember how he made choices based on what he thought was right, even when he swam against the current. Like the time the church wanted to upgrade his degree.

When my father graduated in 1941, seminary graduates received a Bachelor of Divinity (BD) degree. Every professor signed every degree certificate.

Some years later, the powers that be in the church decided that, since seminary came after a bachelor's degree from a four year college, it should be a graduate degree. Fair enough.

They offered the men (there were all men then) with a BD degree the option to upgrade to a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree. All they had to do was send in their old BD degree and they would get a shiny new MDiv by return mail.

Dad decided to keep his BD. After all, he said, it had all those great signatures of great men. For him, the connection to his teachers and the history of the church was worth more than an "upgrade."

In 1968, Dad went to Germany as the Lutheran World Federation representative in Berlin. He went through Checkpoint Charlie on a daily basis, putting up with petty harassments while he worked to help the churches in East Germany become self-supporting.

One thing they needed was Bibles. East German money was worthless outside the country. And East Germany didn't allow shipments of Bibles from the West. It seemed like an insurmountable problem. But Dad found a solution.

Finland was a trading partner of East Germany. So, Dad arranged for the Finns to ship Bibles to the East Germans. He arranged for the Lutheran World Federation to pay the Finns. Everyone was happy except the East Germans.

1967 was the 450th anniversary of the Reformation. Dad arranged for visits by Western Lutherans to historic Reformation sites located in East Germany.

Almost all of them got in. He didn't 

When he got to the border on a trip to visit the sites, Dad found that his visa had been revoked. The commander of the border detachment read the following to him: "Evidently you have the same name as a troublemaker."

Whenever someone asked him if he was disappointed, he had the same reply. "I gave up a look at the Wartburg to get hundreds of Bibles into the East. It was a good trade."

When Dad died, in January 1994, I was asked to speak at the Memorial Service. The church was full.

There were family and friends. An old seminary classmate was there and other local pastors. There were men and women, now adults, who had been college students on choir tours my Dad led. There were people to whom he had been Pastor.

"How many of you have ever heard my father laugh?" I asked. Hands shot up all over the church.

"Raise both hands if you heard him laugh more than once."

More hands shot up. Some started waving back and forth. And people started to laugh, each one remembering a time, a story, an event. It was a legacy of laughter and good cheer.

My father was a man of principle. He was a man who embraced joy.

When he died, he left money for a party in his honor. The instructions were simple.

"Tell good stories about me. Laugh a lot."

And so we did.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.