The Coolest Man I Ever Knew

The coolest man I ever knew was "Ace", otherwise known as Horace Frederick Hardy III. He was suave, funny, and charming. He was a jazz pianist, a "secret agent man", and an equestrian. He taught me style, manners, and that it's okay to play with your intelligence.

Ace came into my life when I was a very shy, awkward adolescent. I first knew him as my "Secret Friend." Nowadays we might be alarmed if we started getting letters from a man calling himself a "Secret Friend." Back then we had no internet child-stalkers, and besides my mother knew about this - my "secret friend" was her "one true love." My Secret Friend knew that I loved horses so he sent me photos of his horses, clippings of admirable horses from magazines, and notes encouraging me in my riding. He sent me a picture of his horse, "Escalator," with whom he had won the International Reserve Championship in jumping. I later found he had a treasure trove of trophies from jumping. I had started taking riding lessons, paid for by my Secret Friend. Every year for Christmas and my birthday I would ask for a horse (yes I was one of those girls) and every year I'd get another horse figure, book, or poster to add to my collection. The English riding lessons were a dream come true.

My mother, Beverly, had met Ace 20 years before when he was assigned to investigate her by the army's counterintelligence office. Beverly had a friend, Toshiko, who disappeared from school one day when they were supposed to take a test. Bev and her friends were surprised because Toshiko was very studious. Mom describes Toshiko as one of the sweetest and happiest girls at her high school. A friend who lived near Toshiko checked the house and said it seemed abandoned. Toshiko called Beverly a few days later from the Santa Anita racetrack, where Japanese Americans were being temporarily housed in stables. Toshiko's family were eventually settled at Manzanar. Beverly was outraged. At college she began calling these detainment camps "prison camps." She arranged for a speaker at her college chapel, and she wrote letters to her representatives.

In the meantime Bev's father was still working for Walt Disney, who was producing training films for the U.S. military. When some secrets were leaked out Ace was assigned to investigate Mom, who appeared to be pro-Japanese. The boy she was dating was suddenly transferred to another base, and her friends starting pressuring her to meet this "guy." Beverly didn't want to meet this "guy" who didn't sound like her "type." Finally she agreed to meet him. She sat in a coffee house, her back to the door, as the hour for their "date" approached. She could hear people coming in and out of the door, but she couldn't see them. She started to get angry as time passed, because he was late. Then he walked in. She couldn't see his face, but she knew it was him. He walked to her table and they fell instantly in love.

Beverly never believed in the "birds singing", "bells ringing" kind of love, but that's what happened when she and Ace kissed. They dated at her college for awhile, then he took her home to meet his folks. She rode the train to Chicago, and was too nervous to eat. His dad, a very nice, charming man, picked her up at the train station. He offered to give her a tour of Chicago. She's sure it was a wonderful tour, but by this time she was too hungry to concentrate.

When Beverly was shown to her room, after her luggage was brought in, Ace's mother shooed every body out, closed the door and turned her back to the door. She looked Bev up and down and said "you are not what I have planned for my son!" This was the start of an exciting and strange visit. Eventually Ace and Bev decided that although they loved each other they should not marry each other for many reasons. Ace was worried for her safety because he had known the family of a man in Army intelligence whose house had been bombed. Beverly's faith was important to her, and Ace had been brought up in an agnostic or athiest family. Mom loved children, and Ace, a single child, didn't plan to have children. They parted ways, and Beverly decided she would marry the next man who proposed to her.

Unfortunately, the next man who proposed to her turned out to be mentally ill. She didn't realize this until her wedding night. She lived through isolation and many kinds of abuse for almost 20 years because she believed in the sanctity of marriage. However, when her children began to show signs of being "at risk," she sought counsel and eventually filed for divorce. To me the divorce was a relief because my childhood father had been abusive to me.

It was sometime after this that my horseback riding lessons began, and I got letters from my "secret friend." When Beverly decided it was time for us to meet Ace she told us the story about the man she had fallen in love with twenty years before. We met Ace at the Museum of Science & Industry in L.A. I had always been shy with men but I immediately took to this man. His body type was completely different from that of my childhood father, so that helped. He had a twinkle in his blue eyes, and he was impeccably, though casually, dressed.

Soon my "secret friend" became "Uncle Ace." I enjoyed pretending we were related - he began to teach me tunes on our stand-up baby grand piano. I would play a melody - "Five Foot Two," "Lady Be Good," "Honeysuckle Rose," or "Surrey with the Fringe on Top." Uncle Ace would sit next to me on the piano bench and jazz up the song. He was an improvisational jazz pianist who used his craft as part of his "cover" while doing investigations during World War II. He would go to a college town, play piano in a bar, and listen for leads. He also played with several big bands. When I was in high school he enjoyed getting together with the orchestra teacher from our school. Gene would play jazz trumpet, while Ace did his thing on the piano. I loved his piano playing so much I had him play on our wedding day at an outdoor reception at Hardywood Farm in Illinois. We rolled the piano outside on the patio so he could entertain people while the wedding party was still at the church taking photos.

After Mom and Ace got married he quickly became "Daddy" to me. He felt like my "real dad." He'd compare our posting gaits during riding. He'd compare our hands while playing piano and say we had the same hands. He could be strict - but he was never physically violent. He'd be sarcastic and had a quick wit which could cut to the bone. He'd take away privileges, and he would hide things in his desk drawer that we hadn't put away. We learned how to eat everything, including fried chicken, with a knife and fork. We learned how to clean the house and to be respectful to our mom. He had us wait to sit down at the dining room table until our mom was seated. That proved difficult for me when I started dating my husband-to-be because his mother was always jumping up and down "oh, do we need applesauce," "oh, I forgot the salad dressing." I'd be hovering over my chair, lowering.... then pop back up, hover, lower... pop back up!

I loved it when Daddy took me to my orthodontist appointments. I enjoyed listening to him banter with the receptionists. He charmed cashiers, waitresses, clerks, just about any lady he crossed paths with. He could make the ladies feel appreciated and happy. I wasn't worried that he was going to "stray" because Ace and Bev were demonstratively affectionate with each other. It seemed so funny to us teens that she'd sit on his lap, but now I know they were younger than I am now. My husband and I are still affectionate after 30 years of marriage - and Ace and Bev were newlyweds!

For many years it was hard for me and my brother and sister to get to know my dad. My mother explained that he had a "shell" around him. That shell came from having a mom who was a bit nuts and didn't really know how to mother a child, as well as the training he had from being in counter-intelligence. He opened up a little more with me - I was never sure why because my younger sister was adorable. I went to his alma mater, where I met Marty. Ace eventually adopted me, and swore to my husband the night before my wedding that Marty was marrying a "bastard" because I was truly his child. [That whole story can be told another day....]

My sister and I were grateful that during Ace's latter years he loosened up, became more openly affectionate, and would sometimes share stories. He became generous - when my daughter got into college too late to get into one of the few campus dorms, he wrote a check to pay for her entire first year of housing at a private dorm. He loved having my daughter go to college near him. She and her friends would do laundry at her grandparents' house and he'd flirt with her college friends while the wash was running.

My dad could be stubborn but cute on the matters of faith. I accepted Jesus as my saviour after we moved to his family farm in Illinois (a girl from the church we visited invited me on a youth trip...) After years of being the quiet, shy, awkward girl, I blossomed with the help of Jesus Christ, and I wanted to share the good news with my family. I worried about my parents' drinking. My dad called me a "witch-burner." I knew that salvation was not an easy subject to talk about with him. He encouraged mom to take us to church because he knew it gave her joy. My mother loved God, and her first husband wouldn't let the family become part of a church. Although Ace was happy with Mom becoming involved in church, he rarely went to church himself. We were all relieved when he sat down for my wedding and the ceiling didn't crash down (although, come to think of it, a piece did fall down on someone else -- very old church).

My mother got cancer in 1990, and the doctors gave her a year to live. That Christmas Ace and Bev left their nativity scene (a collection my mom started when she was a child) up until the following Christmas. Every time a card came from one of Mom's friends or relatives, saying that she was in their prayers, he'd shake it at the nativity scene and tell "the Jesus people" to "do your stuff or you'll get packed up." Mom eventually became known at Stanford Medical Clinic as "the miracle lady" because she outlived that cancer and a few other cancer scares. Daddy became a believer in the power of prayer. He'd read every card that people sent Mom, and I saw wonder on his face. He asked me to pray for friends who were sick or having trouble.

I asked him once what he thought heaven was. He said heaven would be reliving your favorite moment in life for eternity. (I thought, "What if it's not the favorite moment for the people you're reliving it with?"). I walked him through the gospel message and told him that he could choose at any moment in life to ask Jesus to be his saviour.

My daughter lived with her grandparents during the summers before her freshman year, and her sophomore year of college. One morning in July of 2001 she said goodbye to her grandma and grandpa because she was going to go with a friend up the coast to take photos. She was concerned about her grandpa because he was having trouble "catching his breath." I was hosting Bunko for my Antelope Valley friends in Bear Valley Springs. We had a picnic at Cub Lake, then went up to our mountaintop cabin to play the game. I noticed a message on the answering machine, but decided to check it after our guests left. The message was from my mom - my dad had had some kind of attack and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Marty quickly arranged for a friend to fly me to the coast. My sister also got a friend to fly her from the L.A. area. While we enroute, my sister, my husband, and I were each given a scripture which reassured us that Daddy had indeed come to know his saviour. When I got to the hospital Daddy was on a ventilator. He was unresponsive, but we talked to him, and read him a letter from my half-sister. I washed his hair. When a friend of my half-sister arrived, he was amazed at the peace that surrounded my mom, my sister and I. We were floating on God's promises. The following evening Daddy passed away during the night.

That was the year 2001. My mom has been very busy since then with trips, working with the local museum, and visiting with her dozens of friends. She now has lung disease. It will be ironic if after all her bouts with cancer she is taken down by something unrelated. She is joyful and thankful for all the blessings she has received during the past 18 years - seeing my kids grow up from little kids to young adults, college graduates, married. She saw my sister, who had no children at the time Mom was diagnosed, find joy in motherhood herself. Mom has spent countless hours hosting my nieces and their friends as they visit the coast. She had her grandson live with her for a summer, and her granddaughter and grandson-in-law lived a few blocks away with their newborn baby. She has been able to play with her two great grandchildren. She has seen thousands of ocean sunsets outside her living room window, and taken delight in viewing pelicans, pictographs, and polar bears up close and personal.

Sometimes we're sad that Ace isn't around for some of these things. I would have loved to see him at my daughter's wedding; at my son's graduation. He would have made the best toasts. He would have adored his great granddaughters - after all they are the babies of his "princess" (that's what he called my daughter). His presence is around us though, in the memories we have of him, the collection of trophies in Mom's office, and in his taste in humor, TV, and music that we know so well. "Daddy would have loved this show," or "this song reminds me of my dad." There were times when Ace was grouchy, unsocial, unforgiving, or demanding. However he approached his end with a sense of humor - he said 90% of his systems were operating at 75% or some such number. When Mom was cleaning out some drawers last year she came across some love letters that they had sent each other from years before. It helped bring back to her the man who she fell heart and soul for.

I recently asked Mom for some videotapes so that I could start working on a movie about her to show at her memorial. She's actually okay talking about things like that, and she enjoys telling stories and going over ideas. She doesn't want the movie to be "boring." After my recent visit to her I was copying one of the videotapes to a DVD. It can be a melancholy time of year - Father's Day, my dad's birthday, my parents' anniversary, and the anniversary of his death all ran into each other in the last couple weeks of June, first week or so of July.

I found myself thoroughly charmed by this random videotape from 1999. Daddy would take all the tapes from the year and copy them onto one yearly tape. This tape included a a cousins' reunion, a giant dead sea turtle washed up on the beach, and Christmas. He spent time talking about an amaryllis that they had bought in Gorman on one of their return trips from Stanford. This particular year Mom’s birthday fell on Easter – for the first time since the year she was born. We had a big birthday/Easter celebration, with lots of friends and family. Ace videotaped it. At one point he took a break from the festivities and lovingly described their Easter decorations. Listening to him describe that amaryllis, and those Easter decorations, I was taken aback by the power of love. He loved his life with Mom. He loved the things they did together, like growing an amaryllis. He loved the decorations they put up for Easter and Christmas. Those things always seemed like “Mom-things” to me. But, just as Daddy reminded God of His promise by threatening the “Jesus people” (nativity scene), these funny bunny houses were another reminder of the power of love. The power of love (which we know comes from God) can heal a woman of cancer and give her at least 18 more years with her family. The power of love can bring a reassurance of scripture to their daughters. The power of love can use a woman to transform a man. This man was trained from birth to be cold and distant. This man learned how to be how to take a real interest in the people and things this woman cared for. This man learned how to love more than himself, his parents, his horse, and his wife. God’s transforming power of love is awesome.

I talked to my mom later, the day that I copied that videotape and spent time listening to my dad’s voice and thinking about his character. She said she had received many phone calls that day, including one from Leslie (my half-sister). Leslie always calls on special days, including mom’s birthday, Christmas, and today, which was the anniversary of Daddy’s death. Tears filled my eyes as I told mom I knew we were close to the day but I was fuzzy about the date, and she wouldn’t believe what I was just listening to….

(To play the videos below, click on the arrow)


Ace at the Piano

Ace describing an Amaryllis


The Bunny Village