William Warren "Bill" Hass was born in Bangor, Maine, on August 24, 1918. He lived in Plainfield, NJ, 1958-1980. Lived in Sunnyvale, CA, 1980-2004. Died at Los Altos, CA, May 13, 2004. Those are the basic facts, but they don't begin to describe the remarkable man my dad was.
Due to the death of his father (Warren Hass, a furnace repairman) when Bill was only 3 years old, dad had to start working at a young age to help support his mother and three siblings. At age 7, dad took a job tapping maple trees for their sugary syrup, more often being paid in maple sugar than in actual cash. Working among the maples is where dad first developed his lifelong habit of cheerful whistling. At the age of 15, he started delivering newspapers on his bicycle in the morning and evening, whistling all the while, even while struggling with his high school studies during the hours in between.
At the age of 12, dad learned that a cousin would pay for postage stamps for her collection. So he began salvaging stamps off of letters that his family received, and even from envelopes that he found in other people's trash, and then selling the stamps to her for a little extra pocket change. But collecting stamps for his cousin soon hooked him on the stamp-collecting hobby too, and dad collected postage stamps of all eras and all nations the rest of his life. Although school was difficult for him as a child, dad learned a lot on his own, by reading all he could find about the people and places depicted on the stamps in his collection. His extensive reading (primarily Reader's Digest and National Geographic, his lifelong favorite magazines) convinced him that he could, would, and should work his way out of the dire poverty in which his father's death had left his family. That is one of the things I've always been proudest about with dad: that he worked his way out of poverty into solid middle class, not an easy accomplishment in the Depression Thirties.
Delivering newspapers and selling postage stamps to his cousin was not really helping dad to get out from under grinding poverty, so in 1937, at the age of 19, he took a job setting pins at a bowling alley. Two years later, he became a laborer for the new Works Progress Adminstration (WPA). Among other difficult and unpleasant tasks, he had to dig ditches and pour hot, smelly asphalt for road-building on sweltering summer days.
Whistling was often his way to fight back against the desperation of poverty. So was dad's sense of humor. Dad loved to read Mark Twain's funnier and more obscure stories: one of his favorites was Punch Brothers Punch, in which a man reads a poem and it gets stuck in his head. Twain recites the poem over and over in his head (and to the reader) throughout the story. Finally, at the end of the story, Twain warns the reader to stay away from this cursed poem, but of course by then, Twain has repeated the poem so many times in the story, that the poor reader can't help but recite these torturous verses over and over! Marx Brothers movies were also a favorite of dad's: who can forget the ship's cabin scene when so many people are packed into a tiny room, more and more keep entering the room, until poor Margaret Dumont opens the door and everyone comes tumbling out of the room like too many shoe boxes tumbling from an over-crowded closet. Dad's eldest son Richie inherited most of dad's sense of humor, regaling the family with funny stories at Sunday dinners in the 1960s, and even today Richie incorporates off-the-wall humor into the songs he writes.
Bill's mother (my grandmother), Grace Howard Hass of Bangor, Maine, had an avid interest in fire departments, firefighting, and fire prevention, ever since losing her house in the Great Bangor Fire in 1911 (that loss, along with her husband's death in 1921, was a key factor behind the poverty in which her four children grew up). Grandma Hass took dad to the local firehouse on many a weekend, where he enjoyed feeding sugar cubes to the fire horses. One of dad's earliest childhood memories was in 1921, watching with his mother as Bangor firefighters battled a blaze in the upper floors of a multi-story factory in Bangor. This cherished memory began his lifelong interest in high-rise firefighting. Dad added Fire Engineering, a monthly magazine for professional firefighters, to his lifelong favorite magazines, and he subscribed to that magazine from 1937 or earlier, until 1982.
The grinding poverty in which dad and his siblings grew up sometimes meant that it was difficult or impossible for his mother to pay the rent on the cottage-size shack of a house where they lived. That likely explains why they moved to different addresses in Bangor seven times in the 1920s. In the late 1930s, dad completed all requisite training to join the fire service, as a way out of poverty. But he was more interested in the engineering side of firefighting than he was in risking life and limb being on the front lines actually fighting fires. Fire departments don't start anyone out in an engineering position, so dad never joined a fire department.
Having turned down a job as a firefighter, and with work scarce in Maine, in 1942 dad hopped a bus to Hartford, CT, to take a job in a fast-food diner. He was told to work as many hours as he wanted to. He made enough to not only support himself, but also to send some money home to Bangor, in support of his mother and sister.
But Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor a few months earlier was still fresh on everyone's mind, and America was gearing up for war. It wasn't long before Uncle Sam called on dad to "do my patriotic duty" as he put it. As a first step, the Army sent dad to the Johnson-O'Connor Human Engineering lab in Boston, where his aptitudes were extensively tested. Dad tested high in engineering skills, perhaps not surprising given his interest in the engineering side of firefighting. The Army Air Corps (now the Air Force) desperatley needed men with engineering aptitude to serve as radio operators and technicians.
So the Air Force sent dad to tropical Florida to train in radio communications and radio repair. Just as he was starting to get used to the warm climate, his training finished, and from sunny Florida he became a radio operator in Alaska's frozen Aleutian Islands. Dad spent a year in the Aleutians, and the Air Force told him that they expected him to not only operate radios (communicating directly with American pilots engaged in dogfights with Japanese pilots), but to repair the radios at remote outposts (like Amitchka and Semisopochnoi) as needed. Dad wryly commented that in an entire year in Alaska, the only repair he ever had to made was "replacing a light bulb once, so I could see the radio!" He also remarked on the loneliness of these remote locations: "There were no women! After a while, even the trees started to look good!"
After a year in this freezing duty ("the weather all year round was much like winters in my native Maine, so they figured I could handle it, that I was used to this type of cold"), dad was transferred to the San Jose area of California, where he says he was given very little to do (the Germans had already been defeated, the Japanese soon would be too, and no enemies lurked anywhere near San Jose). During this time, dad came to dream of some day settling among the beautiful orchards of nearby Sunnyvale. Whenever he had military leave, he would pick fruit in local orchards and send money home to help support his widowed mother, his two brothers, and his sister back home in Bangor, Maine. He tried to persuade his mother and his sister Marge to move to California with him, but they did not want to leave Maine, and they did not believe that he could lift them out of the poverty that he had already left behind.
Dad never cared much for the military. Dad even had to learn to cook for himself at some of these remote Alaskan outposts, and years later he introduced his sons to what had become his specialty dish in the Air Force: chipped beef on toast, aptly named "Shit on a Shingle." The best thing dad recalled about his military service was the initial aptitude testing in Boston. Discovering an aptitiude for engineering gave dad the confidence he needed to realize his dream of lifting himself out of the poverty in which he grew up, and solidly into the middle class. Even better, though, was the G.I. Bill after the war, that allowed all WW II veterans the opportunity to receive a college education "on the government's nickel."
After World War II, dad completed high school in Boston, then settled in New York City to obtain his Bachelors degree in Psychology from Columbia University. Psychology and industrial engineering were among his lifelong passions. While enrolled at Columbia, dad developed an interest in dancing, losing a little of his shyness around women, and he attended weekly dances at Riverside Church in New York. At one dance, he met a refugee from German persecution. Her name was Marianne Schaefer, but I knew her as mom; she enjoyed dancing, too, and was quite good at it. They married on December 22, 1948, a marriage that lasted a remarkable 52 years.
Graduating from Columbia University in 1950, dad took a job as an accountant. The job was not very interesting and the pay was low. Finally, he landed a better-paying job in Newark, NJ, and mom and dad moved there. Now it was 1952 and the first of their three children, Richard, was born on September 21 of that year.
After moving around several times in New York state and New Jersey, never keeping any one job for very long, in 1954 they finally settled in Plainfield, New Jersey. There, their second son, Ed was born on July 8, 1955.
In 1956, dad finally realized his dream to work in the engineering side of the fire service, when he accepted a position as an industrial engineer at the Mack fire engine plant in Plainfield, NJ. There, he was involved in the manufacture of the famous Mack Thermodyne diesel engine.
On October 7, 1958, their third and last son, John, was born. Their joy over a new child was tempered some when just before Christmas of 1958, dad's employer, Mack Trucks, moved its fire appartus plant from Plainfield, NJ, to Sidney, OH. With a wife and three young children to support, dad scrambled for another job, and quickly found one when he became an industrial engineer at Worthington Pumps in Harrison, NJ. Worthington manufactured a wide variety of pumps in their two-block-long factory, including stationary pumps for standpipe systems to fight fires in factories and office buildings. Dad continued to work at Worthington for 22 years, as both an industrial engineer and shop steward for the steelworkers union. On his retirement in 1980, mom and dad sold their house in Plainfield, and finally realized dad's dream to move to Sunnyvale, CA.
In 1958, dad began researching the history of high-rise firefighting, with particular emphasis on a type of fire engine called "water towers," which are designed to deliver large volumes of water at great pressure, to elevations as high as a ninth-floor window. In 1958, Dick Horstmann of Syracuse founded the Society for the Presrvation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America (SPAAMFAA), a national organization of fire engine buffs. Horstmann (or "Horstperson" as he came to be known among the politically-correct in the 1970s) invited dad to become a founding member of SPAAMFAA, but with three young children to support, and being temporarily between jobs at that time, he had neither the time nor finances to participate in SPAAMFAA, and he declined to join; ten years later (in 1968), his son Ed joined SPAAMFAA and remains a member to this day.
On Hass family vacations throughout the 1960s, on arrival at each new city, mom would unpack the suitcases and jump in the motel pool with the boys, while dad headed to the nearest firehouse, camera in hand. Eventually son Ed would join Bill, choosing fire stations and fire engines, and alone time to bond with dad, over a relaxing swim with mom and his brothers.
One favorite vacation memory of mine is 1962. Mom, dad, brothers, and I traveled around the midwest (Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville) with a rented silver Airstream travel-trailer, towed behind a green 4-door Rambler that was vastly underpowered for the weight it was towing. Dad having to stop frequently, open the hood, and let the radiator cool off. Finally pulling into a trailer park, where the fast-talking attendant kept asking "Wanna parkee? Wanna parkee?" Dad interpreted this nonsensical question as "Do you want a parkee?" to which dad replied, "What the hell is a parkee?" It turned out the jabbering trailer-park attendant was trying to say "Do you want to park here?"
The next spring, dad, who struggled all his life with low blood pressure and low blood sugar, blacked out while driving home from work, and managed to wrap that same Rambler around a telephone pole, so his driving privileges were revoked. The next summer, mom had to do all the driving on the family vacation, in her pink-and-white Oldsmobile F-85. One of the stops on that 1963 vacation was at Freeport, Long Island, in New York state. Dad's friend Nick Dionisio of nearby Baldwin, who ran a moving company, owned a 1905 water tower fire engine, and had challenged the Freeport fire department in a competion against their then brand-new Seagrave aerial ladder truck. While mom, Richie, and John swam in the motel pool, dad and I rode the local bus to the Freeport car-race track. There, Nick and his friends manually set the outriggers that stabilize the water tower, and they laboriously hand-cranked the tower into its vertical position. Meanwhile, Freeport firefighters pushed buttons and pulled levers that automated the process of raising their new Seagrave ladder. But for safety reasons, modern hydraulics are deliberately slow. Much to the embrassment of Freeport firefighters, Nick's 58-year-old water tower, still set up with its original horse hitch, was throwing thousands of gallons of water per minute, before Freeport's brand-new aerial ladder was fully raised. And dad recorded it all, on color 8-millimeter movie film!
On our way back to the motel, dad and I watched Freeport's 1949 Ahrens-Fox pumper race past us, on its way to a fire. This was a unique fire engine, with the big silver ball atop its front-mounted pump, and a fully-enclosed cab for a three-man crew. I still have dad's home movie of that response. 8 years later, this same Ahrens-Fox pumper was involved in a head-on collision in Freeport, after which it was sold to my good friend A.J. Quirk, who promptly restored it. A.J. is another remarkable man I would not have had the privelege to have met, had my dad not been the remarkable man that he was, with the unusual interests that he had. A.J.'s arms and legs are contorted due to cerebral palsy, yet he is one of the most skilled and knowledgable mechanics I have ever known. One day in 1972, after A.J. had skillfully repaired the previous year's collision damage on his fire engine, A.J. and I decided to see if this fire engine could still fight fires after its repaired damage. We cranked the pump pressure up somewhere well past 400 pounds per square inch (we got close to 600 psi as I recall), forcing the water out through three 2-1/2 inch hose lines siamesed into a massive portable "deluge" nozzle. I watched in fascination and horror as the pressure literally shattered the brass siamese nozzle we were pumping into. I still have a photo I took of A.J. holding a piece of the shattered deluge monitor. But the collision-cracked pump which A.J. had welded held up just fine!
It may be fine for other boys, that their dads took them to baseball games. But our dad took us to fire stations!
In 1963, along with the late Gil Jory of Baltimore, Bill Hass published Water Towers of America, a large chart briefly outlining the history of every water tower ever made and used in American and Canadian fire departments. Gil bestowed upon dad the lifelong nickname of "the Water Tower man." I recall that dad always ended his letters to friends in the fire engine hobby with "Cordially, Bill the Water Tower Man." I love that word "cordially" instead of the standard and overly-formal "sincerely yours." It so captures dad's warm and, well, cordial personality. Dad had an interesting way of composing these letters to his friends, too: he would hand-write rough drafts with a 19-cent Bic pen on his train-ride home from work (he carried several Bic pins, in assorted colors, in a plastic pocket protector in his white-shirt pocket, as much for his letter-writing as for his job as an industrial engineer). At home, he would type these letters on his manual typewriter in a corner of the living room, while his whole family sat a few feet away watching variety shows such as Ed Sullivan, Glen Campbell, or Carol Burnett on our black-and-white TV. While typing his letters to friends, he would keep an ear alert for a particularly funny joke or a favorite song on the TV. He would always save the hand-written drafts of his letters, to refer to when his friends replied to his neatly-typed letters.
In 1966, dad attempted to buy a fire engine of his own, as co-owner with his good friend Gene Anderson of Marblehead, MA. It was a 1932 Ahrens-Fox hose wagon that had been retired from the fire department of Hoboken, NJ (oddly enough, I nearly bought the identical twin of this truck from Hoboken 9 years later). It had no motor and was otherwise in need of a lot of restoration, so even though his share of the purchase price was only $100, dad and Gene had to pass this up, and the fire engine was soon cut-up in a local junkyard. About 8 years later, dad unsuccessfully tried to buy a heavy-duty farm wagon at an Amish auction in Pennnsylvania, with a view to converting the wagon into a working replica of the very first water tower fire engine, which had been built on a converted farm wagon in Baltimore by Greenleaf and Logan in 1878. It was his son Ed who finally realized dad's dream of owning a fire engine, when Ed bought a 1953 Ahrens-Fox pumper in 1979; restoration was completed in 1992 and Ed still owns this fire engine today.
About the time that dad began his research into water towers in 1958, a new type of firefighting vehicle, the elevating platform, was beginning to enter the American fire service. Throughout the 1960s, elevating platforms began displacing water towers, and dad redoubled his efforts to photograph and document all of the surviving water towers from Boston to Los Angeles, before they would entirely disappear from American firehouses (Memphis retired the last in-service water tower in 1987). At the same time, dad also began photographing and documenting the new elevating platforms that were coming into firefighting service, photographing hundreds of them all over the U.S. and Canada, traveling to cities large and small via Greyhound bus. Bill Hass even completed certifcation training in elevating platform operation at the University of Maryland, and befriended some of the designers at one of the largest manufacturers of elevating platforms, the Snorkel Fire Equipment Company of St. Joseph, MO.
Dad's research into water towers, elevating platforms, and high-rise firefighting resulted in the 1989 publication of his 422-page book, History of the American Water Towers, which has become the definitive history of high-rise firefighting equipment in America. It was my pleasure and honor to edit, publish, and market this book for dad, as well as to research, write, publish, and market four of my own books about antique fire engines. In addition to the sense of accomplishment in seeing one of his books in print, the thing dad remembered most about his book was getting writer's cramp autographing all 1,000 copies of his book that I published for him. Dad's book was a bigger success than anyone expected, selling out all 1,000 copies in just 9 months, not at all bad for a self-published book on a highly-specialized subject, available only via mail order.
Dad had certain routines when my brothers and I were kids. Weekdays mom and dad would get up at 5:30 AM. While dad shaved with his straight razor and a round cake of Williams shaving soap, mom would pack his lunch in a paper bag: the bologna sandwich on white bread would be packed on top, since he liked to eat that first. The cheese sandwich was just under that, and the three Oreo cookies at the bottom, to be eaten last so he could savor their flavor in his mouth all afternoon. After dad ate his breakfast bowl of Wheaties (Wednesdays were a special treat for dad, the one day in the week when he let himself indulge by adding banana slices to his bowl of Wheaties), mom would drive dad the mile and a half to the train station.
In the evening, another daily ritual: mom would pick dad up from his train to get him home for dinner at 6:00 PM sharp. Except Thursday nights. That was pay night. Dad would cash his paycheck at the bank near the train station, and then drop off his film at the drugstore next to the bank. The film was the fire engine photos he had shot the previous weekend, or a negative to print for one of his many friends in the fire engine hobby, in trade for a photo that the friend would mail to him. Mary at the drug store always knew to mark the envelope with an instruction to Kodak: "Crop print to frame fire engine." Without that instruction, bored Kodak technicians, operating on auto-pilot, often cropped the print from the left or right, showing a lot of grass and trees in front of or behind the fire engine, and cropping half the fire engine out of the print. Each Thursday night, mom would meet dad at the drug store, stick her hand out and smile sweetly while demanding "give me all your money." See, it was mom's job to pay the bills and balance the family checkbook, so she handled all the money. Mom never got tired of making her joke of "give me all your money" every Thursday night, and dad never tired of hearing it. There was a lot of unspoken "I love you" in this little game of theirs.
Mom and dad also taught me to, in Martin Luther King Junior's words, evaluate people "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." We always watched every one of King's speeches on TV. Our basement was full of picket signs reading "Jim Crow laws must go," and mom and dad's friends of all ethnic backgrounds would pick up these picket signs from our basement on many a weekend. I recall mom and other women standing on the front steps of the local city hall singing "We Shall Overcome." I know that song was intensely personal for mom: she had overcome the Nazis persecuting her family for being Jewish, and she had fled her native Germany in 1939, crossing the Atlantic all by herself at the age of 14. After escaping to the land of freedom herself, she couldn't understand or condone bogotry toward anyone. I loved that song, and I was proud of mom for singing it. So when each member of my third-grade class was supposed to sing our favorite song, I couldn't understand why all the white parents and teachers were so upset with my singing "We Shall Overcome." Hmmm, maybe this "color-blind" upbringing at least partly explains why, at the age of 40, I married a woman of Mexican heritage and became dad to an adopted child of African-American heritage. The main reason, of course, is that I love them both very much, but had mom and dad not raised us to look at the "content of their character," I might never have the family I now so enjoy.
When I was in high school and college in the 1970s, I sometimes rode the same train home that dad rode. Dad would always ride in the front car. He would jump off the train before it came to a complete stop at the station and use the train's momentum to launch him running toward mom. Even after more than a quarter century of marriage, they still loved each other deeply. After dinner, mom would wash the dishes as dad dried them, and the love in their eyes and in their touch was obvious. I only wished that some day I could find such a love with a woman. I wanted to be just like dad in that regard. It took me until the age of 40 to find Maria, and that's when I finally did find such a love as my parents had. I am lucky to have witnessed such a rare love growing up, and luckier still to be part of a rare and true "soulmate" love as an adult.
Many firefighters and fire buffs have mentioned to me that they always recall dad's politeness. When he planned to visit a city to photograph a water tower, elevating platform, or other unusual piece of fire apparatus, he always wrote ahead to request permission to have the apparatus brought out onto the firehouse apron on a specific date, and afterward he always wrote thanking the firefighters for their trouble in taking the apparatus outside to photograph in the sunlight. Even on the hottest summer weekends, dad wore his suit and tie and trademark grey fedora hat, out on the parade route somewhere in NY, NJ, or PA, taking pictures and chatting easily with other fire apparatus buffs.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, dad and I never missed a SPAAMFAA antique fire engine muster at Valhalla, NY; Milford, CT; and Harrisburg, PA. The annual New Jersey State Firemen's Parade at Wildwood, NJ, running literally from sunup to sundown, was always a favorite for both dad and me, too. Dad's friends, and mine, would invite me to hop aboard their fire engine and ride in the Wildwood parade, then loop around back to the parking lot where the parade had started. Someone else would then invite me to ride along. One year I rode the entire Wildwood parade route four times, on four diffrent fire engines! Mom and dad struck a deal for such events: she would drive us to the parade and sit watching it all day, but in the evening, dad took her out for dinner and dancing (mom just loved to waltz!). I always supsected that dad got the better end of the deal, getting to enjoy the parade all day and then enjoying dancing with the love of his life at night.
Dad's passion for fire engines rubbed off on several family members, but none moreso than his middle son Ed. In 1970, at age 14, I founded the Ahrens-Fox Fire Buffs' Association (AFFBA), and with a lot of support and encouragement from dad, I built its membership to 100 its first year and to 500 after its third year, in 40 states, Canada, Europe, and Asia. I also started writing and publishing AFFBA's quarterly magazine, The Silver Sphere, an effort that dad greatly encouraged. In 1992, the Association and its magazine evolved into a web site (www.affba.org) that I still run. How many 14-year-olds get to found a magazine with worldwide distribution? My success in writing and publishing, which dad strongly encouraged and supported, led to my majoring in Journalism in college, as well as to my successful career of the past quarter century, as a Technical Writer.
Dad was also actively involved with the Boy Scouts of America for many years. His sons Richie, Ed, and John all belonged to Troop 12 in Plainfield, NJ. Bill would help supervise the weekly scout meetings, and he was active with the local District Council of the Boy Scouts. He would take 10-mile and even 20-mile hikes with the scouts of Troop 12, always in his suit and tie and trademark grey fedora hat. On at least one occasion, in 1969, dad bicycled beside the hiking scouts for 20 miles. Dad knew how to camp in style: while the other boys were content to cook hot dogs on the end of a stick, Bill Hass and his sons would feast on whole chicken, baked potato, and corn on the cob, all roasted over an open campfire! While the scouts crumpled their spare clothes into a backpack, dad would bring his clothes to camp all pressed and neatly-folded in a suitcase.
Dad had a garden in the backyard of our childhood home in Plainfield, of which he was especially proud. Raspberry and blackberry bushes that gave us an in-season treat for many years (mom served these berries fresh in a bowl of milk; I can almost taste them right now!). Yellow, red, pink, and white roses. Yellow forcythias. Daffodils. A dogwood tree out front with white flowers, and another in back with pink flowers. And the maple tree that grew to dominate the length and width of the back yard and tower above our three-story house. Even while gardening, he usually wore that suit, tie, white shirt, and grey fedora hat!
Among the very few times when dad wore anything but his suit and tie was on one day each spring, when he would change from his crisp white shirts into his button-front gray "work around the house" shirt and matching gray pants. Dad and his three sons would hang the screen windows on the house to keep flies out during hot, humid, open-window days of summer. Dad would also repaint the front steps to the house, to cover the damage from the previous winter's blizzards. Mom would wash the windows while we boys helped dad hang the screens. I loved this time with dad and mny brothers, but I hated hanging the two second-story screens over the sloping roof of the side porch, always fearing I would slide off this roof and onto our neighbor's asphalt driveway below. In retrospect, perhaps this fear was well founded, for at age 9 I fell off a rose trellis I shouldn't have been climbing in the first place, and broke my left wrist. In my thirties, an unstable ladder that I was on fell over while I was repainting mom and dad's home; no broken bones but I landed in a rose bush and had to pick a lot of thorns out of my skin. And I shall forever bear the scar from falling off another ladder in my forties, tearing my skin open and breaking my thumb. It's odd for someone as interested in fire engines as I am, to have such bad luck with ladders!
Dad also wore his grey working outfit once each fall, when the screens came down and the storm windows went up. Dad would rake up the leaves from the maple tree and from the two dogwoods, into a big pile in our gravel driveway. We three boys would then jump in the leaves, scattering them everywhere, while dad filmed our fun with his 8-mm home movie camera. Then he would rake the leaves back into a pile and burn them right there in the driveway.
Soon after the annual storm-window hanging and leaf raking, it would be Halloween, and dad would film us in our costumes. Richie would always have the new costume, and his old costumes would pass down to me first, then to John. The costume Richie was filmed wearing one year, I would be filmed in a year or two later, and John a year or two after that.
Anyway, dad wore his same grey outfit to fix-up the house each spring and fall. He never got rid of it, nor bought a new one. I guess growing up in poverty, dad couldn't bear to throw anything out, not even his annual work-at-home clothes. One day, I'm guessing around 1987, dad and I took his granddaugher (my niece) Barbara to a swimming pool, and I noticed he was wearing the same brown-and-white plaid swim trunks that I remembered him wearing on the rare occasions when he would go to a swimming pool during my own childhood, the same swim trunks that he was wearing when he was photographed rowing a boat during a date with mom in 1948! The Depression Thirties mentality: never throw anything away.
Starting just after his 1980 retirment, Dad lived in his dreamed-of Sunnyvale paradise, even after mom passed away on Febraury 5, 2001, staying in Sunnyvale right up until he moved into a nursing home at Los Altos, CA, two weeks before he breathed his last. Although the orchards were long gone by the time he finally moved to Sunnyvale, he never lost his love for that city, taking an active interest in Sunnyvale's unique combined police and fire department, and becoming politically active in a losing struggle to prevent tearing-down the beautiful huge shade trees on Tasman Drive, to install a trolley line. Due to his frequent cheerful whistling, he became known among his Sunnyvale neighbors as "Whistling Willie," a nickname that he particularly relished, and the title of his unpublished autobiography.
After my father-in-law, Joe Mijares, underwent two major surgeries in 2003, my siblings-in-law organized monthly family outings, and they always invited dad Hass, too. As recently as February, 2004, dad and dad-in-law walked through a local park, chatting like lifelong friends. Then the doctors told dad he had cancer in both lungs that was spreading very rapidly. It is hard to believe that "Whistling Willie" went from healthy and happy to breathing his last in just two short months. But we are happy for him in one regard, that his death was quick and painless for him, considering that mom suffered terrible agonizing pains as her health slowly deteriorated over the final 20 years of her life.
During dad's final two months, my wife Maria, son Jason, and I spent as much time as we could with dad. Saturdays, Sundays. And when we could, on weekdays as well. Toward the last, he was too weak to do much for himself. I would shave his chin with an electric razor that we bought him; his face was too lined by age, his beard too thick and stubbly, to use his preffered shaving soap and straight razor any more. Maria and I would hand-feed him meals, and even Jason fed him on a few occasions. I would read to him, or turn on his radio to the classical-music station, and that always seemed to bring a smile to his face and animation to his converstaion. One time, the radio station played a waltz, and I asked dad if this music helped him remember waltzing mom around the dance floor. He was too weak to talk, but his big smile said it all.
On dad's final day, Maria and I were with dad all day, right up until visiting hours ended at 8:30 PM. He was unconcious and barely breathing, but we held his hand and talked to him. The still, unconcious, nearly-lifeless form on the nursing-home bed was not the dad I remember; he was not even the still-animated conversationalist of a week earler, and that final day with dad is not the memory that fills my mind today. The nursing home called Maria and me at 9:30 PM that night, to report that dad breathed his last at about 9:15 PM on Thursday, May 13, 2004, a mere 45 minutes after we left his room for the last time. But he lives on in our many wonderful memories of him, a few of which I have recounted here.
Bill Hass is survived by his sons Richie Hass of Van Nuys, CA, Ed Hass of Elk Grove, CA, and John Hass of Summitville, TN; his daughters-in-law Michelle Klein-Hass of Van Nuys, and Maria Mijares of Elk Grove; and by his grandchildren Barbara Hass of Sunnyvale and Jason Todd of Elk Grove. But more than that, he is also survived by two huge cartons full of his home movies of family, fires, and fire engines. He is survived by a suitcase full of his unpublished writings: the manuscript for his book on the history of the high-rise buildings that his beloved water towers were designed to protect. Seven unpublished novels. A collection of unpublished short stories and poems. And his unpublished autobiography, Whistling Willie. He is survived by his many articles published in fire service magazines over the years, and by his one published book, History of the American Water Towers. And he is survived by his son Ed's avid interest in Ahrens-Fox fire engines, his daughter-in-law Michelle's enthusiam for Crown fire engines, and his grandson Jason's sometimes interest in Seagrave fire engines. He is survived by the love, respect, and cherished memories in the hearts and minds of his children and grandchildren.
Per his wishes, Bill's ashes will be scattered off the coast of Santa Cruz, CA, at 4 PM on June 26, 2004, in a ceremony for close friends and family members, to say goodbye, to remember him, and to celebrate his remarkable life.
We all miss you, dad. You had a great life, you were that rare breed known as a true gentleman, and your example inspired greatness in all whom you touched. A coworker of mine summed up how we all feel about you: "The best gift a son can give his dad is to lead an honorable life." It is an honor to be your son, and I for one strive every day to be worthy of that honor, to be a true gentleman, to lead that honorable life. Just like you did.
--Ed Hass, May 21, 2004