On one of the patriotic holidays, I decide to visit the grave of Gordon Gilchrest, my senior vice president when I worked at the Continental Insurance/Insco data center in Neptune, New Jersey. The Find-A-Grave website has lied to me; when I arrive at the advertised cemetery, he’s not there. I learn that he was cremated there, but his ashes were relocated by his family to Valhalla, New York. A helpful woman at the Kensico Cemetery there sends me scrupulous directions, along with a plot map. Maybe I’ll take a ride up to Westchester County this fall.

Rather than a “father figure”, Gordon always seemed to me more like a grandfather figure. Whenever I was called to his office to discuss some company business, we generally spent an extra 20 minutes covering his latest round of golf. He knew that I had been a caddy as a youth, but not for how long, and assumed incorrectly I had something beyond the most rudimentary knowledge of the game,

I learned very little about golf as a caddy, faking my way around the course carrying bags for leathery old ladies, and had never played a round myself.  With Gordon, mostly I just listened to his play-by-play (“The 13th there is a dogleg left…”) and nodded as he broke open his second pack of Luckies that day.

Gordon had been in the Marines, fighting in the Pacific as a young second lieutenant. He and his company had fought their way through the Japanese defenses of several “stepping-stone” islands, taking bloody losses. He hated the Japanese, and years later if we had visitors from Continental’s Tokyo office or from a Japanese company trying to sell us some hardware, he made sure to be out of the office that day.

One day there was a mix-up, and a delegation from the Tokyo office  arrived without anyone having warned Gordon. During the introductions and pleasantries, one young visitor asked “Have you ever been to Japan, Gordon?” Gordon simply answered “Yes”, and after a few minutes excused himself and left the building.