Terrence Eugene Knott

by Kip Knott

for Terrence Knott (1934-2026)

They say good writers borrow and great writers steal. I’ve always believed that I am a good writer. But my father told me once that he thought I was a great writer. And he demonstrated this belief many times when, after a couple of martinis, he would subject captive dinner guests to impromptu readings of my poems. So, as the good writer that I believe I am, and as the great writer my father believed me to be, let me begin my remembrance of him by borrowing John Denver’s voice and stealing Paul McCartney’s words: Terrence Eugene Knott was born a poor, young country boy in 1934 in the tiny Appalachian town of Hemlock, Ohio.

A week before my father passed, my son, Callum, asked him what his favorite memory was. Before my son could tell me the memory my father had chosen, I began to run through all the memories that my siblings—Kevin, Kim, Kelly, and Patrick—and I had shared in the days after he entered hospice.

For instance, we all remembered how he showed us that adding ketchup to bean-and-bacon soup significantly enhanced the flavor. (It’s important to note here, however, that my father believed adding ketchup to anything enhanced the flavor.)

We remembered some of the sayings that were part of his everyday speech (such as, “Fair to middlin’,” “Bye for now,” “Talk at you later”) and more unique sayings (such as, “Spekiti poofi,” “Ishkabibble,” and “Let’s vent, Ceesco”) whose origins still remain a mystery to all of us.

We remembered how he never failed to make his point in Euchre even when he called trump with only one trump in his hand, and how he never missed his unblockable hook-shot when we played basketball on the driveway.

We remembered how he would repack the car even after one or more of us had already packed it, because he could see a more efficient and space-saving alternative.

We remembered fishing trips to Canada; road-trips to Florida where all of us crammed into our two-tone green-and-brown Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser station wagon with the rear-facing, carsick-inducing backseat for the two-day drive to Fort Pierce; so many weekend and holiday trips to Perry County that the shadow of an Appalachian twang crept into everything we said; and Jeep ride trips through the back-country of southeastern Ohio that were simultaneously fraught with the danger of rolling over the side of a cliff, and filled with the laughter and joy of spending time with family and friends.

We remembered how, when he was older, he refused to follow GPS directions, deferring instead to paper maps to get us from Point A to Point B, even if the road that connected the two points in some dark corner of the Yorkshire Moors was more like a path barely wide enough to fit one car cut between towering hedgerows. And how, much to our chagrin, he could read any map as if he himself were the cartographer who had created it, getting us to where we needed go faster than Siri ever could.

We remembered the myriad of injuries he sustained throughout his long life: the big toe he partially cut off while mowing the lawn in a hurry; the finger he nearly lost when folding up a hide-a-bed during an Indian Guides camping trip; the broken jaw he got during a pickup basketball game at the Y; and so many nicks, scrapes, cuts, and gashes received while doing yardwork over the years that he singlehandedly kept the Band Aid division of Johnson & Johnson in the black for decades.

And we remembered the work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit he instilled in all of us by building his own business from scratch; by helping those in need in Detroit and Columbus by giving them food, clothing, and shelter; by providing a college education for all of us and continuing to help us with cars or housing or finances all throughout our adult lives. All five of us knew that our father was the first call we could make whenever we needed help.

These were just some of the memories that instantly popped into my head after Callum told me that he asked my father what his favorite memory was.

But then I started to think about what memory he might choose from his long and amazing life to answer Callum’s question. Could the memory come from one of the marquee moments of his life? Like the time he crushed a car with a Sherman tank during a Veteran’s Day parade and was then promoted to Tank Commander. Or could the memory come from some of the shenanigans involving his two brothers, Jay and Tom? Like the time they stole part of the Christopher Columbus statue and stashed it on the front porch of their father’s house.

I quickly dismissed the idea that his favorite memory would come from that period of his life, choosing instead to believe that it had to come from any one of the 70-plus years that he and my mother lived together and loved one another.

For instance, the memory could have been the day he met my mother in one of the greenhouses behind Ohio State’s botany and zoology building—a young Kurt Russel instantly falling for a dark-haired, dark-eyed, full-lipped beauty named Patricia, a woman he would come to lovingly call “Trish” for the rest of their lives together.

Or the memory could have been the birth of his first son, whose favorite toy would become a broken ruler my father no longer needed. Or the birth of his first daughter, then his second daughter, then his second son, and finally his third son. Or the kind and giving people his children grew up to become because of his example. Or the births of eight grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Maybe the memory was the first time he saw the Great Wall of China on the birthday of the dark-haired, dark-eyed, full-lipped beauty he had married and had five children with. Or some other memory taken from dozens of trips around the world with the woman he never once stopped loving.

After what in my mind seemed like hours of trying to recall memories, but in reality was only a matter of seconds, I finally asked Callum what my father’s favorite memory was.

“He told me that his favorite memory came from when he was six-years old and in first grade,” Callum began. “He told me how his mother would make sandwiches for his lunch with her homemade bread, homemade peanut butter, and homemade jelly. His favorite memory was how every morning he would put the sandwich she made for him in the back of his wagon and then walk to school, pulling the wagon by himself a half-mile down Hemlock Hill, and then a half-mile back up Hemlock Hill to get home. Who would’ve ever thought that in his 91-years of a life filled with so many interesting people and experiences, his favorite memory would be about his mother’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich and pulling a wagon to school when he was six-years old. It’s incredible,” Callum said, shaking his head.

As it turned out, the memory was one my father had never shared with anyone before, a memory that was both surprising and yet completely perfect for a poor, young country boy who worked hard for everything in his life, not just for himself but for all the people whose lives he touched. When a man like my father, someone who has given so many wagons filled with memories to so many people, when a man like that departs this life for whatever life comes next, he doesn’t leave by saying a final goodbye. Instead, he looks at you, tilts his head slightly, and with a sly wink says, “Bye for now.”