Robert L. King

I want to welcome you all and thank you being with us today as we remember and honor the life of my father, Bob King. Dad was many things to many people. He was a devoted husband. He was a dear friend. And to me and his other children, he was a loving father. We lost him only days ago, and he is already dearly missed. Whether you called him Dad, Grandpa, Husband, Friend, Bob, or, as he called himself in a recent profile, “the world’s oldest teenager”, he will always be in our memories. And as most of you know, he was a very memorable man….. a man who had a tremendous impact on the lives of those he knew.

The story of Bob King is in many ways a great American success story. The son of James and Roberta King grew up in a place that is hard for many of us to imagine today. If you could go back to Louisville, Kentucky in the late 1930s, you would have found a poor family struggling through the Great Depression. You would have seen a skinny youth with few material possessions but an abundance of intellect, energy, and charisma. In his early years, my Dad used these talents to keep his loving mother on her toes and make sure his Catholic school teachers had plenty of opportunities to break in their rulers.

I was talking to his sister Helen yesterday, and we laughed about the story Dad wrote about his mother for a King family reunion before she passed away. Tony Fink, his cousin, sent me the story which I will now read as it both provides a glimpse into his childhood, but also highlights his humor and storytelling abilities. The following are his words

The Saga of Bert-The Squirt, The Blue-Eyed Warrior

also known as

The Tale of the Perfection Process of the King Boys

It’s hard for anyone who knows us now to believe that as small children, the King Boys had a few slight imperfections.

To combat these slight anomalies, Bert (Old Blue Eyes) had an instrument of perfection” lovingly carved for her by her husband James. This “perfection maker” is well remembered by me as a 12” X 4” wooden paddle that Bert kept high on a window sill in our Griffith Street house. Husband James, however, used his own “Perfection maker”:--head knocking with the back of his “wicked” right hand.

I will remember the times when Bert, (the Blue Eyed Warrior) would chase the King Boys with the 12” “perfection maker” after one of their rare moments of imperfection. The ingenuous tykes would run under the bed and laugh as “Old Blue Eyes” would run around the bed swinging at us with the “perfection maker”; but with little success. Then came the fatal day when Bert (the red, white, and blue eyed warrior) whacked one of the King Boys splitting the “perfection maker” from tip to base as the King Boys lovingly cracked up laughing. “Old Blue” knew then, the end of an era had arrived; perfection had been attained.

Incidentally, sister Helen still retains a few imperfections which is understandable, as Bert (the squirt) never seemed to find the occasion which necessitated use of the “perfection maker” on her.

Later in life, he applied his considerable talents in more productive ways, but never passed up an opportunity for some harmless mischief.

My father, who was the first in his family to go to college, got his Bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph’s College in Indiana and his Master’s from South Dakota School of Mines. In going through his records over the past few days, we came across his transcripts, which showed an ambitious slate of mathematics, science, and engineering coursework; we were surprised, though, to see his major listed as “O’Reilly’s Irish Pub”. But even with his extracurricular activities, his educational experience gave him the foundation and confidence to achieve things his family never would have thought possible.

After an internship with Shell, Dad entered military service for the U.S. Army in 1955, where he served for two years before rejoining Shell. There he spent the next 20 years of his life. During this time he lived up and down the gulf coast oil patch: Corpus Christi, New Orleans, and finally settling in Houston. He achieved significant professional success and built a network of business associates with whom he would later engage in entrepreneurial endeavors. He had a great love for his profession and went about his work with dedication and integrity. He was an eternal optimistic and there was an unmistakable glint in his eye whenever he talked about a new project.

The 60s and 70s were a defining time in my Dad’s personal life. He married and had four children: Karen, myself, Craig and Matt. I watched some old films a couple days ago that brought back to life the stories he often told about family trips to Wimberly, children’s sporting events, and get-togethers. These films showed my father living life the only way he knew how – full of passion and energy, effortlessly entertaining family and friends with his countless stories, teaching his children how to walk, hit a baseball, and even dress in a snazzy beige leisure suit.

The 80s presented its fair share of challenges, including a divorce and a major crash in the oil and gas industry, but he faced these difficulties head on and continued to make a positive impact on the lives of those near him. He learned to cook and made dinner for us every night, giving us our choice of fried egg sandwiches, fried egg sandwiches, or friend egg sandwiches.

He pushed, prodded, and cajoled us to steer us down the right path. Karen, his oldest child and daughter, always had a special bond with Dad and cherishes the decades of guidance, love and affection he gave. Primarily he taught her to always see the best in people. He has also been like a father to his granddaughter Casey, supporting and guiding her through her life. Craig seriously considered going to work right out of high school until Dad applied to schools for him, dragged him to Texas Tech, and convinced him to give college a chance. Within a year Craig was a changed person; he had a purpose, confidence, and a renewed appreciation for family. A few years later, Dad again demonstrated his patience and perseverance by supporting Matt through a few different schools until he found his calling. Matt’s favorite recent memories involve rockets game, in particular one where Dad tried to introduce him to a cheerleader Matt pointed out during the game, much to his embarrassment.

Dad was very much a romantic. In the late 80s he fell in love with Judy, with whom he lived happily for over twenty years. Dad and Judy had a truly special relationship filled with romance, based on trust and respect, and maintained through hard work and compromise. I’ve learned a lot about how to make a relationship thrive by watching them over the years. Judy was recently telling me that on their first date, Dad taught her how to two-step and waltz at a dance hall. Some of my best memories of them together involve them dancing at mine and Jason’s weddings, where they seemed so happy you could literally sense the bond between them.

Maybe above all else, Dad was a generous soul. He treated his stepchildren like his own and had an especially significant bond with Jason given the relationship they developed living under the same roof for seven years. He often spoke fondly of his times with Elizabeth, her husband Ray and their four girls. He has welcomed his children’s spouses into his family with open arms and has also been there for countless others. I drove by our old houses yesterday and was recalling how he took a couple of my friends from high school into our home for a few months when they were having trouble at their home. He had a really big heart that seemed to know no bounds.

Dad was a charismatic man with a unique ability to light up a room with his energy and laughter. As his cousin Tony said recently, “For the life of me I don’t know how a person so small in stature could completely fill a room with his personality” His charisma and easy nature allowed him to get away with almost anything. In our teens and twenties, he was famous for flirting with our girlfriends. I recall a few girls would call when they knew I was not home, just to hear his crazy stories. During Jason's senior year in high school when several colleges were recruiting him to play football, Dad spent more time on the phone with the coaches than Jason did. At my rehearsal dinner, everyone was completely floored when he gave a toast to my wife’s Japanese family – in Japanese.

My father lived a rich and full life. It’s precisely because Dad gave us so much that we’ll miss him so much. But he’s not gone – far from it in fact. In a hundred heart-warming smiles, a thousand side-splitting laughs, a million tiny kindnesses he bequeathed us bits and pieces of himself, and it’s through those gifts of happiness and tenderness -- those lessons about how to walk through the journey of life with joy and enthusiasm, strength and dignity – that he lives on in all of us. Dad was on a mission to live each and every day to the fullest, to suck the marrow out of life, and share the fruits of his efforts with those he knew and loved, with you. When you leave here, take up that cause --embrace the mission of creating and spreading goodness in the world – and he’ll be there with you through every step of the journey, watching, smiling, and laughing.