Getting to know you: HPT

Today's Getting to Know You is Harry: my dear old dad. Well, less the old and more the dear. One of my favorite things I can tell you about my dad was that at my sister's wedding reception last summer, during his toast, he broke into song and invited the crowd to sing with him: "Once you have found her, never let her go."


I can't encapsulate Daddy Dearest without being sentimental, so, gleaned from his own words, here's a start: Harry began marathon running at age 58. Ever sensitive to others, he knows how to put things delicately. That shouldn't be a surprise since he has also worked with bombs without setting them off. (No really...actual bombs.) I promise you that if you ever met my father, you would like him. Dare I say love him?



Name:
Harry Terrill

Stats:
b. Los Angeles, CA; Raised Covina, CA; 12 year stint in Utah: BYU, U of U, Centerville; 30 years Monrovia, CA, construction business. Happily married to Barbara Clayton 41-plus years. I hope they call me on a mission, when I have grown....

You're a runner. What's your favorite race you've completed and why?
Probably first Boston Marathon, 2003. There is something exhilarating about being cheered by half a million spectators.



What's your favorite sport to play?
Probably basketball. At least that's the (team) sport I do most often. Typically weekly (except for injuries) for the past 20 years.

What's your happiest memory?
Happiest memory. That's hard. I think my happiest memories spring from my marriage to Barbara in the LA Temple, 22 Dec. 1967. That was the choice that has made all the difference.


What's your favorite sandwich?
I like a Reuben. But I probably eat a Subway footlong Veggie, with avocado, more often.

What's the #1 thing you want to do in 2009?
Earn my first dollar.



Name a book that kept you up all night.
Not including time in school, I would say they have been pretty much escape literature. Early Grisham (Pelican Brief?) comes to mind, or one of the Harry Potter books. If I have to think too hard I fall asleep.

What's something no one would guess about you?
While on Summer break during the Viet Nam war I worked briefly in a bomb factory in southeast LA. It was very hard work, very dangerous and very thought provoking. I did not even know it was a bomb factory until I was already working there for a night. It was temp. labor, and about thirty or so of us would crowd around the outside gate vying for two or three jobs each night. Grapes of Wrath.

What's the nicest thing anyone ever said to you?
I get paid compliments all the time for my wonderful family. I love that.


What's the hardest thing you've ever had to do or say?
One instance that comes to mind is when I was asked as a 20 year old missionary by my zone leader to counsel a member of my district about his horrible body odor. I think I came closer that day to learning that love is always an effective lubricant in changing behavior.

Name a person you don't know (living or dead) whom you'd like to have lunch with.
If I could perfect the flux capacitor I might try lunch with G.W. Bush prior to 9/11 or at least pre-Iraq war. But then again, as Abraham said to the rich man (Luke 16:31), people don't appreciate the counsel that would come from those kinds of visits.

Do you have a dream destination? Where?
On earth, I assume? Perhaps Truth or Consequences, NM.

Something on your mind lately is...
Ezra Pound's retort, In Tempore Senectutis, to Ernest Dowson's poem In Tempore Senectutis.



What's your biggest flaw?
I have the need to eat every single thing that is put on my plate: an interesting case study for Freudian school shrinks, I am sure. A diabolical extension of that compulsion is that if I am not careful I might eat every cookie in the box or every donut on the plate once I start on them.

Write us a six-word memoir.
Sonny, Honey, Daddy, Granpa. Not Money.

Read more from Harry, including memories of the 1960s and ancestral letters from Nauvoo, at his blog, One Heart, One Mind.