Thank you for supporting our family in a Virtual Memorial Service. As Dennis’s daughter, Lisa Michele Gehley Angerer, I may be the “surprise” choice to give words of remembrance. I am the tender hearted, handkerchief carrying, emotional, eye leaking child. I told my brother David I would put my “big girl panties on,” and try to make it through sharing about Dad without embarrassing the family.

When I was in high school, and ready to learn how to drive, there was this extra requirement. We needed to go to a presentation to hear a policeman talk about the responsibilities of being a driver on the road. While I remember very little of the actual driving talk, there is one statement that changed my life from that day forward. As I was sitting next to my Mom, Nancy, the policeman quoted a fact from the eighties that said the average time a Dad spends in meaningful conversation with his children is 37 seconds per day. If I wrack my memory, the policeman was probably making some insightful correlation to the importance of communication and relationships while spouting current facts and statistics about being on the road. Anyway, from that day forward, Dad and I would forever joke about getting our 37 seconds in for each day. Sometimes, our 37 seconds were packed with poignant, meaningful life changing thoughts, but often enough, our convo was full of sarcastic banter and creative silliness.

So the number 37 will be forever stuck in my mind in regards to my Dad. I have thought long and hard about the 37 life lessons Dad taught me while on this earth. And no, I cannot share his wisdom in 37 seconds, but I promise I will not share for 37 minutes, either.

Dad taught me:

1. Be kind - Yes, Dad grasped my brother David’s injured hamster to his chest, running to and fro, with utmost seriousness, and tended to the hamster’s tiny injured paw. Kindness extends beyond humans, to animals, too.

2. Form opinions - Dad ate crunchy peanut butter because it was certainly better than creamy.

3. Feed your soul - Dad had a passion for music. Growing up Dave, Mom and I fiercely complained about the car tunes, the “Smooth Jazz” station on the car radio was a mobile “feeding of the soul.”

4. Know the consequences of your decisions - Dad taught this by an interesting example. DO NOT let your five year old son watch Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” while your spouse visits family for the weekend. Your choices may lead to your son clutching his head screaming while running in a circle when a bird was spied in the sky the next day at the bus stop.

5. Do your job - My favorite art piece from my 2nd grade brother David. His art piece is currently hanging in MY art room. “My Mom is cleaning the house. It takes FOREVER. Dad writes reports. Nobody reads them.” Dad did his job even when results were nominal.

6. Share your knowledge - Dad loved to share his military history knowledge. He kept his book collection pristine and often “talked history” with his son-in-law Jay.

7. Surround yourself with good people - Dad had an amazing wife Nancy and they were married for 30 years. Dad was lucky enough to find Eileen. They enveloped him in a loving relationship for many years. And don’t forget, Dad has some fantastic friends that go way back and new friends at Ashby Ponds.

8. Cherish family - Dad was the oldest son of five. The brother that led the way for his siblings Diana, Doug, Denise and Darlene. A dedicated husband and imaginative father, a later-in-life partner, and all this became practice to be “Pops” to Renee, Matthew, Cole and Michael.

9. Take care of your body - Dad loved to go dancing with our Mom, Nancy. From Disco, to Country Western to Shag - all different kinds of movement were embraced.

10. Believe in God - Almost every Sunday was spent in Church. Often, we would take my Mom’s Mom, nicknamed Bubba with us to mass. One Sunday a young child dropped the kneeler on Bubba’s foot. She shouted out “Jesus” quite loudly and Dad replied “Where?”

11. Think outside the box - even before this phrase was prolific, Dad had the neighborhood kids involved in leaf picking up races. For the price of several lollipops, he had his lawn immaculate, and all the kids were having fun. Maybe the beginning of “work smarter, not harder.”

12. Embrace your talents - Dad spent many hours making car or military models with craft and skill. Later, his collections grew to monumental proportions. Although mostly unbuilt, Dad had a talent he could put on display.

13. Know the power of the written word - Dad was quite the wordsmith. He could edit my papers and make suggestions with hands tied behind his back. Also, Dad modeled being an avid reader.

14. .Create - Dad made an epic room sized train table.

15. Put things back where you found them - Dad expressed distaste over “the mystery of the missing scissors” on many occasions. I can still tell you they are supposed to be in the kitchen drawer next to the sink. I didn’t truly understand until I had my own kids. The pain of going to use something that was nowhere to be found

16. Know your audience - there is a time and place for every conversation. Red alert - DO NOT announce that Jay just asked for my hand in marriage in front of me BEFORE Jay had a chance to propose.

17. Be on time - Dad was the king of puttering. He had his own sense of time that was often not based in “real time.” My Mom was the exact opposite, so as an older teen we would often take two cars to the same event.

18. Have a sense of humor - after Mom passed Dad turned the spa room into his space. Taking out the whirlpool, the large room was left with a toilet. He then added wall to wall bookcases making the joke being on the toilet “the library” a reality.

19. Build a “home” - Dad loved to bless our family home with the phrase “home again, home again, jiggity jig” as we pulled into the curved driveway of a place that holds many family memories.

20. Play - Dad would take his old wool army blanket when we were kids and be the “dog catcher” and scoop us up as we giggled. David and I dubbed the game “cats and dogs.”

21. Travel - Dad either had a magnet for every place he traveled with Mom or Eileen. Or a tee shirt commemorating the trip.

22. Use your common sense - Thank goodness he left his briefcase under the seat on the airplane BEFORE 911. Otherwise, the police may have come to the house.

23. Know your strengths - driving in reverse is not for everyone. Parking garage posts and cement make you learn the hard way. Can this be genetic? Ask my VW beetle ...

24. Learn from your mistakes - Suntan lotion does not work well in your eyes. My kids may still remember Pops holding his eyes screaming “my eyes are BURNING!”

25. Stand up for yourself - Even if you have to hide in the bushes with Mom to catch the Christmas light bulb stealing youths that came off the local school bus.

26. Know your limitations - I coined the phrase “directionally impaired” for Dad, even his late in his life use of GPS was never foolproof.

27. Be generous - Dad constantly gave of his time to cutting my grandmother Bubba’s lawn.

28. Volunteer - Most years Dad embraced manning the Knights of Columbus Christmas tree lot in the freezing cold.

29. Open your mind - Some of my most memorable conversations were about the Washington Post candy peeps diorama contest. Like the year peeps were throwing Mardi Gras beads from the Balcony of Peep Street.

30. Enter contests - You never know when you will be a winner. Like when Dad dressed as a woman in the Ms. Fun Monday contest when he was with his dancing pals.

31. Find time for yourself - The den was his space. Eventually, labeled by the very real sign “man cave.”

32. Fulfill your dreams - Even if they weigh like 100 pounds as with DJ speakers.

33. Enjoy the beach - The award winning deep-as-the-kids sand forts! Not so safe, but oh the memories!

34. Laugh at yourself - Sleeping at every band concert is a good way for your family to tease you. Good thing Dad practiced the ability to laugh at himself.

35. Enjoy food- How much shrimp CAN you eat at the Ocean City MD all you can eat buffet?

36. Try new things - May I say Apple computers and the iPhone...

37. Use your words - Only the appropriate ones. When you are telling your family at breakfast at Bob’s Big Boy how BORING the Priest’s sermon was about annual pledge giving. Check to make sure the priest is not sitting in the next booth. Yes, your 14 year old child’s face really can turn that red!

While Dennis Michael Gehley may have not taught you any of these specific lessons, I hope some of them resonate with you. Perhaps, your very own life lesson from him may be rolling around in your head at this very moment. Dad, David and I cherished each group of 37 seconds that we had while you were on this earth, and you will be missed. While you are no longer with us in body, you will always be with us in our memories. When we remember these life lessons we will remember you.

by DOUG GEHLEY

Good morning family and friends,

That you for joining us this morning in a celebration of Dennis’ life. And thank you Reverend Jay for arranging this wonderful service in just a short time while maneuvering through this pandemic with all its restrictions. For those who didn’t know, Jay Angerer is Dennis’ son-in-law, Lisa’s husband.

Although Dennis’s ashes will be interned at Arlington National Cemetery with Nancy’s many months from now, his siblings and children thought it was important to have a service while the raw emotions carried by all are still fresh. Thank you for setting this up, Jay.

I was fortunate to see Dennis 3 times during his last week of life, the first being inauguration night when we celebrated the day’s events with root-beer float cocktails and a salmon dinner. We joked, talked UVA sports, and about most anything else except his current condition, although I did chastise him for soon leaving me behind with three emotionally intense sisters. Dennis was sharp and witty to the end, aware of who was visiting and what was happening around him. He was not in pain, or if he was, much like our dad, he did not complain a bit. And although I knew it was coming, it was still a shock one week later when the call came to say he had finally passed. Luckily, his son David and lifelong friend Jim Murphy were at his side.

In sharing the sad news with my close friends, I wasn’t sure what to say about Dennis other than to give some milestone events like; he was 74, graduated from UVA in ’68, was a Vietnam Veteran, spent 35+ years working for the government at GAO, and was The DJ for the Metro area Shag Club. After his and Nancy’s stint with Country dancing, shagging became his thing. (That’s shagging as in dancing, not the Austin Powers reference to shagging). The last note to my friends was “He was my role model growing up.” That one line drew the most responses back. Some examples:

• You come from a family of legacies and I’m sure your big brother was a solid one.

• Dennis sounds like an amazing person; as a role model he must have been talented, devoted,

  good-natured and humorous.

• I have an older brother and we talk occasionally, but I wouldn’t call him a role model. It sounds

  so great to have someone like that around while growing up.

• I have fond memories of your brother. He was always very steady and even keeled.

  Wait a minute; steady and even keeled? Dennis? This guy obviously did not spend much time around our house.

  Since Dennis and I were 8 years apart, we didn’t hang out together as buds as we might have if we were 2, 4, even 5 years apart. Dennis was graduating from college when I was entering high school, so he was like way up there, way ahead of me. He was the oldest, the leader of the pack. That small pack consisted of the 5 Gehley kids and our 3 cousins, the Scotts, who were our only relatives east of the Mississippi. As cousin Randy said last week, Dennis was “the stud.” I set my moral compass by that guy. He was smart, made honor roles, made lots of friends, always had a humorous comment or come-back that would make you laugh or smile, often to the point that he could be very awkward. I mean, who else would wear a sleeveless T-shirt on the Ocean City Boardwalk that read “This is Not a Beer Belly; It’s the Fuel Tank for a Sex Machine.” Now, that’s not role -model material, but it is an example of the fact that Dennis did not

take life too seriously. He lived more by the motto of our good friend here, Alfred E. Newman (hold up Alfred). What, Me Worry? Yes, this artifact was prominently displayed in Dennis’s living room.

This attitude was part of his charm, but it was also part of his downfall. Dennis had a bevy of ailments creep up on him: diabetes, then cancer, then Parkinson’s. He was diagnosed as Bipolar in his early 40’s and was not properly medicating for many years. Poor medical advice combined with his What, Me Worry? attitude did not help delay his early demise. Dennis was too casual about treating his ailments and it cost him. It cost us. He was supposed to go on for another 10-15 years. Sorry, no role model points here.

I suppose one thing to be grateful for us was that he did not catch the Covid-19 virus, so Dennis was surrounded by a lot of family and friends during his last weeks. He was also surrounded by many of his toys. I can’t say Role-Model without thinking of the hundreds of models he built and collected over the years. The walls of his man-cave in Springfield and then later at Ashby Ponds was jammed with drag racers of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, WWII bombers, fighter planes, tanks, and artillery guns. He created an award- winning scenic that was featured on the cover of War-Model Magazine or some such. He was a fanatic. I could tell you stories of how he and I snuck so many model kits into the house, out of the view of our disapproving mother. “Just a waste of money” mom would say, and I am sure Nancy said the same thing hundreds of times. Models were more than a hobby for Dennis; they were a disease! But at least they kept him out of trouble; well, most of the time anyway. If you look up Dennis Gehley online you’ll see that his alias at Bishop O’Connell HS was “Dennis the Menace”. That didn’t come by accident. He earned it.

Sometimes you just had to shake your head at the comments he came up with. You didn’t know whether to give a weak chuckle or to start backing away slowly. At our daughter’s wedding, as we were going through the seating chart, figuring out who should sit at which table, we came up with designations like the Dance Company table, the William & Mary table, or the Friends-From-Work table, etc. But Dennis’s name kept floating around; we could not find an appropriate place for him. Finally, we created the “Politically Incorrect” table. And I forget who we put him with, but I will bet you we haven’t received a Christmas card from them since!

I’m sure you all have similar stories. Send them into the memorial site. We’d love to read ‘em.

In the eulogies I have given in the past I have closed with a poem. For Dennis, I would like to recite a quote from the journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow, What a Ride!”

And my brother would add “Lookout folks, Denice the Menace has arrived!” See ya later, Bro . . .