Oral History Program Monte Hadley Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 13 June 2018 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Monte Hadley Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 13 June 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum honors men and women whose lives exemplify the independence and resilience of the people who settled Utah, and includes artists, champions, entertainers, musicians, ranchers, writers, and those persons, past and present, who have promoted the Western way of life. Each year, the inductees are interviewed about their lives and experiences living the Western way of life. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Hadley, Monte, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 13 June 2018, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Bary Hadley (left) & Kay Hadley (right) 13 June 2018 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history with Barry Hadley and Barry’s mother, Kay Hadley, conducted on June 13, 2018 in Farr West, Utah, by Lorrie Rands. Barry and Kay discuss Monte Hadley’s life and involvement in the rodeo community. Michael Ballif, the video technician, is also present during this interview. LR: It is June 13, 2018. We’re in Farr West, Utah. We’re here with Barry Hadley and his mother Kay Hadley. Talking about his father, and her husband, Monte Hadley. LR: It’s about eleven o’clock in the morning, and I’m Lorrie Rands conducting the interview, and Michael Ballif is here on the camera. I really appreciate your willingness to sit down and talk with us. I like to ask when and where he was born, if we could start there. KH: July 30th, 1943. LR: And where was that? KH: In Ogden. LR: Which hospital was he born in? KH: It would have been the old McKay. LR: So the old Dee. Did he grow up here in Ogden? KH: Taylor, it’s west of Ogden, between Plain City and Hooper, called Taylor. He was born in the same house that I still live in. LR: So that’s where he grew up. Was that a farm? BH: Yeah, it was the Hadley farm, and, well, it would have been his Grandpa, Joe, would have settled across the road, just maybe a quarter of a mile up the road, 2 built a house there, and then his dad built the house that my Mom’s in now. Grew up there all his life. KH: His brothers and sisters all around the block. BH: And about a year and a half after he was married, he bought the house from his dad, and then raised his family there. So he’s been there basically his whole life. LR: Sounds like it. How many siblings did he have? BH: He had five brothers and one sister. LR: Five brothers and one sister? That poor girl. Where did he fit in the order of siblings? KH: He was the youngest. His oldest brother was twenty years older than him. LR: Oh wow, that’s an age gap. KH: He was the baby. LR: Alright. From what I was reading he seems to have always had this love of horses… KH: The whole family all had race horses, and where he was the youngest, and weighed the lightest, he was the jockey. So he started out at twelve being a jockey. LR: So they all had racehorses. How is a racehorse different from like a stock horse, or…? KH: Well, they trained them, and they get the speed and they just go to the track and they race. BH: Yeah, so the ones that would actually compete at the races. And he’s the jockey, so he would be the one that would ride them in the races. 3 KH: And he trained them at home. BH: So just different breeding. They kind of knew the breeding to get different speeds out of horses. KH: When we started dating, I was 14, he was 15, and they would go to Idaho to racetracks. I can remember going through Salt Lake, there was no freeway then, you’d go through Main Street, and we’d go to Sundown in Southern Utah, and stuff. BH: Wyoming. MB: Now, when I hear racehorsing, I kind of picture, you know, the Kentucky Derby type thing, was it that style? BH: Similar style, but he mainly raced quarter horses, Kentucky Derby is thoroughbreds. Quarter horses are usually faster sprinters, and so the tracks are usually shorter, so there are shorter races. But he did jockey thoroughbreds also. But mostly a lot of quarter horses. KH: When he started, he was so young, they had to put dollar bills or metal or something in his pockets because he didn’t weigh enough to be a jockey. LR: Did that work? KH: By the time it ended, he was too overweight, and they still would ask him if he would come and ride here and there. LR: What was his life like growing up? Did he talk a lot about his childhood? KH: Had a good childhood. He was more close to his nephews because he was so young. He had a nephew just a year younger than him. And had, you know, other nephews. So, he was closer to them, but he had a real good childhood. They 4 would ride their horses to school. They went to school in West Weber, and they would ride their horses over to the school and to the stores. BH: His brothers, a lot of them, were a little older. So as he was getting into the teen years, a lot of them were married and had their families. So he hung out with his nephews. So besides jockeying when he was young, he rodeoed, and qualified for the national finals as a high school athlete. KH: Chariot raced, too. In fact, they didn’t have high school rodeos at the time, but his senior year in high school was the first they had national championship things. And so he went to Douglas, Wyoming his senior year. BH: But other things that he enjoyed…they went camping a little bit, and hunting. You know, just working on the farm. He helped maintain and just kind of take care of the property and the horses and cattle. KH: And then the chariot races, you know anything about them? They’re called cutter races. LR: Yes, we interviewed Norman Shorty’s family, and they did a little bit of that, but that was two years ago. KH: Yes, so same type of thing. He did that. And then the kids, the older kids had to help train all winter, keep the horses in, I don’t know that that involved you? BH: Yeah. KH: But they used to do the chariot races, too. And then he started rodeo, too. LR: So you say they had to keep them trained in the wintertime. What did they have to do? KH: Exercise them, keep them in shape. 5 LR: Sounds cold. BH: Clean stalls every day. KH: Clean stalls, a lot of cleaning stalls. LR: So besides the cleaning the stalls, what were some of his duties on the farm growing up? Did he talk about that? KH: Yeah, they had, you know, alfalfa hay, and they had, I think at one time they did plant food, you know, the regular stuff, of farming. LR: Did they have a main crop on the farm? KH: I don’t know the early, early things, but I know that a lot of it was hay. I think they had crops that they had to haul and weed and plant and pull. LR: So, he starts racing when he was 12, and did he start rodeoing before high school? KH: In high school. Yeah. BH: Cause all his older brothers, most of his older brothers rodeoed, and so he was just around it, and, yeah, he started competing, I don’t know how young, but young. KH: After high school, he went on a mission. He rodeoed a little bit before that, and then when he came back he actually joined RMRA. BH: Rocky Mountain Rodeo Association. KH: And he did that, and then he finally joined the PRCA at about… he was probably about twenty-five, twenty-six. LR: Okay. So what’s the difference between the PRCA and the RMRA? 6 BH: So PRCA is your Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association. Kind of like the big leagues, or whatever you’d call it. RMRA is professional also, but maybe it’s.. not as competitive. LR: So it’s like Triple A and Major Leagues? BH: That’s a good comparison. MB: So, it said in his bio that his event was steer wrestling, is that right? KH: That was his favorite. KH: He also calf roped and team roped. MB: Okay. So he did most of the timed events? KH: He tried bareback once, and his wife didn’t like it. MB: I see. So, how long did he do the PRCA? How long was he on the circuit? KH: He got—When you’re fifty and you’re still competing, you get the, I can’t remember what it is, the golden something… BH: Kind of a golden, what they call it, golden membership, or golden something. KH: But then he kind of quit when the kids themselves started rodeoing, because then he had to do them. So I would say he was still competing in it when he was about forty, even, but then it kind of, you know, got a little bit less. And he also judged, so then he would sometimes judge and rodeo. And then, towards the end, he did a lot of judging for rodeos both in high school and in Idaho. LR: When you say judging, what did that entail? BH: So, at a rodeo, there’s two or three judges that…so like in the rough stock events, they’re the ones that give the cowboys a score. So as they ride, you’ll hear like, that was an 80 point ride or and 85 point ride, the judges give those 7 scores. And the timed events are the ones that have the flag that would stop the time. So they just judge it was done correctly. BH: Like an official, like in a basketball game, like the referee. So yeah, growing up, that’s what I remember doing. I remember going to rodeos, and we had our motor home or camper, and we’d stay, and all of my cousins would be there, all the other Hadleys, and we’d hang out and watch the rodeo, and it was fun. It was a fun way to grow up. KH: And in Ogden, he’d always do the chutes, and the kids, I don’t know if you were old enough, where the cattle have to come in, to make the cattle go into the chute and open the gates and stuff. And they did that for Ogden Pioneer Days for a long time. And a lot of kids would work when he would work at the rodeo, the kids would also work the chutes at the rodeos and earn a little bit of money. MB: How much did he travel with the circuit? KH: He worked full time jobs, so he couldn’t do it all the time. The farthest we went was to Denver, to a big PRCA rodeo. We went to Vegas, we went to Spokane, went to some in California—two or three in California. And other than that, he had to kind of stay home and do his job and do it on the weekends. MB: Where did he work? KH: He worked for Massey-Ferguson for 18 years, and then he worked for the school, Weber County School District, and he was a bus driver for about three years and then he turned to transportation director, and then he was over all the school buses. He worked till he was 68, and then he retired. LR: What did he do with the first company he worked for, for 18 years? 8 KH: Massey-Ferguson? It was just tractors, getting tractors in and out and stuff at the Freeport Center. That’s where he worked. And then Massey-Ferguson went under, and he just got a job as a bus driver, then after three years this opening come up and he applied for it, never thought he’d get it and he did it, and it was… BH: And as you’re talking career, he, through this whole time, even into his 60s, he shoed horses. So most, a lot of people around Weber County, they know Monte. KH: And he trained horses, he broke colts, he got shavings, he did water softener, he did everything on the side. He was a worker. BH: He shoed. Shoeing to me, we should talk about shoeing a little bit, because that’s how most people know him. He shoed I don’t know how many thousands of horses. KH: All the time. So, he would work all day and then he would come home and shoe and then these guys would have to practice. We had our own arena, and then they all practiced. He would go and get all these steers, calves, he had to have steers for team roping and you had to have different steers for bulldogging. So we had 18 horses at one time, and had all these calves and steers. And we have one mule now, right now. She’s never gonna die. LR: So, bulldogging. What…? BH: Steer wrestling. Nickname. LR: Okay. MB: So, I’m just curious, he was training you guys, and he was working full time, and he was doing the PRCA, and he was shoeing horses. So, did he have any free time at all, or was he just busy all the time? 9 BH: You know, it’s funny, because growing up, I played, I rodeoed, and then I played baseball, basketball, football, and I never remember my Dad missing anything. So I don’t know how he did it all. KH: He went to every game. BH: He just figured it out. I remember playing high school baseball at Fremont, and our game would get over 5 or 5:30, and my Dad, he’d be at the game, and he’d have the truck and trailer and all the horses loaded in the parking lot. Soon as the game got over I’d run to the trailer and we’d head to a rodeo and I’d rodeo that night, stay over and rodeo the next day. So it’s just kind of something we did. The first, especially the older kids, they mainly rodeoed, and then the younger three boys, we all played a lot of sports. And so, he kind of had both the rodeo and the sports going on. It was a hard mix, but we just did it. We’d get home from practice, and my dad would have the horses saddled, and we’d go out. You’d go to football practice, you know, and you’d come home and you’d practice steer wrestling and calf roping at home. Like I said, between somehow he’d shoe two or three horses a night. KH: I was a stay at home Mom. BH: So she did a lot, obviously, to help keep all that going. KH: And that’s what he said, I’ll make the money, you take care of it. So. BH: So that was kind of the time, really, when his transition career, about when he got 40 he quit rodeoing a lot for himself, and then, as the kids were starting to rodeo, my older siblings were starting to get real big into it, and that’s something in itself. He was the president of the Utah High School Rodeo Association. So he served 10 as the President of that, and I can’t remember the exact number, but my sister was a two time national champion in college. I don’t know how many state championships, maybe… five? So we had, sometime I added it up, I can’t remember, I think it was in the teens of high school finals in Utah, and I think there was like eight or nine national finals that his kids qualified for. I think about fifteen saddles that’s been won between his kids. So that really was where he started transitioning, spending his time helping and training the kids, and the kids kind of took from there. LR: Well let’s talk a little bit about, you said you met him when you were 14, started dating. So you really knew him… KH: He was 15 and he couldn’t drive. But my brother drove us. LR: So you didn’t just hop on a horse and go? KH: No, I was raised in the city, so I didn’t know anything about horses. Another thing we did with the horses a lot was deer hunting, so I did go up when he deer hunted, everybody went. LR: So did he teach you how to ride horses, or did you already know how? KH: Yeah, kind of. But I did ride them for fun. I’d ride them when we’d go deer hunting, sometimes we’d do a ride with other couples and that, but I didn’t… I was out doing the garden and the lawn when they were all in the rodeo arena practicing. LR: So how long did you date before you got married? KH: So, we, he went on a mission at 19, we got married nine days after he come back. 11 LR: Okay. KH: So I waited. BH: His mom had died, also something that… KH: His mom died two months after he left. BH: To speak just a little on his childhood, he was very very close to his mom, so it was very hard on him when his mom passed away when he was on his mission. So yeah, then nine days after, they got married. So she’s been right there. LR: For almost all of your life you’ve known each other. MB: Where did he go on his misson? KH: He went to the Western States. So it was Cheyenne, Denver, New Mexico, little bit of Kansas, and a little bit of Nebraska. MB: Kept him in the West, I see. LR: Why not? So, after you got married, you just settled in with him on his…? KH: Well, we had the… after his mother died, his dad remarried six months later, and then they rented the house. And so when he first come home, there was renters who were still in his own house. So he lived with his sister for those nine days, and then we rented a place for a year, and then we bought the place the next year after they moved. LR: And how many children did you have together? KH: Six. LR: Okay. KH: And they’re nineteen years apart, so. Yeah. So I was 40 when I had my last one, so they were spread out. 12 LR: There’s, a few letters of recommendation from some of the youth. KH: Yeah, I have those, too. LR: Who, just have nothing but glowing things to say about him. But the thing that struck me as I read one was he would train horses and then… would he sell them to these kids? KH: He practiced a lot with them, and he would have jackpots, and he rented a place, you know the old Coliseum. BH: It’s right there by the viaduct on 24th street. Used to be a big rodeo, indoor rodeo arena. KH: Besides all of this other stuff, once or twice a week he would haul two different loads in of, he’d take his own steers and calves and everything, and then the kids would come and he would teach them how to bulldog, or how to rope, or… BH: Put on a lot of schools. KH: He’d come home at one in the morning, sometimes. And cold. There was no heat in that Coliseum. And, yeah, so he spent a lot of time doing that. And one of them was Lance Robinson, who wrote one of the leters of recommendation, and he made a big difference in his life. They had a real close relationship. And the other one was Wilson, those were the ones who wrote. But he had a lot. BH: One of the horses, you know, Lance ended up doing really well, and getting as far as the National Finals Rodeo, and the horse that kind of took him to that next level was one of my dad’s horses that he started and sold to him. LR: Okay. So would these kids be able to, how would they afford these horses, I mean. I’m thinking of… 13 KH: Their parents probably bought them. BH: And the prices back then aren’t what they’re like now. LR: I’m thinking about buying a car or something, that’s a lot of money. KH: It costs a lot of money to rodeo, actually. A lot of money. You pay to enter, and then you know, these are the high school rodeos, but you do others too, don’t you? And, you know, but the cattle and the driving and the gas and going and feeding. Everything. BH: I think on, partly, when we were talking about some of the letters of recommendation, I think for him, my dad always seemed to take the time to befriend people and help people. No matter where we were at, if somebody needed help, if somebody needed some advice, my dad was always the first one to help them, to lend a reaching hand. And so I think that’s why a lot of this younger generation feels so fondly about him, is because they, they felt like he would always take the time to put his arm around them and help them. And not just like, you know, “you’re younger, I don’t need to help you,” or whatever. I remember being at a rodeo in Evanston two or three years ago, I took my kids there, and Wade Wilching was the judge there, and I just happened to be walking by and I ran into him, and we said hi. And he said, you know, we’ve lost some of the great generation. He said, you know, your dad was one of those that helped all of us that are running rodeos now. He’s the one who helped us get started, be a mentor, and the time he spent with us. So I think he kind of just had a good heart. He always wanted to help people, he wasn’t afraid to give them some advice and help them, raise them up. 14 LR: So he was truly a mentor, not just someone who would go and interact. He would actually take the time to help and encourage. BH: Yeah, and you know, a lot of people just sought his advice out. He shod a lot of people’s horses, and when those people were buying or selling a horse, they’d all call my dad. “Would you know of any horses?” And he probably brokered hundreds of horse deals without getting paid, and that’s not necessarily on purpose, just people would call him and say, “hey, you know where a horse is? I’m looking for this and that.” And he’s talking to other people, “yeah, I’ve heard of this,” and he helped to put people together. It seemed like people just always sought him out to always get his opinion on things. MB: So just with regards with him working with young people, I just saw in his biography here that he worked and was in charge of the Little Buckaroo Rodeo at the Kanesville Elementary School? KH: A lot of the schools used to have little buckaroos for elementary school, for all the kids. So he was in charge of that for our school, Kanesville elementary. And they got little trophies, and they would ride sheep or, you know, little ponies, stuff. MB: I was about to ask if it was a miniature rodeo, because I couldn’t picture these little elementary school kids… KH: Yeah, but the kids also, that was just the Little Buckaroo rodeo through the schools, but they also used to have rodeos in the Coliseum—the new Coliseum—that he was over and was in charge of a lot of those, too. And the kids would do those, would you remember that? Had those little rodeos for teenagers, and it goes up clear until they’re in high school. 15 MB: So it seems like he was really involved in the community. And then I see here as well he was on the Rodeo Committee for the Pioneer Days for a couple of years. KH: About three or four years. MB: What were his duties on that committee? KH: We had a lot of meetings, and you kind of planned, you know, everything. The producer, and get who they wanted, but then they just were in charge of putting the whole rodeo on. MB: Big project. KH: And these kids too, I told you before that they would work on the chutes sometimes. Stuff like that. LR: Now I see that. The shod. That’s funny. MB: So, did he ever stop working or did he ever stop just… KH: Like I said, he didn’t retire until he was 68, and then… BH: When did he quit shoeing horses? KH: Well, he had seven stints and six bypasses. So, he had to kind of slow down a little bit, but he didn’t really slow down, but I did make him stop shoeing the horses about, probably sixty-five, maybe? He still did his own, though. He wouldn’t give that up. But, he was amazing, because he retired in 2011 and that next December, found out he had the cancer. We did a mission up to Heber Valley Camp for the two years he was going through cancer with the Hunstman. We’d go down on P-Day and go down to the Huntsman, and he finished that. And he came home, the cancer came back, and he died nine days after he come home from the mission. So, he was pretty amazing. 16 LR: So he was seventy? KH: He turned seventy on July 30th, and he died October 9th. LR: I’m noticing that. KH: He died on our 49th wedding anniversary. The day. The very day. He wrote a letter that I found after he had passed away, forgotten about it, and I can’t remember everything it said, but he was telling what he would like them to do to, you know. And one of them was, have as many friends as you can. And never do anything to somebody else that would hurt them. Apologize if you did. And, you know, different things that…he just loved people. And he always wanted people to feel good about themselves. We have that, my one daughter in law made it enlarged and so in their family room they have it. And it was his own handwriting. LR: That’s really cool. KH: Had his own handwriting and signed his name. BH: And he did seek people out. We never went anywhere where he wouldn’t find somebody new. We could be out of town, we could be at Disneyland, we could be in Florida, and he would just…He loved to talk to people. You would just be standing in line for the rollercoaster, and all of a sudden, where’s Dad? And he’s over talking to somebody. And he’s like “well these are the so and so’s friends, live here,” and he would make a connection of two degrees, know somebody they know. That’s what he just loved to do, everywhere he went, somebody knew him, or he knew somebody they knew, and he just loved to talk to people and meet people. KH: Very friendly. 17 LR: It seems to be something that I’ve noticed about the, maybe it’s the cowboy way of life, I’m not sure. But it seems that they’re very personable, just want to give and give… KH: It’s a family type thing. You know? You’re connected with your other people you’re competing against. Even though you’re competing against them, you’re still connected. And yeah, they’ll help each other and they’ll stick with each other. BH: There are times when you’ll ride each other’s horses. In steer wrestling you have somebody that’s down on the other side of the steer, who aren’t in the event, whose job it is to keep the steer straight. A lot of times, that person would be somebody you’re competing against, or maybe even winning the rodeo, you go out, and you’re winning the rodeo, and you jump on your hazing horse and you haze for the next guy. And that’s kind of how you do it, you help each other. LR: So it’s not like your typical competition where you’re trying so hard to win that you kind of stand on the other people. KH: Whoever wins, wins. And, you know, you still help. So some of them will get behind and they have to push the cattle out. LR: So it’s just as important to help others win as to be on top yourself, is what I’m hearing. KH: You don’t undercut, or, you know, do things that would hurt somebody else’s chance of winning. LR: Okay. That’s really cool. You said you grew up in the city. Where did you grow up? 18 KH: I grew up by Washington Boulevard. I went to Ben Lomond High, so I was city. He was country. But, we just met at a dance, it was a church dance, and my mother introduced me to him, and, you know, we didn’t date a lot because we were so young, but we, my brother would drive us, and we danced a lot. We did floor shows for people at the church dances, and we learned all kinds of dancing. LR: Sounds like fun. KH: You wouldn’t think that, huh? And when he was younger, he did tap dancing. MB: Really? KH: Yeah. Him and his nephew, Rick. LR: What would you think, if you were to ask him, what his favorite memory was, of the rodeo circuit or of helping? What would you think he would say? KH: I think it would be his kids. No matter what he did. Because he did really well, and he won a lot of plaques and a lot of buckles and a lot of things. And he did a lot of things. But I think it was his kids when they got into it. But the sports, too, the sports were just as important to him as the rodeos were. But after my last son graduated, he went straight to his mission. He sold all the horses, and then he bought a Ranger, and we went up in the mountains, and we spent the last two years, you know, most of that time riding the Ranger and, so he… And he hunted a lot. It was hard for him to give up the horses, but all the kids were on their own. Barry still rodeoed in college, and in amateur. BH: Yeah, I rodeoed. KH: And he rodeoed a lot after he got married, even. 19 BH: So I think that was hard for him, but that just shows who he was. His whole life was around horses and rodeo and race-horses, and then when I had my first kid, I stopped rodeoing, and my little brother played football in college. KH: He played for Weber State. BH: So when I quit, was about the same time my little brother did, and we were the last two, and he kind of saw another chapter. So then he got the Ranger and would take everybody camping and would just go to ballgames and go to grandkids baseball games and football games. So as much as he loved that life, it just showed that his family was more important. He just transferred to the next stage of life, because we all rodeoed and had a big part of our lives, but as we got older and got married, everybody kind of went to other things, so I think he just saw a good transition time. LR: There any other stories you’d like to share about him, that come to mind? KH: I can’t think, can you? It was all about family. He had a brother die in October of 2011, and then the next brother died October of 2012, and he died October of 2013. Is that weird enough? LR: Yeah, it is a little bit. Okay. Any other questions? MB: I’m good. LR: Okay. So, can I ask you two… they are the same question but I’m going to ask it two different ways. First, what do you think that he would hope his legacy would be? 20 KH: It’s mostly about the church. I mean, what he believes in, and, you know, where he is now. And his family, that they would all do good and, you know. Stay with the church. BH: Yeah, I agree. And I also think that he would be happy with the legacy he left. Even now, when I’m around and meeting people, or I see somebody, very often multiple times a year, somebody says “are you Monte Hadley’s son?” “Of course, yes, yes, and proud to say yes.” And they’ll tell me a story of something he did for them, or he reached out, or even just to say, you know, he was my friend. So, I think that’s the legacy that he would be proud of, too, is that he was kind. LR: So, same question, only, what do you hope his legacy is? KH: I hope all my kids and grandkids turn out just like him.