D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge had already taken place and only pockets of resistance remained by the time Dad’s platoon set foot on the Continent.  He and his charges saw limited action and Dad spent most of his time in Germany and Czechoslovakia first as an MP and then as the CO of an all-black quartermaster unit assigned to a requisitioned coffee roasting plant (in his dotage and despite his professed liberal and egalitarian views he took pleasure in telling racially charged stories at his subordinates’ expense). Dad would later say that this year and a half, during which he acquired a live-in Czech-German girlfriend and spent a blissful week of leave with several of his fellow officers on the French Riviera, was one of the best he ever spent.  But Dad didn’t enjoy the best of relationships with his superiors, who passed him over for promotion to Captain, and was discharged as a lowly First Lieutenant. 

    Returning to Kansas, Dad earned a degree in business and was sued for divorce by his first wife, Zona, a comely art major from western Kansas. Apparently their relationship, like many others, didn’t survive the war; but there may have been more to it than that. Dad decided to stay on at KU as a graduate student in the creative writing program, planning to draw on his experience during the Occupation for a semi-autobiographical novel - the first step in his ambition to become a celebrated post-war writer rivaling James Jones (“From Here to Eternity”) and Joseph Heller (“Catch 22”).

     Dad was a slow, meticulous writer and the novel was to serve as his graduate thesis.  But then he sired three children in quick succession (which helped him evade the Korean conflict) and needed to find some means of supporting his burgeoning brood.  Work on the novel proceeded in fits and starts, but eventually Dad did complete “The Little Men.” He submitted sample chapters to several major publishers; editors for two expressed interest and one was especially encouraging, even sending a $100.00 advance for the rights to his book.  In the end, though, no one followed through. Dad moved on, but not before tucking those several letters of rejection in a file, perhaps as a reminder of the publishing world’s folly.

Still, I have to agree with Nancy - Dad did look good and I could imagine the picture gracing the jacket of his best-selling novel.    

    Even as a reluctant dirt farmer, Dad cared about his appearance. No coveralls or plaid shirts for him.  He always dressed in khakis and preferred shirts with epaulets on the shoulders.  Long sleeves, to protect his fair skin, and again, the same style of aviator glasses he sported while in the service. I suppose he wanted to show the world he was no run-of-the-mill, untutored sodbuster, but a thoughtful man of talent caught in the net of necessity. 

    As an hotelier in Naples, Bill needed a fresh look, and in keeping with his new responsibilities and the mid-century culture of south Florida, he abandoned the workman’s khakis for pastel sports jackets and patterned neckties.  Once a year, a salesperson from Hong Kong Tailors rented a room at our Holiday Inn, measuring men and women for hand-tailored silk suits and dresses.  Perhaps these gentlemen settled their bill, at least in part, with merchandise.  In any case several of their day-glow, fitted jackets ended up in Dad’s wardrobe.  Once he’d left the business and taken up sport fishing with unequaled passion, the khakis made a comeback.  Only on rare occasions - delivering a talk at the Unitarian Universalist fellowship or celebrating his and Nancy’s anniversary - did he retrieve a jacket and tie from his closet. 

During his final years, and after he had moved back to Naples, the scene of his greatest success as a businessman, Dad took on a new, and somewhat unexpected look. Having procured a sleek black motorized trike suitable for tooling around town, he began to adorn himself in clothing he presumed to be “hip.”    

Dad’s wardrobe and accessories were of a piece with his sporty little cycle.  Although he had lost most of his hair, he let what remained grow out so that it could be gathered into a sparse ponytail.  When I asked mother Nancy how Dad managed to pull those few wisps together and secure them with an elastic band she chuckled.  “One of his admirers on the hotel staff helps with that,” she volunteered.  

    Although Dad never showed much interest in jewelry, not even a wedding ring, he was now heavy into bling. Two large mounted shark’s teeth hung from a double chain around his neck, set off by a black leather jacket and a bill cap adorned with a white skull-and-crossbones. He had also acquired a distressed leather bomber jacket with its signature fleece collar.  He wore this expensive item once or twice before deciding it was too heavy.  And indeed, the jacket literally swallowed up his gaunt frame.  But rather than return it for a refund, he presented it to a member of the hotel’s maintenance staff.  By this time, Dad’s parchment-like skin had become so sensitive that the spent most of the day in gray cotton sweats, saving his stud clothes for afternoon outings on his precious trike.  The only concession to old age was on his feet: sneakers secured with Velcro rather than laces.   

    While I was mildly surprised when I first took in his new getup, Nancy was nonchalant - perhaps because the hotel staff signaled their approval of their “cute” permanent resident.  And, while one could not help noticing the incongruity of it all - a bent-over, beady-eyed ninety-five year old shuffling behind his walker and tricked out like Brando’s “Wild One” — those of us who had lived with Charles Schuler appreciated that his latest incarnation wasn’t out of character.  Dad had been fixated on his appearance from a very young age.  

The Auto As Icon

    The first family car I remember was a clunky but practical pale yellow Mercury station wagon - a vehicle capacious enough to keep three squabbling pre-adolescents separated.  Dad’s “personal”vehicle at the time was a 1948 Willy’s Jeep that he had purchased shortly after he and Nancy married. It reminded him of his war-time escapades (photos taken of him in Europe often portrayed him casually leaning on the fender of his Army issue Jeep). After his father died, leaving his only son both property and at least some liquid assets, my father celebrated his newfound independence with a purchase that would have left the old man clutching his head in disbelief: an Austin Healey 3000, a classic British sports car that proved utterly impractical for a man with three growing children.  

    The low-slung Healey had only six inches of ground clearance and was totally unsuitable for winter weather in our neck of the woods. Its efficient but sensitive power plant required constant maintenance, and tuning the carburetors often tested Dad’s patience.  Nevertheless, for several years the crimson cruiser was the apple of his eye.  

     I suspect that part of the reason he chose this particular model - apart from its sleek classic lines and solid performance record - was the fact that it was technically a four-seater; but the cramped bench behind the front buckets was notoriously uncomfortable.  Nevertheless, on one sunny Sunday morning Dad decided we’d all drive to Chicago’s Southside to watch the White Sox play at old Comiskey Park.  Imagine, if you will, three kids, ages ten to twelve, crammed in the backseat of the Healey for that ninety mile open-air jaunt along U.S. 30 to the Congress Expressway and down the lakefront to the ball field.  For my siblings and me this felt initially like something of an adventure, since none of us had spent much time in this attention-grabbing driving machine.  

    Unfortunately, as we headed home after the game it began to rain. Unlike some convertibles, the 1962 Austin Healey 3000 didn’t feature a roof that could be deployed with the touch of a button.  Rather, the canvass and frame assembly was stowed behind the seats and, along with the side windows, required considerable time to retrieve and install. So there we were…stopped on the shoulder of a Chicago expressway (thankfully, not terribly busy on a late Sunday afternoon), working frantically to outwit the elements. Five minutes later we were again on our way, damp although not soaked through, but now suffering from claustrophobia in the cramped cabin we’d created.  A few miles later the clouds parted, the rain stopped, and the top came back off just as the interior was beginning to feel like a sauna.  

    Within three years the Austin Healey was gone, traded for an equally unusual but altogether more sensible sedan - a Studebaker Gran Turismo Golden Hawk.  To us, this seemed like a luxurious vehicle and it was one of the most striking cars Studebaker produced before its demise. My mother took it to work for several years, before my brother, now a senior in high school, drove it through a T-intersection and into a ditch while returning from a date.  However, Dad’s penchant for sporty vehicles was hardly quenched, and shortly before our relocation to Florida he bought another red convertible, a Ford Mustang that I was occasionally allowed to use for my own romantic purposes.

    Other cars followed: a Ford Thunderbird, a succession of SUV’s equipped with hitches to trailer Dad’s several boats, a Toyota Camry “Gold” edition and, finally, a red (what else?) Toyota Prius C that he bought at age ninety-three to celebrate his recently acquired but soon-to-be-revoked Wisconsin driver’s license.

In the End

       Dad’s sudden passing was a relief to us and fortuitous for him.  My father had always insisted (somewhat disingenuously, I think) that he didn’t fear death as much as the preliminaries - the pain, disorientation, and emotional distress he thought were inevitable at the end of life. Understandably, the prospect of oblivion did bother him a great deal; mother confided on more than one occasion that Dad, despite his existentialist pretensions, was terrified of death. He went to considerable lengths to distract himself from this inescapable and highly personal reality.  

     John Donne famously wrote that “any man’s death diminishes me,” but I doubt that was true for Charles W. Schuler. I don’t recall him grieving for relatives and friends who had predeceased him, and his taste for morbid fiction suggested a certain callousness toward other people’s demise.  He placed his own mortality in another category entirely. 

   Dad had always insisted that he was going to go out quickly and clean, and that it would be at a time and place of his choosing. Not surprisingly, he planned to be in control to the very end. He’d joined Derek Humphrey’s Hemlock Society (now Compassion in Choices) shortly after it was established and pored over the literature on “self-deliverance.”  This seemed to be more of an intellectual exercise than something he actually anticipated and planned for, and since he was in excellent health any concrete steps to hasten dying could be indefinitely deferred.  At some point, though, he decided that it would take more will power than he could muster to ingest the necessary sedatives and secure a plastic garbage bag around his head. Assisted suicide, he now believed, was his best option. After further research he discovered Dignitas, a European nonprofit that helps terminally ill individuals end their lives in peace and tranquility.

    Dad was now so positive that this was how he was going to avoid the trauma of dying that he copied all his children on the documents he had signed and submitted to Dignitas.  He procured a passport and insisted that I renew my own so that I could accompany him to Switzerland when the time came.  Nancy was not in favor of this plan and had pointedly told her husband that he should not count on her making the trip with him; she would not sit by and watch him die in a foreign country.  As both an evangelical and a physician, my brother also made it clear that he wasn’t going to lend a hand, nor would my sister for her own reasons. I, on the other hand, had no religious or moral qualms about assisted suicide (Unitarian Universalists have often led the fight for a universal “right to die”).  Accordingly, I agreed to help Dad realize his objective when things began to look dire.  But I also doubted very seriously that he would ever follow through; his will to live was just too strong.…

    During his last years of life, my father was trying to make up for lost time. He started writing again, even though he was long past the point where he could construct an engaging story line, paint a word picture, or come up with an original metaphor.  Nevertheless he still believed in the power of a well-told story. In these late-life narratives he did broach the subject of death and the possibility of post-mortem obscurity. In one scene, a character similar to the author fails at a writing career and ends up consoling himself with the thought, “Maybe survival is the best that most of us can do.” 

    If this is where Dad’s philosophical ruminating ended up, it shouldn’t be surprising that he spent his last years as a full-blown hedonist. Since he had nothing to live for and nothing to die for, why not indulge in the pleasures he had denied himself as a younger man and that he felt he richly deserved?  Dad had never given his wife much credit for her contributions to their marriage, or to their financial success, so he convinced himself he had a proprietary claim to all their resources.  He, after all, was the “genius” who had invested their assets wisely and well while she just handled pedestrian duties that required only minimal acumen and a measure of practical intelligence.  As for his progeny, my father felt no obligation to pass on a portion of his wealth, despite the fact that his own success as a businessman was secured by the generous inheritance he’d received from his own father. 

    If Dad had had his way, every one of his accounts would have been emptied before the game was through.  He came pretty darned close to making that happen, for by the time all the hospital, legal and funeral costs were covered, only a fraction of his wealth from three years before passed on to Nancy.