Paul Douglas Morris

My first memory of being read to was that of my dad enthusiastically reading the Golden Book of Dinosaurs to me when I was 3 or 4 in a rented home on Hinely Lane in Jacksonville. Later as I got older he'd read to me from literature like the Count of Monte Cristo or Treasure Island. He was always an ardent reader and kept an impressive collection of books, particularly history books, and most particularly history of the Civil War.

In 1975 he and my mother bought a modest cinderblock home on Maney Drive in the San Souci area. Sometimes after school I'd wait at the end of our street for him to come home from work and when I saw his car turn the corner I'd race him to the house. He would rev the engine alongside me as I ran but he would always let me win. Other times he'd come through the front door, I would run to him and he'd sweep me up into his arms and joyously lift me over his head.

He used to build models with me - World War 2 battleships and planes, the Titanic, the Hindenburg. He did most of it. I mostly watched, enthralled. He would meticulously paint the tiniest details on each part of the model and present it to me afterward. I kept a collection of those models in my bedroom for years. I was proud of the work he'd done. He built all sorts of things from his workshop - grandfather clocks, adirondack chairs. He built the routed sign that stood in San Souci for decades announcing the meeting times for cub scout pack 318.

He was my little league coach and my scoutmaster. He spent hours throwing the football with me, he'd radiantly lose his composure when I batted on base and he'd beam from the parents section when I was awarded another rank in scouting. He was sensitive about being slighted but delighted in my teasing him and he'd deliberately misinterpret a song lyric or a piece of slang so I could drag him over it. He encouraged me in sports and art and championed nearly every interest I pursued.

He never spanked me. When my dad punished me he would reasonably explain the offense and the reason for the punishment which was typically restriction to my room, officially for a week, but I'd always get pardoned early. My mom on the other hand was avoidant and occasionally brutal which served me gratitude for his gentleness.

He told me often that he loved me and that he was proud of me. I disappointed him frequently but he tempered his frustration with an understanding of the impetuousness that comes with immaturity. As far away from home as I might ever have travelled, I never questioned that there was someone on this planet that loved me unconditionally and that I would be welcomed back there any time. It bolstered my self-confidence in every endeavor. He alone was responsible for that. He counterbalanced in parenthood the things my mother struggled with. He demonstrated how to love.

He had a notoriously hearty loud laugh he made no effort to control and it could cause a spectacle in restaurants or movie theatres but it was a sincere laugh and it was infectious.

He was a powerful figure to me, stocky and sturdy with a strong voice, but he was never intimidating. In the evenings before dinner as my sister Pam and I would be out playing somewhere in the neighborhood he would stick two fingers in his mouth and whistle hard enough to hear from three blocks away and we'd soon come sprinting up the sidewalk for supper.

He was a stubbornly principled man; the sort that would drive the speed limit in the passing lane to keep others behind him from speeding. He was quick to take offense and conspicuously annoyed when he perceived someone's incompetence but he was ebullient when he greeted people and showed earnest interest in them when they spoke. It was hard to stay angry at him for long.

By late adolescence my relationship with my mother had completely deteriorated and in acting out against her I lost interest in performing at school which was her inviolable condition for affection. My grades put my future in question. I was in active rebellion. It was a difficult period. But my dad would spend time encouraging me with his arm around me, telling me he understood; that he'd been there once himself at my age and that he had faith in me. He told me he knew my potential. His patient and uplifting influence may have saved my life. I remember one such occasion he had his arm around me, helping me through it all when a friend pulled into the driveway. We were headed to the movies. I said goodbye to my dad and as I got into my friend's car I noticed my friend had started crying. He said he wished his dad would love him the same way, that I didn't know how lucky I was.

My dad started life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 22, 1936. He grew up and graduated from high school in Huntington, West Virginia, and briefly attempted college at Marshall University but he wasn't a serious student at that point and dropped out to join the army, serving four years as a paratrooper in the 8th Infantry Airborne. A string of odd jobs followed and he eventually found work as a deputy with the Miami Beach Police Department. He met my mother, Susanne, at that time on a blind date and soon they left for Gainesville where he earned a history degree in 1969 at the University of Florida. Afterward he spent his career with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement working mostly out of the Jacksonville office with a short term in the Tampa area. I would be thrilled to occasionally catch a glimpse of him on a local news broadcast or in some story in the Times-Union about an arrest he'd made the day before. He was an avid woodworker and a longtime volunteer scouter in the North Florida Council, in Troops 477 and 6, as well as an advisor in Echockotee Lodge and the Wood Badge program. He enjoyed extended canoe trips with friends through wilderness areas around the country. He dabbled in sketch drawing, photography, and bird watching but more than anything he loved model trains. After retirement he volunteered with Guardian Ad Litem.

He aggressively supported the Florida Gators but he refused to watch their games, even momentarily if he happened to pass a television somewhere while a game was on, because he had superstitiously convinced himself that if the Gators lost or even committed a mistake it was directly his fault for having jinxed them.

He and my mother moved to Eagle Harbor in Clay County and spent many years there enjoying their retirement with a friend group of empty nesters.

He adored his grandchildren.

He died on October 1, 2023, in Oxford, Florida ten years after a stroke that fundamentally changed and confined him. He was not the same man afterward. I haven't stopped mourning him. In a way I lost him twice.

At his direction he was interred at Hardage-Giddens Greenlawn Cemetery in Jacksonville without ceremony.

I know how lucky I was.