Tribute to Speed Neumann by Kevin Cramer

On behalf of Janet and our entire family, thank you for being with us today as we celebrate Speed’s life and glorify our God. Your attendance here today and the many cards, calls and visits throughout the past week serve as testimony to how much Speed meant to you and to this community. It also bares witness to what kind of a place we live in.

We live in a time where more and more places in America are populated by people who have chosen to isolate themselves. They choose neighborhoods for their security amenities rather than the openness of the neighbors. We obviously live in a place where people still rally around each other and stand in the gap when a member hurts or needs a word of encouragement.

Speed was in many ways the embodiment of a vanishing America where every stranger you meet is presumed worthy of a conversation with you rather than deemed suspicious. Speed was almost carelessly friendly, to everyone, everywhere.

He could engage anyone in a conversation whether they wanted to or not. On a trip to Mexico not long ago he visited with many non-English speaking cabbies who didn’t seem to mind his tendency to offer private driving lessons from the back seat.

Some of us learned to put ear plugs in when we drove with him.

Speed could, and often did, carry any conversation. He was genuinely friendly, sincerely interested and didn’t require any contrived or electronic devices to have a good chat. The chat room for Speed was whatever room he was in.

Many of you will think of Speed when you have a prescription filled by a real person or when you see a soda fountain in a museum or when someone asks you if you want sugar with your coffee. I once asked Speed if he wanted coffee with his sugar. He wasn’t amused. 

Others will think of Speed whenever you hit a drive off the tee box and it lands right in the middle of the fairway you are aiming at. Fortunately for me I won’t need a good drive to remember. In fact, one of the things I know frustrated Speed about me more than anything was that I could have more fun playing golf poorly than he had playing it well. While he was striving for perfection I was celebrating just being on the course. His constant attempts at helping me correct my slice were unsuccessful largely because I am content to aim left.

I think Speed found my joy in playing bad golf insulting to the game he loved and worked so hard to perfect.

This striving for perfection often frustrated him I think. He liked to know the order of things well in advance, and with the few things he actually controlled that was fine. But as those of us married to strong women know, we don’t control much. The spontaneity with which a vacation route was chosen or a travel wardrobe was picked out caused anxiety for him. We did our best to help him go with the flow, and he always conceded because he had no choice. When it came to the details of vacation plans, Speed was on a need to know basis.

Now that he’s gone though, we’ll all have to worry about several details for ourselves. We’ll have to check the tread on our own tires and make sure there’s enough oil on the dipstick and remember to watch the ditches for deer.

The characteristic which tended to fool us often of course was his age. He was the youngest 90, 80, 70, 60 something year old we knew. It is part of what makes his death so difficult. He was like Dick Clark; you thought he’d never get old. His youthful appearance had a tendency to cause us to sometimes expect more of him than we should have. It also caused some of our most tense moments as he often looked more contemporary than he sounded.  It wasn’t his fault he never learned to be politically correct. He was raised when you could still call a woman a lady and vulgarity wasn’t allowed on television. He was not a bigot but the world’s colors didn’t blend quite as much as they do now.

He also had uncommon manners, he was a true gentleman, making sure everyone else was taken care of before he took care of himself. He would hand me the remote control for the television whenever I entered the living room. I always declined and said, "Golf is fine."

He always had the appropriate greeting and seemed happy to see company come. Speed always made you feel good. Great visitors are always interested in what you are doing. You always felt welcome in his store or his home.

Speed was fun, and he was funny. He often tried to be humorous with a witty comment, sometimes to a waitress or maintenance workers on a street in whatever place we were visiting. Those attempts at humor were usually less funny and sometimes even scary compared to the spontaneous expressions that seemed so out of place in this century.

In fact he never lost his sense of humor. He told the staff at the nursing home to make sure he was at the top of the list if there was an opening to get out. Just last Sunday he opened his eyes and surveyed the crowd of relatives visiting him and asked, "What are we celebrating today?"

During his last trip to the clinic the nurse kept referring to herself as a chicken because she was afraid to drive on icy roads and Speed said, "I’d rather be a chicken than a rooster that doesn’t work any more. I’m 90 and I can say those things now."

The hardest part of preparing this eulogy was editing out many of the humorous real life stories.

Of course a characteristic of Speed’s most dear to me was the fact he was a conservative. In fact, I suspect there are still quite a few Christmas and birthday and Father’s Day gifts hanging in his closet with tags still attached waiting for his perfectly good old clothes to wear out. 

Just this morning as the guys were going through his sock drawer to find dark socks they could wear we were reminded that Speed darned his socks. New ones cost a buck or two a pair you know.

Like many in his generation he became less politically conservative after he started receiving Social Security. I remember one particular conversation we had when he complained that President Bush was trying to fix Social Security when it was working just fine. "Fine for you", I said, "You get the money the government takes from me which is a lot more than they took from you. Yours ran out a long time ago." All he said back was, "I suppose." We didn’t talk about it any more.

For those of us who mourn the deepest today, two words summarize our memories the most and are clearly reflected in the many photos being displayed here today; FAMILY and VACATION. Or in some cases, family vacation.

In his book, "Finishing Strong", Steven Farrar writes one of the distinguishing characteristics of Christian Men who go the distance for their families is they don’t spend six months of every retirement year driving around the country in a Winnebago.

With Janet’s strong insistence and Speed’s willing support, retirement meant never having to miss a grandchild’s track or cross country meet or a soccer tournament no matter where in the state they had to drive.

Whether the Metrodome in Minneapolis or the mountains of Montana, driving through the Dakotas or flying to Disney World, as his family our reservoirs are full of great memories that make us smile and serve as life lessons of how to honor marriage, raise children and love grandchildren.

He taught us that the greatest thing we can give each other is each other, and that an ipod or Wii is no substitute for a long drive and the only irrevocable gift is time. Christ admonishes us in His Word not to store up treasures on earth where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in Heaven where none of those bad things happen.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians, "We are saved by grace through faith. It is not of ourselves, but a gift of God; not by works lest any man should boast. We are Christ’s workmanship created by Him for good works which he prepared for us."

Speed is in heaven enjoying the treasures he sent ahead in eternal relationships. He is there, not because of his many good works, but because we serve a good God.  We celebrate that today and thank God for His Grace which He has told us is sufficient for times like this. To God be the glory. Amen