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Robert Kehrer
William Joseph Kehrer
December 23rd, 1929 - July 6th, 2020
December 23rd, 1929 - July 6th, 2020
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Robert Kehrer
Dad and I raced his sailboat, the Sea-Nile, on Lake St Clair in Michigan and the races were often scheduled for Sundays. In the summer of 1979 we began meeting with the LDS missionaries and learning the principles of the gospel. One of the doctrines they taught about was the obedience to the Sabbath day. Being good Catholics, we entered the church on weddings and holidays but Sunday was just another Saturday. Dad told them he liked what they were teaching but we had a race on Sunday and would not be in church. Sunday morning found Dad and I out on Lake St Clair with dozens of other boats testing the wind, adjusting the rigging, and timing our lineup to the clock and starting gun. The wind was good. Everything looked ideal and the boat was responding perfectly. In the last 30 seconds before the gun went off all boats turned, aligned and ran for the starting line to be at it at full speed, but not across it, when the gun went off. As we approached the starting line the gun went off and all the boats shot across the line and the race was on...except ours. The Sea-Nile stopped, the sails luffed, the boat was dead. Dad frantically tried to diagnose, adjust gear and rigging rudder, keel, read wind directions and anything he could think of. Nothing was amiss nor would any adjustment get the sails filled and the boat moving again. Watching all the other boats disappear into the distance, Dad turned to me and said, you know that sabbath day stuff the Elders were talking about?....I don't think we're supposed to be out here today. That was the last Sunday we raced sailboats.
Robert Kehrer
Less than 3 weeks before his death, while deep into the pains of stage 4 liver cancer, diabetes, severe atherosclerosis, mostly non-functional knees, eyes and ears, Dad came up to Mapleton and indicated that he would like to play a round of golf. Caiden and I took a day off work. I expected that he would just ride around in the cart while we hit the balls. I thought at best he might hit a couple but not many. Dad brought his clubs. He played all shots at all 9 holes. I had a little handicap flag on the cart that allowed me to drive up to the tees and right up to the greens. He played well, maybe not hitting the balls as far as usual, but always perfectly straight to the middle of the fairways with surreal placement. It wore him out, but he did it. I knew from the start that this could very well be his very last round of golf. He wanted to finish it out. Caiden had a great time, I had a good time and dad played well. At the end of the round Dad took his favorite driver out of his bag and handed it to Caiden and said "Here this is yours now, I want you to have it". It was a very sentimental confirmation that we had just witnessed his last round of golf and that he had officially passed the baton to the next generation.
Robert Kehrer
When we were young our family spent a lot of fine weekends touring and camping on our sailboat. It was berthed a few miles up the Clinton river off of lake St Clair and to get out to the lake we had to motor down river past many marinas. Sailboats are supposed to be spotless white and clean. Marinas are seagull magnets. Children LOVE to feed seagulls. Seagulls aren't known for holding their dukey when they are eating and flying. You can probably do the math at this point. One specific day Suzi and Rob were up on deck eating potatoe chips as we motored out and discovered that with well placed chips we could control the seagulls. Dad warned us multiple times "Do not feed those gulls". But you know how much irresistible fun it is to try and get a gull to catch food in the air. We had a lot of gulls at our command. Now I really don't know exactly what spooked the swirling cloud of gulls all at once. We may never know. But what we do know is that just before they were spooked, Dad had just warned us again "Do not feed those gulls"...and then it all broke loose. Not one gull. Not a few gulls. A whooole lotta gulls. Suzi and I were swabbing the deck for some time after that.
Robert Kehrer
Dad called me out to the yard once saying we needed to do some yard work. He produced a 50lb bag of grass seed containing a blend of 3 grasses with distinct looking seeds and said that we needed to seed the large yard. He produced a toothpick, went down to his knees making a little hole in the soil. Then, while we all watched, he carefully selected one seed of each type, put them in the hole and carefully covered it up. Then without so much as breaking a smirk he handed us toothpicks and said go to it. We were laughing so hard we couldn't see
Robert Kehrer
In our home in Southern Pines we just had brand new white carpet installed in the rooms and we waiting for the delivery of the new furniture. Mom was being hyper vigilant about anyone walking on the carpet with shoes or dirty feet since it was new and it was white and probably needed some protectant installed on it still. Suzi' s boyfriend Mark came to the house just after the carpet installers left and as Suzi answered the door, mom came running to the door to make sure that he took his shoes off. Dad witnessed this and, seeing Mark's urgent removal of his shoes, Dad deadpanned, just wait until you hear what your going to have to take off once the new furniture arrives.
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