A Tribute to my Father

by Jack B. Pace

My father, Jerry Burns Pace, was born in Lake City, Arkansas on April 22nd, 1940, but
moved around and lived in many places growing up. His father, my Grandpa Chester,
was a carpenter by trade and moved his family around following jobs, but also dabbled
in other prospects like running a farm. I remember my father talking about his days on a
farm when he was young. He said they had lots of animals, and that my grandfather
made sorghum as well as raised tobacco. My grandfather settled for a while in Indiana
and my father was able finish high school there. He graduated from Jeffersonville High
School, in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
My dad was involved in band in high school and was a very good student, so he was
offered a partial academic/band scholarship to Park College in Missouri when he
graduated. He experienced a bit of a culture shock when he moved resulting in his
grades being poor, and because debts were high he did not remain long. Thus, when
his folks decided to come to Houston for a job my dad came too. When the job was
over, my grandfather returned to Lake City; however, my father had just landed a job
with Burroughs Corp repairing business machines and remained in Houston alone. It
seems that this was fate because this is where he met my mother, named Jackie Ashley
at the time. They married in 1962, then in December of that same year my sister Elise
was born. I was born a few years later in 1965.
I don’t know how long he worked at Burroughs Corp, and I recall him telling me that at
some point in the 60s he spent some time working at NASA, but I know he eventually
ended up with Schlumberger Well Services by the 70s. He was not the type of person
to be content with just the daily grind of going to work and coming home though, so he
set up a shop in his garage and began working on his own electronics designs in his
spare time. He created a device he called the audio frequency amplitude compensator
and submitted it for patent in 1970. This device helped to compensate for the
inadequacies of typical amplifiers at the time which prevented them from reproducing
very high and very low frequencies. I know one record he frequently used to
demonstrate its effectiveness was “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (which many people know
from 2001 a Space Odyssey) because it began with very low pipe organ note than most
amplifiers of that time could not reproduce efficiently. He also made other devices, such
as guitar pedals and wah-wah boxes for local bands. While this never made him
wealthy, his patent was cited by various other research groups, including AT&T Bell
Laboratories when they accessed it in developing products to improve speech quality
over the telephone.
My father worked in the oil exploration and well logging industry, with businesses such
as Schlumberger, for more than 25 years. This included a stint where he ran his own
company. I know he once traveled to Paris for work while with Schlumberger, and later
to China when he had his own business. I recall that he spent several years working for
Compaq computer in Tomball where he programed CMOS as well as other system
software. He commuted from Pasadena to Tomball for this job. He also worked for
NASA and within the space program several times throughout his career. For the final
ten years of his career he worked mostly on NASA projects, his last being for the United
Space Alliance in 2006. In this position, he continued his work on the software that he
had helped to develop over the years, which was the primary operating software for the
NASA space simulators used in astronaut training.
Many of these jobs would not have been possible though, had my father not known the
importance of education. He had returned college after settling in Houston, attending
University of Houston for a number of years while also working to support his family. He
eventually completed his Master’s Degree in Computer Science in 1978. My mother told
me that my grandfather always said he was just a dreamer for studying computer
science, as that would never lead to a secure future. But it seems my father knew just
what he was doing since it led to a very successful career in the field.
While going to school at UH, my dad became interested in college sports. I remember
he started taking me to UH basketball games in the early 70s when Otis Birdsong was
the big star. I have many memories of UH basketball games with my father. I remember
one game when UH played Indiana State in playoff game in Hofheinz Pavilion beating
them by a point despite Larry Bird outscoring Otis Birdsong. I remember the Red and
White game in 1981 where the phi-slamma-jama players, Hakeem "The Dream"
Olajuwon, Clyde "The Glide" Drexler and others were first seen together. My dad and I
followed UH with enthusiasm, rejoicing in their all victories and lamenting their defeats.
My children, my sister’s children and many others had opportunities to go to games with
him as well. Our seats were third row opposite from the home team, across the aisle
from the famous “crazy cougar” and just up from where Guy Lewis sat after his
retirement. My dad also got season tickets to UH football games for a few seasons after
I began playing football in school. Most of those games were in the Astrodome, but a
few were in Robertson stadium. I got to repay him in a tiny bit in 1991 when I
volunteered to help the UH football team with their intercom system and brought my dad
on with me. While some political shake-ups inside the team got us remanded to the
stands after the second game, we still got to attend every game using a press pass. We
were disappointed the politics deprived us from helping on the field, but we both
enjoyed the view from the press boxes in the Dome which was pretty good.
My sister and I watched him work his way through school while we were in school. That,
along with the good genetics that he and my mother both provided, helped inspire and
equip us to get exceptional marks in school as well. And no matter what obligations he
had going on outside the home, he was always supportive of our endeavors. Be it
music, sports, arts or academics, or even external clubs or activities - he was always
there. I also recall that he agreed to coach a community basketball team when I was in
elementary school, despite having no experience. The team would not have formed had
he not agreed to coach. We didn't do so good in the league, but it was the type of
selfless thing he always did for us.
He also introduced us to music at a young age. My father was involved in the Gilbert
and Sullivan Society from 1965 to 1980, performing and singing in 9 different musical
productions as well as serving on the board from 1969-70. He had us both learn piano
as children and had a wide variety of music on vinyl that sounded amazing though his
compensator. In addition to classics such as also “Also Sprach Zarathustra” mentioned
before, he had “Switched on Bach” which was Bach played by a synthesizer, drum and
bagpipe music, Disney music, and various musicals such as one of my favorites which
was a recording of songs from “Fiddler on the Roof”.
My dad was always into the most cutting edge electronic gadgets. He got one of the first
thousand produced of a new TI scientific calculator that was supposed to replace his
slide rule when it was introduced in the mid 70s. Its simple by modern standards, but at
the time, it was a big deal. We went to Radio Shack and Olson Electronics on a regular
basis. Radio Shack had a battery club back then, so once a month we got to go and get
a free battery. Olsen had a tube tester and he would take me there and Iet me put tubes
in the tester to see if they were good. He would sometimes get pre-packaged
electronics kits for me to put together while he worked on his circuit board designs. The
first home computer he got was in 1977 when Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80
model one. He was quite excited about having a computer in the home. It had a black
and white tube screen, Z80 microprocessor and 4k of RAM which he quickly upgraded
to 16K and later to an awesome 32K of ram! It used the classic Radio Shack cassette
recorder to save programs on cassette tapes. He taught me how to write simple
programs in Basic using that computer.
Although my dad did not play many sports and had a number of TV shows he watched
without fail, he was not a complete couch potato (well actually lazy boy recliner potato,
because he never set on the couch). He and my mother got into diving and ended up
travelling all over the world for diving trips. I think the biggest thrill-seeking event though
was on his 65th birthday, when he decided to jump out of an airplane - his first & last
time. He shattered his left lower leg and it took 16 screws to put it back together. He and
my mother also loved live theatre, being subscribers to the Alley Theatre for many
years. Yet he did love certain TV shows as well. Long before DVRs, he had a
sophisticated set up with multiple VCRs which allowed him to record shows he wanted
to watch that were on at the same time so he could watch them later.
And my dad truly loved his grandchildren. My parents tried their best to make it to every
performance, every sporting event, every award presentation, and every graduation that
any of their grandkids participated in or received. As the dementia began to take over
my father’s mind he found it harder to recognize those he did not see as often, but in the
later days when it when became harder for him to find joy, some of the truly joyous
moments he had were those when he saw his grandchildren and great grandchildren.
My dad had also been the family videographer before the dementia took over. Every
family event, he was there with the handheld video camera documenting the event. My
parents had some of those videos converted to digital a few years back, but am afraid
many of those recordings have been lost now.
My father's home was always open to family and to friends in need as well. Several
grandchildren spent some time living with my parents. My friend Darrel lived with us for
a time after his father passed, my uncle lived with my parent's after his stroke, my
cousins lived with them for a period, and so did some people that they just felt
compassion toward because they were down on their luck.
I know some of my family are concerned that my father may not be waiting for us when
the time comes for us to leave this earth and join him, but I believe he will. My father
once told me he accepted Jesus when he was a child, but when he became involved in
the scientific community of the 60s and 70s, it was unpopular to profess belief in God.
When I asked him why, he said that that while he still believed it was possible that God
exists, God can’t be proven by scientific experiment so he found it difficult to express a
belief in God if he was going to believe science. I may not agree with his reasoning, but
it was a position that was gaining in popularity at his time. Despite this, he never once
discouraged my mother from attending church or taking us to church, and never tried to
convince me that I shouldn’t believe. He never complained about his money going to
support the church and the many evangelical projects my mother became involved with.
While he questioned his faith based on the secular ideas of his day, I can’t recall any
action or statement that was meant to degrade God. He said he “couldn’t believe”, but
never said anyone “shouldn’t believe”. Many of the greatest religious figures in history
questioned their faith at times, but that doesn’t mean God forsake them. I believe he will
be there when I get there, because my understanding of salvation is that it can’t be lost
unless you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, which he never did.
I have to think that once he arrived at his final destination, he was relieved to know that
he no longer needed a scientific experiment to prove God’s existence. Now he knows
for sure that what I think he always believed deep down was true all along - that God
really does exist, even if it can't be proven by scientific experiment. I'm confident he is
now with God, and will be waiting for us when we arrive.
To me, my father was truly a great man.