I have written several times in the past about the political volunteer work of my father, Haywood H. Hillyer III, a onetime Republican national committeeman who died 10 years ago today. I’ve avoided the usual encomiums to the sorts of things that mark father-son relationships, thinking them irrelevant for national publications.
But, 10 years later, the passage of time crystallizes some memories in a way that may be of interest. I’m not exactly sure, as I write this, where this little essay is going, but please bear with me.
Dad was a builder of the Republican Party and the conservative movement and a congressional district chairman for Ronald Reagan; he was a lawyer who served in key positions for several Bar associations; he was a champion regional sailor; he was a great aficionado of traditional New Orleans jazz known and appreciated by many of those musicians, black and white; an expert Cajun dancer; and a quiet, thoughtful, even-tempered man, with the exception of when his competitive nature suddenly erupted (rather humorously, not frighteningly) in sailing races or bridge (cards) matches in which he just couldn’t understand why some people’s minds didn’t work at the warp speed of his own.
He was not a big man, just 5 feet and 8 3/4 inches (he really wanted that extra quarter inch), but he had a quietly fierce courage of his convictions and rigorous ethical code that drew praise from a governor and a Republican state chairman, among others. He empathized with people down on their luck and donated valuable professional services for hundreds of hours to people who couldn’t afford to pay.
But as a father, what stands out in my mind is our shared love of sports. When I failed miserably as a 7-year-old in Little League baseball, he said it didn’t matter. But when I insisted I wanted to get better, he collected about a hundred dead tennis balls, took me to an intramural diamond on the nearby Tulane University campus, and pitched batting practice to me until his arm seemed about to fall off. He never, ever pushed me, but he always was ready if I wanted to push myself. It was because of his patience (and rubber arm) that, the next summer, I made the league All-Star team.
The most fun, though, was on late weekend afternoons. After watching whatever sports were on TV, usually while reading leftover newspapers at the same time, the two of us would walk to a large field in New Orleans’s nearby Audubon Park. The field was about 80 yards long (40 wide), and we’d throw the football (short passes, long ones, whatever) to each other all over the field. As a closing ritual, we would line up about 8 yards apart at one extreme end of the field and run, fast, parallel to each other, down the full length of the field, as we threw the ball back-and-forth on the dead run as fast as we could catch and rethrow it. Then, reaching field’s end, we would repeat it in the opposite direction until, panting, we would high-five each other as the session ended.
Dad died of cancer at age 72, my brother and I by his side as a traditional jazz CD played in the background. When I called his close friends to tell them, several of them openly wept on the phone. I’ve given him his props before for his civic leadership but, until now, not for how wonderful he was as a father. Dad, 10 years late, here’s a high-five.
