And with that, her voice quivered and her face tightened, and she dissolved into tears.
“Sorry,” she finally whispered. “I do that a lot now.”
As you looked at the photo, you saw the smiling image of her dad, Bernie Coppock.
You also noted the new, still-scabbed-over, tattooed phrase on the inside of her left forearm.
Done in personally penned block letters, it said:
“Love You Madly.”
She’d just gotten the inkwork done last Friday in Oakwood.
“It’s my dad’s own handwriting, they just copied it onto my arm,” she said as her eyes brimmed over again.
It was one thing her dad always said. It’s how he’d sign off his greeting cards and phone calls and conversations.
Kelly’s three daughters — who called their granddad Babaw — referred to Bernie’s many saying as “Babaw-isms.”
The tatted remembrance, the tears, the past tense references — that all goes back to May 6, when Bernie Coppock died at age 89.
He left Nancy, his wife of 54 years; four children — Scott, George, John, and Kelly, 10 grandchildren, two great grandkids, three sisters, a brother, a sister-in-law, and, because of his long and loving impact in the community, a multitude of friends and admirers.
He didn’t want a viewing, a funeral service or a typical burial.
Kelly suggested “A Celebration of Life” and, with some convincing, he agreed to it, though he wondered if anyone would show up.
That will be answered Saturday and Sunday when the Coppock family hosts “A Celebration of Bernie’s Life” at the family’s home on 8 ½ acres — with its stocked pond, pool, and wooded areas — in Franklin.
Each day’s gathering begins at noon and Kelly said anyone who knew her dad is invited, including the people from his auto racing days, his time as a pilot, his involvement with the National Railway Historical Society and with the American Legion post in Franklin, those who knew him as an area Santa Claus each December and as a tool and die engineer at General Motors for 26 years, and, of course, his pals who are fellow diehard Cleveland Browns fans.
She said the family expects a couple of hundred people to attend over two days.
The gathering takes the place of the Coppock’s annual Fourth of July celebration that had become the centerpiece of the family’s social gatherings each year.
“Dad was very patriotic, so the Fourth of July was big with him,” Kelly said. “He was an Army veteran.
“I loved it that my dad and my older brother served. That’s one reason I joined the Army Reserve after high school.
“I had uncles and cousins who served. My younger brother, like my older brother, was in the Air Force. My husband and my father-in-law were both in the Army.
“We’re a family of veterans.”
And that’s why the Honor Flight RVC (Recreational Vehicle Convoy) Program — which Bernie was instrumental in developing — was so important.
It was a way to enable veterans of the World War II, Korea and Vietnam eras to take part in the Honor Flight program, even though they were unable or unwilling to fly to Washington, D.C.
By travelling in RVs — Bernie used his to make 24 trips, most of them with Kelly as the driver — the vets could still visit the various memorials in the nation’s capital, enjoy camaraderie with fellow veterans and be celebrated for their service and sacrifices.
“Some people couldn’t fly for health and physical reasons,” Kelly said. “And some refused to fly ever again. There were pilots who said they’d used up their nine lives in the war and they didn’t want to fly again.”
Honor Flights was founded by Springfield’s Earl Morse in 2005 and three years later the RVC program was begun.
Bernie got involved at the urging of his wife, who had seen a plea by Morse on TV.
“My dad and Gary Davis, a longtime family friend who used to live next door, did the trips at the very beginning,” Kelly said. “When Gary stopped going in 2013, I took his place and then I never gave it back.
“Dad did all the trips.
“We’d take four veterans in each motor home, and we’d have anywhere from a four to eight motorhome caravan going to D.C.
“We make it a three-day trip. The first day we go as far as Gaithersburg, Maryland, just outside D.C., and stay in a hotel.
“The next day a bus would pick everybody up and go to the Changing of the Guard at Arlington National Cemetery. We also go to the Military Women’s Memorial and those for World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Marines, the Air Force and maybe some others, whatever we had time for.
“That night we’d stay in Gaithersburg again and then drive home the next day.
“The vets would sit and talk, and dad would be right there with them. He was a great BSer.
“He’d tell them they could talk about whatever they wanted except politics or religion. People fight too much about that.
“He’d say, ‘This is a safe space, and you can share what you like.’”
Word got out and previously reluctant veterans wanted to be a part of the trips, which cost them nothing.
“There was a guy who was in the Battle of the Bulge,” Kelly said. “He could hardly walk, so he did extra therapy beforehand so he could step up into the motorhome.
“The bus has a lift, so if you’re in a wheelchair they can lift you if you don’t walk.
“But you have to get up into the motorhomes yourself, so this guy made himself stronger and he did it.
“I’ve got pictures of him and my girls together. It’s something they won’t forget.”
Importance of family
Bernie, the oldest of 12 kids, was born at home in West Carrollton in 1934.
“My grandma thought she was having stomach pains from something that didn’t agree with her,” Kelly said. “She thought it came from eating sauerkraut.”
She missed on the pregnancy and the palate.
There was never anything sour about Bernie Coppock.
He graduated from Dayton’s Fairview High School and was drafted into the Army in 1957. After two years of Stateside service, he returned home and eventually began work at GM.
His sister introduced him to Nancy, who was from Chicago and had gotten a job here as a bookkeeper for Holiday Inn.
While son Scott was from Bernie’s previous marriage, Kelly and the twins, George and John, came from his union with Nancy, who is quite a story in her own right.
Kelly said back in the day, when gas stations offered full service by an attendant or allowed you to pump your own fuel, she played it safe and had the station hand tend to her gas.
“And dad had a conversion van, but she refused to drive it because she said it was too big,” Kelly said, recounting how her father once scratched his eye and needed to be driven to medical attention, but her mom wouldn’t do it:
“So then Mom comes home one day and says, ‘I’m joining the fire department!’
“Everybody was like ‘Whaaat?’
“And sure enough, she did, and she turned out to be a pretty bad ass one! And this was when there were hardly any women doing it.
“She passed all the tests and was out there dragging hoses and driving the firetruck. She has a scar under her chin from when her goggles got too hot in a fire and burned her neck.
“She became an EMT and then finished school and became a paramedic.”
Although she’s no longer an active firefighter, Nancy, who’s now 77, still does volunteer work with the fire department and she’s a dispatcher at Sinclair Community College.
“She’s the one who got me into it,” said Kelly, a 1989 graduate of Franklin High, who is now 53.
She said family remained a huge part of her dad’s life and the various generations often would go on trips together, whether it was the Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin, or visits to Florida, North Carolina or Gatlinburg.
Her dad’s favorite place was the one-acre pond at his home that was stocked with striped bass, bluegill, grass carp and some large catfish. He would let the Carlisle High fishing club and various 4-H groups fish there.
There was also a go-kart the grandkids piloted on the property, a salute to the genes they’d inherited from Babaw.
“Dad just loved to go fast,” Kelly grinned. “He taught me to drive, so when I got my first speeding ticket, I told him, ‘What did you expect?’”
In the 1950s and ‘60s, her dad raced stockcars at places like the old Dayton Speedway, Shadybowl in DeGraff and Tr-County Motor Speedway in West Chester.
He was a lifelong member of the Dayton Auto Race Fan club, served as its president and was enshrined in the DARF Hall of Fame.
He had a boat and piloted small planes. He volunteered at airshows across the nation, and at Entertrainment Junction in Cincinnati.
And with his own Santa suit he was on call for whomever needed some beard-and-belly Ho, Ho, Hos during the holidays.
As for those Babaw-isms, some were heartfelt, but some were pure shake-your-head corn.
Kelly recounted how her dad would be in a store and go up to the cash register and tell the clerk:
“Just so you know, my name’s Crime. And everybody knows, crime don’t pay!”
‘He never met a stranger’
In truth, he was a guy who gave to everyone.
“He had the best smiles and hugs,” Kelly said with a voice that again faltered as her emotions welled. “He was always happy to see his family and he never met a stranger, either.”
That’s why he was so good on those Honor Flight RVC trips. He helped vets relax and bond so the experience could be transformative.
“It takes about eight hours to drive to Gaithersburg and we’d stop every couple hours so the vets could stretch their legs,” Kelly said. “And Dad would surprise them with little cups of ice cream, like the ones you used to get in school.”
Once the group got to their hotel, Kelly said a catered meal awaited them.
“One of the nurses along on the trip has a karaoke machine and a beautiful voice,” Kelly said. “She’ll play music and different veterans will get up and sing a song and they dance. It’s a lot of fun.”
As they visit the memorials the next day, Kelly said one of her favorite things is seeing Vietnam veterans finally get their due:
“It’s good to see them get the recognition and welcome they never got 50 years ago. A lot of them got bad treatment when they returned home and that’s why a lot of them don’t want to go on these trips. They have bad memories of those times and the way some people reacted to them.
“But now you see people, little kids, everybody, come up and thank them for their service.”
She said she noticed a big difference in the mood of the vets as they made their way back from D.C. compared to the trip going there:
“There’s more laughter. Everyone’s lighter. Some made lifelong friends.
“We’ve had families contact us afterward and thank us. They tell us how the vets opened up after all these years and talked about their service. They shared things they’d never talked about before.
“It’s like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders.”
Moments like those will be some of the things recalled at Bernie’s celebration this weekend.
And it truly will be a celebration of life — continuing life.
“A sycamore was one of Dad’s favorite trees,” Kelly said. “Dad was cremated and there’s a company that makes a living urn. It looks like a vase and it’s biodegradable. We put the ashes and soil in and then we planted a sycamore tree in it and put it by the pond.
“That way Dad will always be there with us, right next to the pond he loved.”
And though Bernie’s gone now, Kelly said the family’s involvement in the Honor Flight RVC program won’t stop.
She’s become active in Honor Flights Dayton, serving on the board, helping raise funds, coordinating upcoming trips and searching for more vets to take part.
“I’m trying to plan another trip for October,” she said. “I think dad would be really PO’d with me if we didn’t keep it going. This was something he cared deeply about.”
As a reminder of his passion for life, she just needs to look at that fresh ink on her left arm:
“Love You Madly.”
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