John Dirks- Padlet by Trinity Dirks

trinitydirks — 2025-02-10 04:42:02 UTC

John Dirks

trinitydirks — 2025-02-10 04:43:06 UTC

Age 86

Important Life Event:

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One of the things that changed the direction of his life was attending school at Notre Dame University on a football scholarship.

Important Life Event:

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Pursuing careers in engineering, sales, news, and more until he decided that dentistry was a fine field to be his main focus and would set him and his family up for the rest of his life. John did not stop working, however, until he retired from four different careers.

Important Life Event:

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John married a young woman who was going to become an elementary school teacher and make a fine mother.

Notre Dame Football:

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Notre Dame University

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Important Life Event:

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John and his wife Chara adopted two twin boys and later a baby girl, making their family of two a family of five.

Important Life Event:

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Retiring from his dentist career (as well as his other side gigs), freed up lots of spare time and allowed John to discover his love of painting, gardening, and travel.

Important Life Event:

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John's family surprised him with a dog to keep him company when he turned 65. Motley turned out to be his soul dog and brought joy and love to all.

Motley:

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Important Life Event:

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John's kids got married and started their own families making him a grandfather of eleven children; two boys and nine girls.

Important Life Event:

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Very sadly, Motley passed away in 2021, one of the hardest deaths for John to accept. He misses her everyday and loves her dearly, but Motley sent him a new dog to give his love to, Molly.

Life Lessons:

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John's main drive throughout life was school. His family and his own views revolved around getting a good education, which he encouraged in all his children. Through his hard work and study he was able to receive a degree surrounded by brilliant minds. He is a smart man himself and urges others to take school and opportunity seriously and to apply themself.

Wisdom:

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John encourages people to be kind to others. The world is a bad enough place as it is without people going around being grumpy everyday.

Advice:

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His golden rule is to respect others. Although he doesn't tolerate idiots, he still has respect for them. He says that people should not believe they are above others.

Stories:

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Motley and John went on daily hikes in their retirement area of Fountain Hills, Arizona. In this community, Motley had more friends than John ever did. He would often get stopped on a trail or catcalled across the street so that people could admire and love on Motley, before remembering he was there too. On a common path of theirs, two store owners of a salon had a treat jar especially for Motley so they could stop her everyday on her way home. One day, as rain was pouring down, they urged Motley inside so she could get dry and warm. John said he felt very left out and forgotten.

Important Life Event:

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As him and his wife were raising their three kids, they decided to uproot their lives and move half way across the country from Detroit, Michigan to Arizona.

Societal Changes:

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John worked hard to keep up with evolving technology. He bought an IT computer for 1000 dollars, a lot of money at the time, when they were first developing and continued to update his technology so that he too could stay up to date in the new digital world, as he knew that navigating technology would be an uphill struggle if he didn't stay connected. He admits that the phones are overkill, in his opinion. He doesn't need his phone to do everything his computer can and thinks that it disconnects us from reality and interaction. John prefers the home phone to his personal cell.

Advice:

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John says to beware of the Dirks Curse. When asked to elaborate, he did not.

Societal Changes:

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He won't argue whether it has or hasn't yet, but working hard should not go out of style.

Societal Changes:

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He believes that getting into college is a lot easier, or at least a whole new ordeal than it was. Communication, application processes, and information are worlds ahead what he had at the time and he thinks that it is fantastic for new generations. He cannot understand why people would not take these opportunities.

Stories:

trinitydirks — 2025-02-10 05:27:34 UTC

When enlisting in the draft, a section of the test required participants to decode messages. John passed really well, and was asked to decode messages if he was ever needed. A few times throughout his service he would go on "vacations," as far as his children knew, to assist the CIA. One time, an agent came into his dental office to get his assistance. I fact checked with his children, who said that John had only ever even spoken of this a few times in their lives, and weren't keen to confirm or deny. I double checked that John knew this would be posted on an assignment and he assured me that he was old enough now that if anyone came for him he wouldn't mind.

Big News:

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John says that Henry Ford, the inventor of the automobile was known around his town of Michigan. He states that before he got into cars, he tried a start up business of lawn furniture that was made out of concrete. It did not do well. So he pursued mechanics instead, for the best. Checking the timeline, it must have been family members of John who had actually known Ford, as John was still a child when he passed away. Regardless, he remembers where he was the day he heard that Ford died.

Songs:

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John has always been obsessed with Jazz, throughout his whole life. He knows everything that has to do with the genre and loved hearing performers play. He told me a story of how he went to a downtown bar in Detroit and fell in love with the black lady singing. He said she had the best voice he's ever heard. That singer was Dinah Washington.

Songs:

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John knows everything Jazz, but a song he kept bringing up was "Call me Irresponsible" by Frank Sinatra.

Stories:

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John moved from Detroit to Phoenix because he almost killed a man. At least, that's how he likes to tell the story. One of his twin sons has serious asthma, and would often undergo treatment for it. One time, they put him in a tent-like structure to administer different drugs and tests. As he's holding his sons hand, his son begins to feel like he can't breathe and is not getting any air. The doctors cannot figure out why this is. John panics as his son lets go of his hands to grasp his neck, red in the face. When John looked down at his hand that his son dropped, he saw the doctor standing on the air tube which was supposed to administer his son oxygen. He had to have several people hold him back. The real reason they moved to Arizona is because the doctors recommended that the climate and environment may be better for his asthma.

Impactful:

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John loves to paint. He prefers oil paints and has taught many of his grandchildren his art. He keeps many pieces for himself but sells some online.

Before moving to Fountain Hills, John turned an acre of his backyard into a garden, which he cherished and loved to care for.

John loves to golf, and in his retirement he and his old buddies enjoyed playing rounds.

He loves to do puzzles. His kitchen table is always filled with a new puzzle to do.

Kung Fu Panda was John's favorite movie he ever watched with his grandchildren. He thinks he's a funny, relatable guy and even had a Po plushie sitting in his office.

Stories and Aging Process:

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John's two best friends were Beak and Paul. He went to college with them but lost touch as they moved away. He says it was always weird to contact people beyond because calling people required you to find them in the phone book or know how to contact them. One time, him and his wife were walking around Disneyland when he heard a familiar voice shout out "Dirks!" He whipped around and shouted out "Beaky!" to a crowd of confused and amused Disneyland goers before reuniting with his best friend and his wife. He was very glad he got to see him again. Technology definitely changed the aging process, as before John was never able to get a hold of Beaky and Paul, but after reuniting in an age of technology, communication was easier than ever. He said that re-connecting with friends so much later was a game changer and I believe that this also is a game changer for the aging process overall.

Stories:

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Although attendants of a scholarly school, John and his friends who were very academic people and players on the football team did not have a squeaky clean record. Junior year, for St. Patrick's day, they decided to throw a celebration. Their buddies in another lab had access to liquor for a study or experiment at a lab they worked at. Their group made a plan, transported the goods, and threw a street-shutting down party to rival all St. Patrick's day parties that Notre Dame had ever seen. A magnificent conga line broke out amongst the students, out of the hands of John and his group and out of the hands of any administration or person in charge. Years and years down the line, a friend's kid who had gone off to college at Notre Dame said that he heard wind of the St. Patty's day conga line. John was ecstatic that people were still talking about it and he made history, maybe not academically or in football, but nonetheless he left his mark on the school.

Stories:

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At family game night, John's family plays golf where lowest score wins. Whenever he overturns a card of 7 he complains about how that number is "Vanilla," meaning it's not good enough to keep or bad enough to throw away. When he loses, he curses his opponents' camels for a dry winter in the Sahara desert and hopes they stub their toes.

John, his son, and some of his grandchildren:

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John and Molly:

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