[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 194 (Friday, December 16, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2306-E2307]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  STATEMENT BY CONGRESSMAN JOHN B. LARSON AND EULOGY DELIVERED BY HIS 
   SON, THOMAS S. BRENNAN, HONORING THE LIFE OF JUDGE JOHN D. BRENNAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN B. LARSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 16, 2011

  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. John Brennan was a venerated citizen of my 
hometown, East Hartford. He served his country, his state, and his 
community in several elected, appointed, and volunteer positions; most 
recently he presided as a Judge where he served until he was 93, and 
did so with vigor, and a sense of humor. Growing up in East Hartford 
when you're poor John Brennan, if you were type casting, you'd say he 
looked like Henry Fonda, and we along with his beautiful wife Mary, 
raised four children, Susan, Jack, Peter, and Tome, all of who I was 
fortunate to know, and know how devoted to their father they are. At 
his funeral service it was his youngest son Tom, who gave the eulogy on 
behalf of the family, there is so much I could say about John Brennan, 
he commanded blind respect and rightfully so. Nothing I could say 
however captures the feeling, the sentiment, the public servant, and 
the father as Tom Brennan's remarks on his father that follows.

           Eulogy Honoring the Life of Judge John D. Brennan

                         (By Thomas S. Brennan)

       First of all I'd like to thank everyone for coming to join 
     our family today. I know how absolutely thrilled my father 
     would be to see all of you here, even though I know also that 
     he was a little disappointed to have only made it to the age 
     of 94, when he was still in his youthful prime with so much 
     left to be done. But in many ways he almost was still in his 
     prime, and I think that said a lot about how he lived his 
     life--he never lost his youthful enthusiasm and he had a 
     genuine appreciation for whatever the moment offered. He was 
     someone who from the beginning was endowed with many gifts 
     and he made use of those gifts in a variety of arenas 
     throughout his life.
       My father often described his childhood growing up in East 
     Hartford of the 1920s as an almost idyllic ``Huck Finn'' sort 
     of existence--kids running free playing baseball down in the 
     meadows, riding a rope swing into the Connecticut River or 
     racing carrier pigeons that neighborhood kids would keep in 
     backyard coops. Like many of the Irish back then, his father 
     worked on the trains and would release the carrier pigeons 
     when he was way down the lone toward New York. In that era, 
     those pigeons making their way home might very well have 
     sailed past Yankee Stadium when Babe Ruth was slugging a home 
     run, or over houses where families were gathering around a 
     radio waiting for FDR to speak, before circling down over the 
     farms and tobacco fields that once surrounded this town. It 
     was a simple working class world and he grew up during the 
     Depression, so there wasn't any choice then but to make the 
     most out of whatever you were lucky enough to have.
       The arrival of World War II took him far away from the 
     innocent small town life and it became one of the defining 
     experiences of his life. The world was suddenly opened wide 
     and he was thrilled to be riding on the tide of history. And 
     of course, to hear him tell it, it was one giant adventure--
     we never knew

[[Page E2307]]

     war could be so much fun. He especially loved to tell us old 
     stories of how he and his Army buddies played pranks on one 
     another all the way across the Pacific but there was one 
     story in particular I always liked: It was right after the 
     war had ended and he was on an island off of South Korea 
     where he had been assigned to accept the transfer of all 
     Japanese back to Japan. It just so happened that there had 
     been a tailor who had worked on the island for the 
     previous 40 years who was originally Japanese and so his 
     family was extremely upset that he was being forced to 
     completely uproot everything. My father had ordered him to 
     bring all his things in a suitcase and be on the dock 
     ready to leave the next morning. When the appointed hour 
     arrived, he saw that practically the whole town had come 
     out to bid goodbye to the old tailor, nearly all of them 
     in tears. So he looked around for a minute, gathered in 
     the scene and then called the tailor forward before the 
     crowd and announced to everyone (in his best gruff 
     military voice): ``You are free to stay'' at which point 
     the entire town erupted in chaotic celebration, they 
     lifted my father up and carried him through the streets on 
     their shoulders. To me, that moment expressed something 
     essential about him--that he felt pretty instinctively 
     that a certain humanity and practicality should determine 
     a decisions, rather than blind adherence to some order 
     from headquarters. And also that though he could have a 
     tough exterior, it wasn't very hard to penetrate beyond it 
     and ultimately he always was guided by a very innate sense 
     of fairness.
       After the war, he returned home to East Hartford and 
     remained there for the rest of his life. He practiced law, 
     built a family, became involved in local politics, was 
     elected Mayor and later appointed as a judge in the 
     Connecticut Superior Court. Many of you here today knew him 
     through the variety of activities that evolved out of his 
     many years of public life in town. In East Hartford, he was 
     in his element, he flourished and he never wanted to live 
     anywhere else.
       Long before we had Google to research any topic or answer 
     any question, there was John Brennan. And when you spoke to 
     him, you were instantly transported back over a remarkable 
     span of history by someone who could remember all the details 
     and bring the back to life--in fact, you were actually 
     talking to someone who remembered speaking to veterans of the 
     Civil War. He was renowned for his ability to recall little 
     known historical facts and had immediate access to a treasure 
     trove of information that he would eagerly dispense on 
     subjects as diverse as the dates of the major battles of the 
     Boer Wars or the work of some obscure German poet. But 
     despite his ability in this arena, it was always balanced 
     with a pronounced disregard for anything that smacked of 
     ``unnecessary pretense'' or ``excess'', which perhaps 
     explained his lifetime loyalty to Maxwell House coffee, Prell 
     shampoo, and $5 sunglasses. In fact, my sister reminded me 
     yesterday that he was perfectly happy to drive his Buick into 
     the ground, much to the dismay of the salesman down at Dworin 
     Chevrolet, of course. And always, no matter how distinguished 
     his career in the law may have been or how adept he was with 
     the life of the mind, he took a certain pleasure in making 
     fun of himself too, as if he were really just a regular guy. 
     So if I were to say now that he had an ``indefatigable'' 
     spirit, he would feign an innocent look, lean forward 
     helpfully and add ``tireless too''. As if he didn't know what 
     the word meant. It was one of his favorite jokes and in fact 
     I have since stolen it for myself.
       He reached mandatory retirement as a Superior Court judge 
     in 1986 and then continued to work for another 24 years--
     almost a full career for some people. He loved being over at 
     the courthouse in the middle of the action, surrounded by the 
     friends and comforts of his profession and he showed little 
     sign of stopping, right up to the age of 93. So we knew it 
     was trouble when the day finally came that he said he didn't 
     want to go to work anymore.
       Yet even near the end of his life, when he was going 
     through radiation treatments, his face could light up at the 
     sight of a simple cup of chowder that my sister might bring 
     over to the hospital for him. Or he would shuffle outside to 
     the hospital parking lot, take a sip out of a flask of 
     bourbon that my brother had smuggled in, look around and say 
     ``Isn't this the life!'' And he really meant it. That was his 
     rare gift--to be able to genuinely appreciate and make the 
     most of whatever the moment held and still find an upside to 
     it. If you asked him how he was feeling, he'd say ``Raring to 
     go!'' and it really wasn't much of an exaggeration. And his 
     amazing work ethic refused to quit. Just a few weeks ago, he 
     woke up from a nap and asked my sister Suzie where he was and 
     what day it was. So she told him, it's Wednesday and you're 
     at home''. He sounded absolutely aghast in his response: 
     ``Home? What am I doing home in the middle of the week--I'm 
     supposed to be at work!'' In a way, he was kind of like one 
     of those characters from an old John Wayne movie that you 
     just couldn't keep down, where even after being hit with 100 
     rounds from the enemy, he would still somehow stagger back to 
     throw that one decisive final grenade.
       So today we lay to final rest an old soldier who embraced 
     battle and celebration with equal relish, who demonstrated 
     that he could not just endure, but do it with ``pizzazz'' and 
     certainly for far longer than we had any right to ask for. It 
     was once said, by the Civil War veteran and Supreme Court 
     Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, that ``to act with enthusiasm 
     and faith is the condition for acting greatly''. To our 
     father and your friend, we can now rightfully say without 
     hesitation: you met that test--mission accomplished. Of 
     course we will miss you greatly, but you had one heck of a 
     run and we're really very grateful and proud of that. And so 
     we promise to pass along your sense of humor, to keep telling 
     our favorite stories about you and to still be toasting you 
     at some cocktail hour far into the future with warm memories 
     to always keep you very much alive in our hearts.

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