[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 15]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 21315-21316]
[From the U.S. 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. Mr, Speaker, 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 he along with his beautiful 
wife Mary, raised four children, Susan, Jack, Peter, and Tom, 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

[[Page 21316]]

     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 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 them 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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