Mr. Ben Neff's Obituary
Ben F. Neff was a happy, caring, sharing, loving, idealistic man. He was born in Houston, TX on May 21, 1934 to Noah and Alma Neff. He had two older brothers, Noah Van and Ray, and a baby sister, Sara.
As a boy, his favorite thing to do was to go down to the bayou and swing from ropes tied to the trees and dig tunnels, and in general, get really muddy. He got a whuppin' every time he did it - but he just couldn't stop himself. One time, he said, his dad gave him a whuppin' in the morning because he knew he was gonna do it. When he came home that evening his dad whupped him again. That's not fair! He always followed his big brothers, 6 and 8 years older, around and tried to be as big as he could be. As a teenager he had a tight group of friends: Louis Puckett, Jim and Jack O'Donnell. Louis and Ben bought an old Ford in the late '40s that was so rusted out they decided to remove the body completely. They drove the "Jahoof" around with a peach basket tied to the chassis as a seat - no doors, no roof, no floor, and no windshield - just "natural air conditioning." He said they had to keep shuffling it back and forth because neither the Pucketts nor the Neffs wanted it in their driveways. He found his special talent in radio shop at Pasadena High School; he made very good grades there. The Korean War was going on when he graduated, so he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, rather be drafted, if they would send him to electronics school. While he was waiting for them to take him, he got a job as a radioman on a seismic boat looking for oil in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. In the Navy he became an electronics technician. He repaired and operated radios, radar and navigation systems. Back then, they were transitioning from tube-type to transistors but it was still mostly tube-type - very hot and heavy. The tubes burned out frequently, and thus, a radioman was repairing as much as operating the electronics in flight. He was based, among other places, in San Diego, CA, Norfolk, VA and Midway Island. He served on the aircraft carriers Lexington and Ticonderoga. He was on the Ticonderoga in 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin. He was very disappointed that they used his three AWACS plans, which were supposed to be for the protection of the fleet, to direct the first bombing of Hanoi, Vietnam. He was in the Navy for 12 years and 8 months and achieved the final rank of Chief Petty Officer, E-8. Ben married Gayle on February 3, 1957. Together, they had four children, Sheila, Norman, Daryl and David. He also had lots of nieces and nephews whom he loved dearly. One of his favorite activities was staying up all night with the kids, his own and his nieces and nephews, to play Risk or Monopoly. Mom went to bed early and we and Dad ate peach ice cream and shouted "You can't beat me- Spectracide!" as we rolled the dice. Dad's favorite ice cream was chocolate but we always seemed to have peach ice cream on game nights. After the Navy, Dad got a job with Trans Texas Airways, also known as, "Tinker Toy Airways" and "Tree Top Airways". When he started in 1966, they were flying 20 year-old DC-3s and Convair 600s. Dad was so proud when they started getting brand new DC-9 "Pamper Jets". The name changed to Texas International Airlines and had the coolest airline paint job ever with one Lone Star set in blue on the tail and a red stripe down the fuselage. In the early '70s, Dad got tired of working on the old tube-type electronics TTA was still using. On his own, he studied all the books and manuals and took the exams to become a Certified Airframe and Power plant Mechanic. He did this job very well until he retired thirty years later. Dad loved to travel - especially to go camping in the western United States. We had a great time even though many of our camping trips resembled the Bataan Death March. Dad was always fascinated by aviation and aerospace. His big brother Noah had three small airplanes. Dad got his pilot's license and bought a Cessna. He always wanted to be an astronaut and followed the space program intensely. He went out and bought our first color TV to watch Neil Armstrong land on the moon. We were all disappointed that the only things that looked "in color" were the American flag and the gold foil on the lunar module. Ben was a very gifted mechanic; he had a natural genius for diagnosing what was wrong with cars, airplanes, electronics, houses... One of my favorite memories is when he asked me to help him rebuild the 283 V-8 in his '57 Chevy. We spent three weekends at the Texas International automotive shop painstakingly cleaning, polishing, painting, and reassembling the engine. I felt honored to be a part of it and I am still impressed by his focus and attention to detail. Ben was a very friendly and open person. He always pulled over to help people with car trouble. He never accepted money, saying "Just help the next person in need." He picked up hitchhikers and shared food at campgrounds. He had a big happy smile. Dad had a different sense of humor. Over and over, he would come home on a Friday afternoon and say "Let's go out to Denver!" "Get it, Denver, not dinner". Frequently, when we were buckled up and taxiing out to the runway for takeoff, Dad would start talking loudly about airplane crashes. Everyone around us would start to squirm. Ben finally retired from (then Continental, now United) Airlines in January 2003. They had to tell him to go home - he was 69. In April 2006, he moved to Denver, Colorado to be near his son Norman, (that's me), and two of his six grandchildren. He was very proud of all of his children and grandchildren: Ryan and Laura Neff, Madison and Jonathan Forsander, and Noah and Natasha Neff. In December 2008, he had an 11 hour bypass surgery to repair a ruptured aorta. The surgery was successful but he never regained his equilibrium and was thus wheelchair bound. On Wednesday, September 26, 2012 Ben Neff died in his sleep. He was happy and at peace.
God bless you Dad.
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