Stan was a man I truly loved who helped teach me how to live life to the fullest; to seize the moment and live without regrets; and to find meaning, friendship, and adventure in moments that would otherwise pass by if I lived on autopilot.
One of Stan’s favorite quotes was from the writer Hunter Thompson and it says a lot about Stan-
"Life should not be a journey to the
grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty well-preserved body,
but rather to skid in broadside in a
cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up,
totally worn out, and proclaiming
“Wow! What a ride!'."
I first met Stan in 1991 in St. Louis at a Saturday morning sports fellowship gathering which our minister had just started and participated in at our church. We were warming up for a basketball game and he made a backward trick shot from behind the foul line. My first impression of Stan was someone who made me laugh, someone with open, exuberant energy. He was a chemistry major with a marketing MBA, working in commercial intelligence. I soon got to know him better and learned we had both grown up in Indiana and shared many common experiences and interests, including graduating from Indiana University, serving in Vietnam, working for Monsanto Company, faith in God, a love of the outdoors, and discussing philosophical questions we never answered.
The church sports fellowship gatherings continued until I left St. Louis in 1996. Stan and I felt those gatherings were the most connected Christian times either of us ever experienced. Our group of 10-12 guys, all about the same age and demographics, became friends, competed in volleyball and basketball, studied the Bible, shared testimonies, and reached out to each other when one of us faced a life challenge. A highlight was when one of our group started a Crispy Crème Donut store and began bringing hot donuts to share after the sports. Not good nutrition but a great draw for attendance. His efforts to change to bagels were unanimously vetoed.
Stan and I did a 3-day float trip in southeastern Missouri in the spring of 1992 or 1993 by ourselves. We brought our Bibles and our lingering questions about life’s meaning. The locals didn’t seem to have those questions. I recall dinner in a one-bar town where we ordered steak and a single malt scotch drink and then at the bar table and through the cigarette smoke ate and studied our Bibles. I reviewed with Stan conflicting Biblical passages on free will and predestination and the enduring mystery of this and other paradoxes. He said it was an aha moment that challenged him and inspired him to question his Biblical knowledge.
Stan was a marketing guy and naturally started socializing. He called me over to the pool table to introduce me to a tough-as-nails Illinois highway policewoman who was recovering from a line-of-duty gunshot wound. The next morning, windows open, CD blaring, we listened to a new age piano hit song on the way to the canoe put-in point. We pulled up next to an old pickup truck and a tough-as-nails young lady got out, got under the heavy canoe on top of the truck, pulled it off the truck, and carried it to the river. We said hi and she pointed to the guy collecting fishing gear from the truck and she said in a southern Missouri accent “He’s my husband. We just got married and are on our honeymoon.”
The next year we, as Stan said, “bit the bullet for crazy shit” and went on a 3-day, class V whitewater-rated float trip down the cold, death-defying Idaho Lochsa (Indian meaning crazy) River. Here is a photo of Stan and me in our protective gear just before our float trip.
Stan and me- Lochsa River 1993)
On day 2 we had 6 “swimmers” from our rubber raft after the raft tipped over sending us through the Grim Reaper Rapid where a kayaker had been killed the week before. Stan finished the day with a Cuban cigar- kind of like a Milwaukee Best beer commercial that “It doesn’t get much better than this.”
I had audited several courses on ethics and apologetics at the Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis and continued to discuss those topics in depth with Stan. We both wanted to learn more about Christianity. Our minister at church happened to mention a Christian weekend retreat he was associated with called Cursillo. It’s a 3-day weekend of jokes, music, food, prayer, and a little theology to help participants develop a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. I attended and recommended it to Stan and he not only went but, as was his nature to throw himself wholeheartedly into his interests, volunteered for retreats. He later applied to study at Covenant Seminary, and studied at our church to become a Stevens ministry member, ultimately becoming a hospice caregiver. His later volunteer work as an MBA student mentor inspired me to do the same.
Perhaps the most profound impact Stan had on my life was the day after I learned I had been downsized at Monsanto in 1995 and given 6 months’ notice to find another job. He met with me the next day and reinforced advice to never fall in love with your company and always be looking for your next job. I had been with Monsanto for 25 years and was ignorant about selling myself. He read my resume and said it would not attract interest and he helped me rewrite it to sell myself. He stressed that outplacement was a full-time job so I stopped going to the company office and instead spent each day at the outplacement office creating, with Stan’s help, multiple resumes, cover letters, networks, and interviews. His analogy was that I was now a fisherman patiently casting my resume, adjusting to the feedback by changing my sales pitch to interest employers. Bottom line he taught me how to sell myself by communicating the quantifiable value I could add. Over the next 2 years I had, thanks to Stan, legal positions at four different companies and never missed a day of work.
Even after years apart Stan and I picked up with each other where we left off. We could talk anytime on the phone about deep philosophical matters. We understood each other- no judgment, just seeking, always open to fresh ideas. He was special in my life and his memory will always be in my heart. One regret with Stan is that I didn’t follow up on his email reply to a social justice sermon I sent him about a month before he died. He said we needed some quiet personal time of discourse and maybe a bottle of scotch on both ends of the conversation. He concluded by saying-
" Too bad we’re so far apart. One of
the elements of life I miss most in
Williamsburg is the lack of any
contemporaries to routinely sit
down with and discuss life issues."
I plan to celebrate Stan’s life on October 10th at 5 pm by raising a glass of scotch. May you Rest In Peace, my good buddy.
(Stan Sutliff- 1947-2020)
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