Honoring Clyde R. Hill: A Legacy of Wisdom

On Thursday, October 17, 2024, my father, Clyde R. Hill, departed from this Earth. He was a man who viewed the world as a teaching tool and himself as a teacher. His wisdom and kindness were felt by all who met him.

As a child, age 7 or so, he would point at a tree and say, “Son, what do you see?” Being the candy-loving, short-attention-span individual I was, I saw little more than a towering piece of foliage. But as the years progressed, it didn’t stop with flora. He would ask similar questions about random people on the street. “What does it say about a person when they wear yellow or green?” Never really giving me a straight answer to the questions he posed, my father would simply ask them. As a self-proclaimed intelligent youngster, I came to the undeniable conclusion that my father was bat-$#|+ crazy. That is, until I entered my late twenties. Decades later, far from home, I was still looking at trees, at clouds, and at people. Then it suddenly clicked in my head what he was doing all these years. He was getting me to observe the world. Observation of the planet is the greatest teacher on Earth. It has literally taught humanity everything we know, and this method was also the hobby of the greatest minds in history, like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein. Through his complex and subtle methods, he gave me the tools necessary to see the world with new eyes.

Our conversations became an absolute joy from then on, and I would often seek his counsel or pick his brain about life, family, and quantum mechanics.

In the 1980s, Clyde Hill started his own business as a wood refinisher, and by the early 2000s, he was one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s best.

My father’s legacy is not found in riches or monuments but in wisdom, knowledge, and determination. It was an honor to call him my dad, and I will miss, more than anything else, our pleasant conversations.

-Love you, Dad.