The sun was shining bright on the late-autumn day in 1999 that I rode with family and friends from our hometown of Columbus to the beautiful church in Powell, Ohio, where the memorial for my father, Charles "Chick" O'Neill, was to be held. Out in the wooded Midwestetn countryside, the leaves had turned, and the fall colors were on display — reds, oranges, browns and yellows. A light wind ruffled the leaves still clinging to the trees and stirred up those on the ground.