Father's life teaches son to live fully.

Byline: Bob Welch The Register-Guard

When Joe Tanovan was young, he and his father, Songseumsack, would stand in their hip-waders in the surf, near Astoria, and fish for perch.

It was not the easiest way to fish - heavy poles, heavy weights and an occasional rogue wave that would send them backpedaling to shore. But Song Tanovan would remind his son that life wasn't always easy.

It certainly had not been for him. He and his wife, Porntip, had escaped the communist reign in Laos in 1980. After waiting for a U.S. sponsor while in a refugee camp in Thailand, the two arrived in America with the equivalent of $15 and no jobs.

While Porntip raised three children - Joe was born 1982 - Song got a job as a janitor at Portland Community College. He enrolled in a PCC auto-mechanics course. And ultimately landed a job fixing cars.

In 1993, when Joe was in middle school, Song proudly opened his own shop: Song's Auto Service. They moved to a middle-class neighborhood in Hillsboro.

"My parents were strict," Joe, a University of Oregon senior, says. ` `Get good grades.' My older sister and brother followed that. But I was the kid who stayed out late, the problem child.'

He floated through classes with little passion to learn. He dreamed instead of fancy cars. Big houses. The easy life.

Our lives intersected last winter. Joe was a student in an 8:30 a.m. interview class I taught in the UO's School of Journalism & Communication. Great potential. Great sense of humor. And great ability to oversleep and miss class.

We had a talk one day about wasted potential. Some students roll their eyes when I give them the "W.P." talk. Instead, Joe started coming to class. On time. He raised his grade from a "D" to a "B."

Then, last spring, came the unimaginable: For a few weeks, his father had been acting strangely. Quit working. Drank heavily. And showed up at Portland International Airport seriously dehydrated but demanding to be allowed on a flight to see his brother in California.

The family tried to get him to see a doctor. He refused.

On May 16, Joe's older brother, Souriya, called. Song had locked himself in the house, alone. He was disoriented, complaining of pain in his arm. Souriya had called 911.

Joe headed for Portland. But just past Salem, his brother called again. "Joe, Dad's been shot. He's dead."

For whatever reason - Joe believes he may have been suffering from psychotic depression, in which a person can snap into a sudden state of paranoia - Song had turned a rifle on police who had arrived.

Ignoring repeated commands to drop his weapon and surrender, he fired multiple shots. He was killed by police, the shooting later ruled justified.

Last winter, I was proud of Joe Tanovan for digging deeper in my class. But I'm far prouder for how he's survived this rogue wave.

He volunteered to clean the house so his mother wouldn't have to mop up her husband's blood. He refused to lay blame. "I can't be angry at the police. My dad was shooting at them." He is returning to UO in two weeks to finish his final two terms.

"All I can do is live my life and try to be happy," he says. "My dad wouldn't want me to be depressed and slumping around. He worked his whole life to give opportunities that he never had. The only way I know how to pay him back is to live life to the fullest."

Not that his father's death hasn't been devastating. "But the irony is: I wouldn't have been able to deal with it without my father. He taught me to be independent. To survive."

He says he's learned how important people are. "Life is about relationships. I had so many friends, people from the community and teachers support me after my dad died. In the end, when I look back, I'm not going to be sad because I didn't buy this sports car or a mansion. I'm going to look back and be happy I had touched the lives of people and they had touched mine."

And what, as another school year begins, have I learned? That some of life's best teachers are students.