Showing posts with label In Memorium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In Memorium. Show all posts

Thursday, September 28, 2023

The Mews Picture List And Memories

I keep a list of pictures to use (and "usually" cross them off so I on't use them again soon).  My 1st column lists the cats involved. Sometimes, it is "all".  Sometimes it is just a few specific ones.  

Today I realized I was still writing L-L-M (Lori, Laz, Marley) as if Ayla was still here.  I changed L-L-M to "all".  Habits are hard to break sometimes and painful.  

Ayla is in a plastic bag in the basement freezer.  I need to build a new box for her.  I delayed because I could find a resin cat-figurine to match Skeeter, LC, and Iza's.  I had to choose a wood one.  I'll soak it in marine varnish, I suppose, to make it last outdoors.  

I was ready to make a new box for her burial site, but it was raining.  I need to remove weeds from the site and my little electric tiller doesn't deal with wet soil well.  And I need to move stuff around in the basement to build a new box.

So it will be a few days before she gets buried around the Memorial Pond with Skeeter/LC/Iza.  Well, at least this time, the soil won't be frozen.   Iza is between them now, but I can't find the picture...

Found it..

I need to take a box inside to copy it.  It will be a sad construction to build, but a good remembrance for all my remaining years.  Maybe I should make 4 and set the others aside so I don't have to do it again.  It hurts to make these Memorial Boxes...  Or maybe not.  Maybe that's the point of making them each time.  Each one is a specific object of love and missing one.

*sigh*

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Iza Burial

Part of the reason for this blog is to opine on various subjects and part is to just document my life.  And some of that involves sad events.  That can sometimes be disturbing to my readers and friends.

This is Iza's burial event.  So be aware there are some pictures that can upset gentle souls...

I mentioned previously having to wait to dig the hole due to a knee problem that flares up now and then.  And after that, I had difficulty with the hard clay soil under the 6 inches of topsoil that has built up in the flowerbed over the years.  Filling the shallow hole with water each of several days helped, and I finally got through the clay to sandy loam beneath, and the full 2' deep was easier.

First, I placed a blue towel on the bottom.  She always looked good on blue.
Then I placed Iza's body on the towel.
She loved to rip the skin off her rattley mousies (I sure bought a LOT of them during her life)  and I scattered most of them around her.  I saved a few as remembrances for me.  I also added 1 brand new one.
I will leave out filling the hole...

I placed her marker over the spot.
Iza has now joined the original Mews, Skeeter and LC.
And 2 pictures of her memorial marker, in place...

With the shrub behind them cut down, I plan to place a large sheet of heavy-duty corrugated cardboard under the markers and covering the area where the shrub was to prevent weeds and shrub roots sending up new shoots.

By the time the cardboard decays in 2 or 3 years, the area will be weed-free and I will plant some nice non-spreading weed-smothering perennial flowers behind the markers and place a narrow strip of plywood under the markers to keep the markers weed-free.


Wednesday, November 14, 2018

In Memorium

Stanley Martin Lieber (aka Stan Lee) died November 12th at age 95...

I just read the sad news.

I was 11 in 1961.  In the newstand, a tiny little corner on the block of the main street of the town I had been moved to as my Dad followed promotions as a civilian working for the Army, I used to scrape together a quarter to buy used Ace Double books.  One day the owner said "Hey I got some comic books, you can get TWO for a quarter.  Not funny comics like Bugs Bunny.  "Adventure Comics".  I looked at one.

It was the original Fantastic Four.  #1.  It was new and crisp in my hand.  No one else wanted it.  I held $300,000 in my hand not knowing it.  To me, it was 12 cents, half my weekly allowance.

I was hooked.  A whole bunch of regular people, adults even, not like Superman who bored me being invulnerable.  They argued, they had problems, they sometimes didn't want to have POWERS... 

Two for a quarter!  That was a whole hamburger and fries then.  And I was a very hungry 11 year old.  I bought it.  And I bought the next one, and the next.  I was in a whole new real actual world where there were people I admired.  Not Supermen, just people struggling. 

I kept all those comics for years and added more.  And there were more.  Spiderman became my idol as I grew up.  He had problems just like I did.  High school, bullies, understanding girls. 

And one day, I noticed letters in the back of the comics and the same guy whose name was on the front talked to us who read them.  I was one of the "true believers" he spoke to.  His name was Stan "The Man" Lee and he had some friends who helped draw the books.

I wrote to him, but never got a letter published.  That didn't matter.  I knew he read them, and that was enough.  I followed FF and Spidey and Thor (back when Thor was Don Blake and smacked his cane on a wall in a cave).  What matterred was that they were PEOPLE who had powers, not powerful beings with a secret identity.  Like me, you know...  Spidey was really Peter Parker (high school nerd), not Peter Parker hidden alias of Spidey. 

The Thing was just a guy changed, not The Thing hiding as Ben Grimm.  Etc.  Other characters were included, all with some problems in their lives.  By the time I went to college, I had a steamer trunk full of the "comics" master-minded by Stan Lee.  And drawn by geniuses like Kirby and Romita. 

I had no space at my college dorm for the steamer trunk, and other expenses to fill my days.  When I got my first apartment, Mom told me I needed to take the steamer trunk of "junk" or she would throw it out.  No, she didn't throw them away, I took it.

At 25, I still loved re-reading them.  But I was also utterly poor and was eating hamburger-helper diluted with more hamburger-helper.  I went to sell them. 

None were in great condition.  The comic book store guy didn't even want them.  He showed me a dozen FF #1s in good condition (which mine weren't), selling for $1 each.  But another guy was trying to open his own store and offerred me a nickle per issue regardless of condition.  500 comics times 5 cents was $25.  It paid my rent for the month and some food.  I never asked Dad for money after college.

Worst deal I ever made in a way, but rent is rent and food is food.  I sure wish I had them back, though.

Stan Lee, et al, brightened my life before high school and after.  His and other Marvel characters gave me the thought that a little luck and a lot of struggle could make you a good person, and that was worth trying for.  One could do worse for heroes...  And I knew who started them, Stan Lee.

And after decades, the movies started.  Pretty good ones.  I even loved the FF movies most people panned.  Didn't matter, they were my heroes.  Most movies ruin origins, and I hate that.  But it didn't matter.  I loved them all.  They were both memories and dreams. 

In my life with "comics", there was Marvel and there was DC.  DC was for high school grads and drop-outs; Marvel was for college level.  Superman fought idiots,  The FF fought Dr Doom.  DC characters had teen sidekicks; Spidey fought The Sandman.  And was who he was because he let the person who killed his Uncle go loose and struggled with that all the time after.  Not to mention Gwen Stacey.  DC characters always started each day without much of a history, like a sitcom.  Marvel characters carried their history with them every day. 

They were damn near "real".  Or at least human.

I loved the way Stan Lee showed up in all the movies.  No one important, just a cameo as some passer-by in life.  I'll miss that.

It's getting hard to type...

“Excelsior” and "Nuff Said", and Thank You Mr. Stanley Martin Lieber.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Farewell John McCain

John McCain was not of my political party.  John McCain was not of my politics. 

But he was a unique person on the political landscape.  I admired him even when I disagreed with him (which was often).  But it wasn't "always" either.  And that "always" is the thing we have lost these days.  The ability to sometimes agree with people you normally disagree with is essential to democracy...

A Soviet Chess Grandmaster (I forgot who) once said "I sometimes forget my opponents have good ideas too".  That applies to politics too.  John McCain sometimes had "good ideas too".  He was a very good Senator, who spoke honestly and directly.  That is a quality we will all miss.

We will never know whether he would have been a good President.  He might have been a great one or a terrible one.   History suggests mavericks can go either way.  I've tried to think of when he would have been a better President than the person who won.  It's difficult.  He probably would have been the right person to campaign against Gore in 2000.  I would have been twisted in knots about that choice, and either would have been better than Bush.

In 2008, I was torn between McCain and Obama, but decided that Obama was likely better at organizing the office and managing the affairs of government.  It wasn't easy.  My heart was for McCain, my mind was for Obama.

The deciding factor was that McCain would bring the Republican party into power and I thought the Democrats would do better overall.  But it was very close.  Both men seemed honest, honorable, and thoughtful.  And Palin mattered.  It signaled to me he was a good Senator who maybe didn't have a great talent for choosing qualified people to work around him.  There is something to be said for getting good subordinate executive managers.   Just look at Trump for examples of that.

If it was "just the President", I would have gone with McCain, hoped that Obama would run again in 2016 with more Senate experience, and won then. 

But that is all water over the dam now.  We have lost a person who was so very honorable, brave, and willing to think for himself.  Yes, "honorable, brave, and willing to think" does not necessarily mean a great executive,  but it is probably better than the opposite.  We could sure use more people like him than fewer.

Farewell John McCain...


Sunday, June 15, 2014

Father's Day 2014

I'm not sure what to say, because I just wrote a memorium for him a few days ago.  Yet, that was mostly about his life, not so much about our Father/Son relationship.  I'll think about that...

Dad was absent in most family photos.  I don't mean the formal family pictures where some else took the picture, but the everyday ones.  That's because Dad was taking all the pictures.  He just doesn't show up in the pictures of us kids much; they were of "Mom and Kids". 

But I have memories. 

1.  Every Summer we spent a week with each set of Grandparents (who lived in New England).  The trip was easy when we still lived in Massachussetts, but became longer as promotions brought us to Maryland and Virginia.  And there were few highways back then.  So we got in the habit of stopping at the same motel overnight on the way.  It was kept clean and there was a swimming pool.  Well, I hate cold water and one day I was standing at the edge reluctant to jump in.  Dad walked behind me and gave me the slightest shove that sent me in! 

Later, while Dad was watching my young sister, I walked behind him.  And with the confidence that comes of "growing up" (I may have been 11/12).  He fell in.  Frantically waving the towel he was holding.  It was the last dry towel we had.  Well, not after he fell in!

2.  At about the same age, Dad taught me golf.  I'm sure he mostly wanted me to learn the game that both he and Mom loved, but he also wanted a caddy.  I of course wasn't good enough at the game to actually play with his group (Dad was a scratch golfer in those days), but I could pull his cart.  Well, I wasn't much of a prankster, but I had my moments (and still do - and learned it from Dad - see #1 above). 

I had found a fake golf ball (made of chalk but with a plastic coating and label that made it LOOK real) at a store.  I kept it with me each week and waited, and waited and waited.  FINALLY, he had a bad drive and had to hit a provisional ball (used in case the first ball could not be found).

Dad asked me to toss him a ball from his bag.  He set it on his tee, swung, and the ball turned into a cloud of dust!!!  He stood there in complete shocked silence for about 10 full seconds before I, then a playing partner, then the other 2 collapsed in fits of laughter.  And Dad STILL looked around confused for a moment before he realized what I had done.  THE BEST TRICK I EVER PULLED ON ANYONE MY ENTIRE LIFE! 

But you know what?  He never ever mentioned it in my presence. 

3.  Dad HAD a sense of humor.  He had one of the first battery powered electric shavers.  I didn't know about that of course, Dad shaved in private and my parent's bedroom suite was as foreign to us kids as the Taj Mahal.  So when he was one on the adults chaperoning us Boy Scouts on Operation Icicle 1966 (Operation Icicle is when we camped out on the coldest weekend of the year, usually in snow, and it got down to -5F that year.

So the first morning, Dad got up and stuck the plug of his electric razor into tree bark and proceeded to shave!!!  We were all stunned.  To our astonished questions, Dad just replied "Its all about understanding how to use electricity".  Which was true, of course, but none of us kids knew about rechargeable batteries in 1966.

4.  This memory involves both my Dad AND his brother.  We visited New England one year and my uncle brought us to a lake he knew well.  Uncle Allan was a professional fishing guide, so anyplace he brought us was sure to be successful.  Basically, we trolled around the perimeter of the lake with trout flies on weighted lines (technical details on request, but its too long for here).

Well every time we passed a particular spot, I caught a fish.  And the 2 "better" fishermen didn't.  After it was 3-0-0, Dad asked to use my rod, same setup.  No luck.  So Uncle Allan tried it too.  No luck.  When I had the rod back, I caught another at the same spot.  It is a mystery to this day.  I think I just had the "right touch" of twitching the fly that one day. 

5.  This one is a bit indirect, so bear with me.  I have been tearing up my 25 year old raised framed garden beds and the stuff I set between them to avoid muddy paths for 2 months.  Today I started hauling out the cut up chunks of old carpet, synthetic burlap and black plastic sheeting, and dumping them in my hauling trailer.

The brother of a neighbor came by and mentioned he had landscaping work skills and wondered if I needed paid help cheap as a cash side job.  I was tempted.  I feel worn out by this garden renovation project.  At 64, I can't do wht I did here at 36.  I could hire people to do this while I watched.  But doing it myself is a point of pride.  I got that from my paternal Grampa and my Dad.  They both taught me that you do any work you can until you are exhausted then you rest a while and go back at it.

So the neighbor guy's offer of below-standard-pay help was very tempting, but I declined.  It won't mean anything if I don't do it myself. 

Dad did heavy work when he was older than I am now.  I honor his work ethic by continuing to do as much as I can for as long as I can.  Like Father Like Son...

As many differences as we had, we had that in common.  There are many things I have learned to do in my life that Dad had no part of.  But there are many more things I have learned that Dad taught my very deliberately. 

For those things Dad taught me, I thank him.  For those things I learned on my own, I thank him for that too, because he taught me to learn new things.

6.  I will no longer be making birthday and Father's Day cards for Dad.  I will no longer be arguing with him in my mind (tell me you never "argued" with a parent in your mind). 

But on this Father's Day, for the first time, I do not have a living father (and Mom died in 2010).  And it is feeling strange...  Not mournful, Dad was 92, and died of general old age.  Its a sense of absence of elders I suppose.  I'm now the eldest of my immediate family, and that feels VERY odd.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Remembering Dad


I just received The Call from my sister yesterday.  Dad is dead; my sister was pretty upset, but she’s been keeping the vigil there.  I've been expecting this call for months, but it doesn't make the reality any different.  For whatever it means, I am suddenly the oldest person in my immediate family. 

How to you interpret news like that?  It's not like I'm the patrirach or anything.  Sister is the executrix of dad's estate but mostly because she was nearest to him in his last year at the assisted living home, and she has some experience at this stuff.  According to family traditions, there will be a cremation.  I suppose as eldest, I might get his ashes.  Well, I have Mom's, they might as well be together.  Each of us kids have our own lives.  I mourn of course, but it wasn't unexpected.  I even expected it earlier.  Dad was physically incapable, in diapers, and demented.  I think he no longer knew who he was.  I consider his dying a relief from the struggle to continue living.  He didn’t want to keep surviving, himself.  It was kidney failure at the end.  He was 92.

But beyond that, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, if anything. We don't have a family tradition of funerals.  Dad will be cremated, and since I have Mom's ashes, I will probably receive Dad's.

I wrote the obituary.  Its hard to pack a life into a short space.  So that’s why I’m writing now.  He deserves more than an inch on newspaper column space…

Where to start?  Well, when I was a child, Dad was the most perfect person (next to Mom, of course).  He was the fixer of things, the person who built things, the person who just taught me how to DO stuff.  He knew EVERYTHING, until I was about 16.

Fast-forward some years...  Dad wasn't the genius when I was 30 that I thought he was when I was 10.  Well, who is?  I had my own thoughts at 30, and they weren't Dad's.  Some guys have the same political views as their Dad.  I didn't.  Mom and Dad were at my house when Barrack Obama was elected in 2006.  I cheered while Dad declared Obama "the most dangerous man on Earth".

I won't discuss our different political views other than to say Dad said "sink or swim" (and he meant it) and I said "I won't watch someone drown".

For all my adult life, I have had imaginary arguments with Dad in the privacy of my own home.  I always won those arguments of course.  But there will be no more even imaginary arguments now.  He's gone.  It is hard to imagine that.

He had great strengths and talents.  I feel stupid trying to even list them, and I can't do him proper justice.  He was an engineer and could build about damn near anything he wanted to build.  My early life was enriched by things Dad built.  30 years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the house we lived in in the 1950s.  The stone wall he built was still standing solid and proud (and I’m sure that, at 8 years old “I helped”).  There was no one home, and I decided not to trespass.  I wish someone had been there to talk to.  But I did look at the yard through Google Earth and some of the 1950’s work is still there.  My friends joke about me that I "over-enginneer" everything I build.  Well, I have a tradition to maintain.

Dad built ships during WWII and started college when he was 20 and met Mom at the Univ of NH when she was a freshman (freshwoman?).  She said she didn't date men who didn't play golf.  So he learned to play golf.  And with his usual determination, he was a 0 handicap golfer in a few years.  Damn he could hit a golf ball perfectly.  It would start off low and then rise as it went straight down the fairway as if drawn on the golf map with a ruler. 

He succeeded in almost everything he turned his attention to but he failed at some.  He was a terrible gardener , for example – Never paid much attention to the soil because there was FERTILIZER!  I learned my organic habits from Grampa.  Dad was bad at most cards, too.  You could practically see his tail wag when he had a good poker hand.  His Mom was a demon card-player; Dad didn't get those genes (so neither did I).  But he was a killer at any game that involved logic.  You could not beat him at Clue, for example.  He had a SYSTEM for showing cards (took me a year ta figure it out).  And we both got so competitive at stadium checkers together that we could call every marble drop for a full 360 degree ring rotation. Ruthless at cribbage, but I finally got about even with him by the time I left for college.  

Logic isn't strategy though.  Mom taught me chess and when she couldn't beat me at it anymore at age 10, she turned me over to Dad, who, when he couldn't beat me by age 12, decided it was a stupid game and never played me at it again.  Yeah, some Father/Son dynamics there.  Dad never had any sense of board strategy.  Hey, he was a engineer.  He wanted RULES to figure out, and strategy isn't about "rules".

But I owe him so much.  I know guys who can't drill a hole in a board because their dads didn't know how or never showed them.  But I do.  Yet he was better at it at 30 than I am now at 64.  Engineers study “perfection”.  I was a Political Science major and “What Works” was good enough. 

He hated the way I played golf.  He was methodical and I "went for it".  Golf course cards show straight lines to where par shots should go.  He lived by those lines.  I didn’t.  Sometimes MY ball went into the deep woods, but sometimes I could slice a 5 iron 200 yards and it landed on the sweet spot of the green while he did his usual methodical single-digit handicap round.   Drove him crazy...  But in 1988, I had the hot round of my life in the rain, and we won his Club's Member/Guest tournament.  Proud moment for us both.  Literally, “different strokes for different folks”, LOL!  Also the last time we ever played golf together.  He couldn't stop trying to "improve" my game (make it like his) and I was done letting him try.

I'll never be an engineer like Dad.  But he taught me enough that there is darn near nothing I'm afraid to try.  There's a fence surrounding the whole back yard, a 2 layer deck, and a toolshed (among other stuff) to prove that.  And he taught me a basic rule.  "If you need a hole in the ground, you dig one".  Which means, do what needs to be done, and sometimes plain hard work is important and pays off.

He taught me how to hunt.  I don't anymore for personal reasons, but I know how to.  Because of Dad, I can follow a trail of faint drips of blood every few yards through the woods.  If things went bad, I would not starve.  But there is more to the hunting story.  When I was 15, Dad decided that shooting deer with guns was “just too easy”.  So we (Dad, Me, and Matt) took up using bows.  I wasn’t really good with a bow (can’t recall about about Matt and I apologize for that). 

They say you practice something 10,000 times and you get good at it.  Dad did, I didn’t.  Hey, I was having more fun playing football with friends.  But he had an advantage.  In 1966, he was 44; I was 16.  He used a 60 LB bow with a 30” draw.  I could only use a 45 LB draw bow at 26”.  At 16, I was smaller and weaker than he was.  He was 5’10” and 170 pounds, I was 5’4” and 125.  Stronger bow and longer draw makes the arrow trajectory flatter and faster (meaning way easier to aim).  He could hit a 10” paper plate 80% of the time and didn’t miss the other 20% by much.  I was lucky to get 30%.  But I was game and decent in the woods (Matt was better in nature).  But it was also because he just practiced more.

Dad could always get a deer the first time we went out.  But I did have a talent and there were raised stands at some places we hunted.  I could stand silently for hours.  I did well on those.  One spot where I stood in the rain all morning, a single deer came by right under the stand.  I almost (REALLY) jumped on it from above holding a arrow to spear it.  I still regret I didn’t.  It would have been a family story for 2 generations.  But I shot straight down and it drove the deer to the ground.

And it got up and ran away and we never found it.  I was shocked, and so was Dad.  And while searching for it, I lifted a leg over a fallen tree and stabbed my self deeply on my very sharp 3 bladed hunting arrow head.  End of hunting for that year.

The next year, I was hunting with a friend of Dad’s, had a long shot at a doe, hit her right in the heart and she dropped like a rock.

But this is not about me.  I’m telling you that so I can tell you this about Dad.  When Dad decided we should start bow hunting, he went all the way.  Well, almost, we didn’t make our own bows.  But we made our bowstrings and arrows.  And Dad designed and built stuff to do that from scratch.  He made an adjustable bowstring maker with knobs to twist the bowstrings in 2 directions, a metal spool holder to twist heavy thread around the bowstring at the nocking point, a cutter template for making leather bowstring silencers, a gadget to attach feathers in a very slightly curved arc around the arrow, and even a heated metal wire to burn off excess feathers down to an aerodynamically perfect shape.  I came up with the idea of heating arrow nocks in hot water then squeezing them on a popsicle stick so that they barely held on to the bowstring but released easily. 

Yeah, there’s a “like father like son” thing going on too.  But the point is, he created ideas in his mind and then just casually went and BUILT them. I have to work HARD to do that, and I don't do it as well.

I recall Mom saying a few times that Dad endeared himself to her parents.  He would visit for a date and would spend an hour just “fixing things around the house “.  Bad light switch, radio antenna, leaky basement pipe, etc.  Drove her crazy at first, and apparently they arrived at movies and dances late sometimes.  And while impressing “the parents” is not the usual way to win a woman’s love, it WAS “some guy who was not her Dad or my brothers”, and seems to have worked.

And there was some religion involved.  Mom’s family was ferociously French Catholic.  As she used to say she was taught “If you were BAD, you went to Hell.  If you were worse, you became a Protestant"  But she didn’t like that idea very much and Dad was a Protestant (of no particular group – I think his Mom was a Quaker).

So in spite of the fact that her parents liked Dad a Whole Lot, they threw her out of the church for marrying a Protestant.  And amazingly, they were happy all their lives in spite of that.  And I mean, as close as I can tell as a child living at home, and as an adult afterwards, they were happier together than any 2 people I have ever met.  Things worked out VERY well...

One thing I can say for sure; I wouldn't be the person I am today without both of them...

So ends the story of Burdell Dodd Spencer and Doris Ursula Beaulieu, loving husband and wife for 61 years, both now gone from this world forever.  Unusual and special people both.  Their descendents remain to have our own stories, but we will never be them.
 

Monday, June 2, 2014

Dad

Well, Dad died this morning.  Technically, it was kidney failure, but at age 92, there wasn't much that WAS working.  He was basically comatose for the past week, but before that he had expressed a desire that all the difficulties "would just end"...

I wrote an obituary a couple days ago, but those are so incomplete.  I will summarize his life a bit more tomorrow.  We kids are sad that both Mom and Dad are gone now, but neither death was a surprise and my family has never been big on serious mourning.  Tomorrow, we will get on with the rest of OUR lives.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Cousin Bobby

My cousin Bobby, about the same age as me, drowned at about age 12.  I cant remember the exact time anymore.  I remember Mom sitting on the edge of the bed trying to explain what happened,  He had cramps swimming in a quarry hole with other kids and drowned.

We visited my Grandparents, where he lived, the next summer.  I still expected to see him again.  Stupid, of course, but I did.  And he wasn't there.   He had polio at a younger age.  He pulled himself around by his arms and he was real strong.  He recovered, and could run around as well as I could.  But one day, suddenly, he was gone.

While we were visiting, I saw a telescope Bobby enjoyed using.   I asked for it.  The adults didn't understand.  I didn't want the telescope for itself, I wanted it because it was something he had handled and enjoyed.  I wanted it BECAUSE he had used it.  That made a connection to me for my lost cousin.

The adults just thought I wanted the  telescope for itself...  As if I just wanted a gift.  They never understood.  And I was too young to explain it right...

I wanted a remembrance, something Bobby had touched and used.  I wasn't given it.  Instead, I got a new telescope as a Christmas present that year.  None of the adults understood what I meant by my request.  They thought I wanted a "thing". 

All I wanted was something to remind me of Bobby.  And no matter how I tried to explain, I never got anything he used. 

I am that way still about lost loved ones.  Just any little thing is fine...  Something tangible to remember them by is all I ask.  I've been luckier lately.  I have Grampa's carved whale, Dad's wooden-built tool chest (he's still alive), Mom's corn-on-the-cob plates and the imitation Tiffany Lamp she loved...

These things are treasures to me...


Sunday, November 27, 2011

A Childhood Friend

I got to thinking about Ronnie tonight.  He was a childhood friend who had muscular dystrophy.  When I first met him at 9 years, he was fine.  Then we kids noticed that he was walking around on his toes.

Then he started to fall over.  That is a scary thing for kids.  You know, when things don't work right...

I don't remember perfectly now, but I think he was a couple years older than me.  His problems grew until he couldn't leave the house anymore.  I used to visit him and we would play Monopoly.  He enjoyed that.  He had a bed with a lifting device eventually.  It allowed his mother to change his sheets and clothes.

I don't understand the details of MS, but there came a day when he didn't understand Monopoly anymore.  So I moved the pieces around the board  and made up stories about his piece having fun on the board .  Toward the end, he couldn't even move the hotels, so I did it for him.  He was pretty much "out of it" by that point.

Then we moved away.  I wrote him some letters at 14 years old.  One day I got a letter back.  His Mom said he had died.  That was a terrible shock.  My cousin Bobby had drowned 2 years before, now Ronnie was dead.  I didn't understand death then very well. Kids were protected from that stuff when I was young. 

No purpose to this, just a remembrance from many years ago...  I think it was about this time of year.

Remembering you, Ronnie Richards...




Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I Miss JFK

I remember where I was when I heard he died.  In a classroom, staring at the public announcement speaker at the top of the wall behind the teacher.  7th grade Social Studies class, I think, but that wasn't important.  The PA Speaker was light brown wood, about a 12" cube, dark brown cloth covering the grill.  The announcement from the Principal, that President Kennedy had been killed in Dallas Texas and that school would be closing for the day.  That students who took buses were to go to the assigned pickup points and wait with teachers.  That students who walked or rode bikes and had a parent at home (pretty routine in those days) should go directly home.  That those who did not should go directly to the cafeteria to wait for a parent to pick them up.  And then just stunned silence. 

I sometimes wonder what he would have been like in a 2nd term, then retired to "senior statesman" status for another 30 years.  Would the Vietnam War have developed as it did?  Would he have influenced the Civil Rights years?  Would he have become a great person in his elder years?  We'll never know, of course.

I wonder what he would think about our current political situation.  Could he have imagined that both parties would cease having conservative, moderate, and liberal factions?  Yes, there used to be Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans...

There used to be only 3 TV networks, too.  NBC, CBS, and ABC.  All that was on TV for several days was news about his death, the aftermath (Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald), and the funeral.

I miss him.  A glowing candle, snuffed too soon, dimming the room for us all...


Monday, November 7, 2011

Michael Jackson

I'm tired of hearing about Michael Jackson, his strange life, his spiral into near-lunacy, the charges of child molestation, his death, and FINALLY the last gasp of the trial of his doctor.  I'm glad it's over.

I am not big into "celebrity".

But I recognize talent.  Michael Jackson was probably the most multi-talented entertainer I have ever seen.  He could dance better than Fred Astaire and Elvis Presley combined, he could sing with a breathless passion, and he produced songs (so far as I know) of an originality slightly beyond the Beatles or Bob Dylan.  The Moonwalk, Billy Jean, and Thriller amaze me to this day almost 30 years later.  But that WAS almost 30 years ago.

I regret the curse of great riches that happens to some people.  As it did Michael Jackson.  Some people can handle money, some can't.  Jackson couldn't.  I wish he could have stayed "merely wealthy".  At some level of income that would have have made his life great but not overpowering.

I couldn't like him in his last 20 years.  He just became too weird.  He "lost touch".  We will probably never really know what drove him down his own personal rabbit hole, and I regret it happened, as I would regret it happened to the poor and average among us.  But it happened. 

I an reminded of a question in a Philosophy class.  "Your very good tennis partner is accused and acquitted of child porn.  What do you do?"

My answer was "play tennis, but not allow him to babysit the kids".  I gave reasons, of course; it was an essay question. But that was the the core of the answer.

In the same way, I admire Billy Jean and Thriller, etc, but I am vaguely glad that he is gone...  And with the trial of his "doctor" over and done, I hope to never hear his name again on TV.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mothers Day

I feel a bit odd today.  This is the first year I don't send a Mothers Day card...

She died last Fall of "natural causes" at age 83.  Her death was not unexpected.  I've already not sent one birthday card.  But somehow Mothers Day seems more specific.  It shouldn't.  She had her own birthday, and every mother shares Mothers Day.  Maybe that's the problem.  So many children got to send a Mothers Day card this year and, for the first time, I didn't.

I don't feel forlorn or lost or abandoned or anything.  I'm too old and sensible for that.  I miss her, of course, but it's that I had been making or sending cards to her for, oh, 55 years and it feels odd to stop.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom...

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Because of the comforting and healing ceremony in Tucson yesterday, I have decided to just "let it be".  I can't think of anything I can add to that.

Many speakers said wonderful things, and they did it better than I can.  President Obama's speech was particularly good.  So I don't think I will be posting on the subject as I thought I would.  If disturbing information arises in the future on this tragedy, I may.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Reflections on 2010

2010 was not a good year.  It was a hard year for many people, but I'm not talking about that.

And, since I am alive, healthy, and my 2 current cats are young and happy, I'm not talking about that either.  I'm looking at the "related" losses.

My dear cat, LC, went over The Bridge in January.  While she wasn't "the cat of my life", she was a good cat.  Friendly, neat, undemanding, and companionable.  Mostly, she was Skeeter's friend.  And since Skeeter was "the cat of my life" until Dec 2008, her companionship to him made HIS days wonderful and I thank her for that.  After Skeeter left us, she was a good friend to me.  Both of them lived past 16 years old and are missed.  Burying her in the frozen January garden was very hard, physically and emotionally.  And when she went, that was the last contact with Skeeter.

The garden was a disaster last year.  The Spring was cold and rainy, the Summer hot and dry.  The small crops never grew, the cukes and pole beans just sat there at a few inches, and the heirloom tomatoes died in July.  I got only a dozen tomatoes and I LOVE tomatoes.

My youngest sister died in August.  She had some brain blood vessel problem that took her life short.  She was a dear friend, a fellow organic gardener (much better than me), a wonderful mother to 3 kids, and I miss her very much.  She was 16 years younger than me and I was her adored older brother.  I wish it had been me instead.  I'm just a single old guy and my loss would mean little.  She had a family who needed her..

I lost my Mom in September.  She was old and had Parkinson's and other problems.  But she was the person who taught me to read and write, and to love Broadway musicals and classical music when I was older.  She taught me to cook. She did so much else, but you get the idea.

A tale of a vegetable peeler...  When I set up my first apartment around age 20, Mom gave me a few items.  One was a cheap vegetable peeler.  It was old when she gave it to me 40 years ago.  Over the years, it has been honed to perfection.  It takes the thinnest peels off carrots and tosses them off.  A new one I bought does not.  Every time I use that old peeler, I think of Mom.  And I have a few other kitchen tools like that.  Goodbye Mom, I love you.  And I will remember you every day by the things I have from you.  Things that you used and touched...


So I sadly say farewell to those I have lost this year and hope that 2011 is kinder to those I know.  And if this happens to be my year to go, I want everyone to know ahead of that time that I enjoyed our time together.  I loved it all.  No one knows when the last day comes, so I want to make sure to thank everyone "in case".

Well, let's see what 2011 has to offer.  I hope it is kinder...

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Day

November 22.  It is a day I remember every year though I do not always speak about it.  I am sorry the post was late.  I had a hard tine writing this in time.  It was Nov 22nd when I started.

There are many days I remember.  Black Friday starting the Great Depression, December 7, 1941, starting WWII for the US.  But I wasn't alive then.  They affected my parents greatly, but they are history.  And  I will always remember 9/11, because it was a terrible event in our time.

But the date I most remember, because I was 13 at the time, is 11/22.  I do not have some exact memories of it, I WAS only 13.  But I recall so very clearly, the voice coming out of the announcement box at the top of the front classroom wall.  We were back in class from lunch and recess.  It was about 2 pm.  The voices didn't come out of the announcement box after the morning announcements unless there was a fire drill or atom bomb drill.

I do not remember the exact words I heard.  Something like "The President has been killed.  School is closed and you are all to go home immediately".  Going home by ourselves was not that big a deal back then.  We did it every day after school.  We mostly spent our days outside anyway without supervision.  We got on our bicycles or walked and went home.

My Mom was there as most Moms were at the time.  She was crying.

The only thing on the only 3 TV channels for days was coverage of the Kennedy assassination and burial.  I saw Oswald shot live.  It was all horrible.

But what I will never forget is staring at the announcement box, hearing "The President has been killed".  That is seared into my memory.  That beige pine wood box, with the top extending further than the bottom, the slight pattern of some wood mesh in front of the cloth speaker cover.  I just see that box in my mind sometimes.

I can't picture the wood mesh front.  That bothers me sometimes.  I can picture the rest of the box so perfectly.  Its a flaw in my recollection where everything else seems so clear.  The box where such a horrible announcement came out is uncertain in that one way.

I was totally immersed in a nationwide grieving after that.  But that part is all history and knowable to all.

On this day, I remember that awful announcement box.  That is what I see every year on this day.  That is the memory that will never go away.  That is my personal recollection of a terrible event.


Gravesite Inscription:
Let the word go forth
From this time and place
To friend and foe alike
That the torch has been passed
To a new generation of Americans.
Let every nation know
Whether it wishes us well or ill
That we shall pay any price - bear any burden
Meet any hardship - support any friend
Oppose any foe to assure the survival
And the success of liberty
Now the trumpet summons us again
Not as a call to bear arms
- though embattled we are 
But a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle 
A struggle against the common enemies of man Tyranny - Poverty - Disease - and War itself
In the long history of the world
Only a few generations have been granted
The role of defending freedom
In the hour of maximum danger
I do not shrink from this responsibility
I welcome it
The Energy - the Faith - the Devotion
Which we bring to this endeavor
Will light our country
And all who serve it
And the glow from that fire
Can truly light the world
And so my fellow Americans
Ask not what your country can do for you
Ask what you can do for your country
My fellow citizens of the world - ask not
What America can do for you - but what together
We can do for the freedom of man
With a good conscience our only sure reward
With history the final judge of our deeds
Let us go forth to lead the land we love - asking His blessing
And his help - but knowing that here on earth
God's work must truly be our own.
Inaugural Address - January 20, 1961

Looking Up

 While I was outside with The Mews, I laid back and looked up.  I thought the tree branches and the clouds were kind of nice. Nothing import...