its so quiet here right now…

730am In connersville, indiana. Everyone Is still asleep. Its so quiet, and,since I went ahead and turned the actual heat on, its not half bad up here In the guestroom.

I am visiting Mamie, first time since Poppa died a little more than a month ago… My brother has been out here from san Diego for a mnth. Somehow, he’s been able to change around some of his work obligations, and he’s been here accomplishing a tremendous amount. He’s done yard work, cut up what appears to be more than a cord of wood, done repairs and probably most importantly, he has cleaned this house so that you can breathe! The kitchen doesn’t make me run screaming! Its unbelievable! I am very proud of all he has done and accomplished. I haven’t spent face time with my bro since at least last thanksgiving so this Is nice for Is too. Although my bro picked up this weird affectation of calling everyone hon OR honey – well all females I mean – of any age OR relation to him which drives me batty. But I digress…. Sadly we are both going home monday. Pete needs the break. Mamie Is doing ok, but she and Poppa both were already past the point of living safely and cleanly totally on their own, so though she wants to be out here, I suspect its going to be fraught with emotional outbursts and guilt trips from Mamie towards everyone about why any particular person isn’t out staying with her at any given moment to keep her company….

Side note: what happened yesterday was thus – In my state of perpetual disorganization and lack of sleep, coupled with my current state of straddling 2 diametrically opposed computer operating systems, the number of made/cancelled and re-jiggered plane reservations since September, I managed to take an Eticket reservation print out to the USair counter and look up the flight was on LAST YEAR. Yes indeed, I had printed something up, and there was an old emai stored somehwere In my hotmail folder from 2008 for the same weekend AND the print out was floating around In a pile on my desktop that I was reorganizing.

It was the perfect storm of disorganization.

It was only when the flight record locator couldn’t find me and was staring at the printour thinking ‘gee, if today (friday) is the 21st, I wrote the wrong date on EVERYTHING at work yesterday,,,,’ then my eyes focused on the year 2008. Egad! For a moment I wasn’t even sure I had made a reservation for this trip! Turns out my original flight had been at nearly 6, obviouslyi missed it, but there was actually another flight at 930 that was available and being that I was within a 2 hour window of missing the original flight, NO CHARGE.

May I just state here: #GODFORBID

i’m going back to indiana!

That Is if I don’t try and use the flight info I brought with me this morning. From T N. #godforbid

for my birthday

but it was a lovely drive…… so instead we did some investigating next door….

things my poppa taught me

• never EVER ask an engineer to “explain” something to you. later in life i would start to find it amusing, but early on – not so much. poppa was smart. knew about EVERYTHING. no matter what you asked him about, the explanation would involve some kind of schematic drawing. something with angles and dimensions and a long explanation though i pretty much expected a yes or no answer.
• gifts – no matter what size – are fun! poppa was an excellent gift giver. he always brought me a surprise on the weekends in the summertime when my brother and i were out visiting family. most often, he brought me those play and read records? the story albums with the picture book that you turn when you hear a “beep” or some such sound to have you turn the page. i LOVED them. it was always something small, but just a little treat that was fun and let you know he was thinking of you.
• “don’t look at it” – OK, obviously this needs context and i cannot guarantee he actually said this phrase, but he was at some point a stock broker. the only piece of his money advice in regards to stocks, investing and the like involved putting money in the market and not checking it every day. he was not an advocate for the day traders out there. he knew the market went up and down and it was a long term thing. i try and remind myself of this when i receive my quarterly statements in the mail.
• a hat on a man of a certain age is really requisite to style.
• wonderful mysteries surround us! poppa was nothing if not the master story teller and cultivator of imagination. driving to and from indianapolis in the summers, a town on the route is called “mauzy”. mauzy mauzy “>indiana, with a sign pointing the way. years of stories we had about mauzy – what was in mauzy? who lived there? how do you pronounce it? as i got older, i am grateful to have noticed some of the same word games and fun being played with my cousin’s children. additionally, all poppa needed was his old john deere and a wagon full of kids – if you don’t believe in a forest full of lions and tigers and bears OH MY!!!! out behind the barn, you never went on a safari with my poppa…
• a man in a suit with salt and pepper hair is all kinds of handsome -
• wonderful, perfect people are not perfect. or always wonderful. i know nothing, NADA, zip, zero, nothing about my poppa ever doing something bad to someone or being a bad person. however, i can remember having a discussion about something random, something involving yard maintenance i think, and out popped a racial slur, the “N” word actually, from my poppas mouth. i was stunned. shocked. speechless actually. poppa never ever swore, always seemed to be the level headed man i knew him to be. this word out of his mouth, it was kind of shattering actually. he explained his choice of verbiage as a sort of “that’s what we called it” type of way, and i had never before or since heard him talk that way. i don’t know that it means he didn’t talk that way, or didn’t in certain company. but it did teach me something. people are not perfect, and although you cannot condone or perpetuate certain behaviors, even our heroes are sometimes imperfect. as am i.

songs poppa taught me

the words i knew where a little different, but you get the idea….

then there was:

i went to the animal fair

the birds and the beasts were there

and the babboon, by the light of the moon

was coming his auburn hair.

the monkey he got drunk

and sat on the elephants trunk

the elephant sneezed

fell to his knees

and that was the end of the monk the monk the monk the monk

and that was the end of the monk

or “a peanut sat on a RR track, his heart was all aflutter… along came a train, going to beat the band TOOT TOOT! peanut butter!”

there’s a hole in the bottom of the sea (plug it up)…..

poppa had the greatest voice….

1917-2009

I will remember you always