Some of My Favorite Memories of Grandpa

Last Saturday, my grandpa had a stroke. He has been in and out of the hospital a couple of times this year with heart trouble, which has been strange because he's hardly been sick a day in his 91 years on the earth. In fact, he is so fit that he has gone to the gym almost everyday of his life, even this last year.

Right now, he is in the intensive care unit at a hospital in San Diego. The doctors are saying that he won't be coming home. Today, my mom and dad drove back to see him (they were there just two weeks ago for Thanksgiving) to say their goodbyes. Just the thought of that trip made me so sad thinking about it last night. I don't relish the day that I go to say goodbye to my parents. [The thought of having a memorial service without Suzanne also makes me very sad tonight.]

My grandpa is a World War II vet. (On Sunday, they said on the news that 1000 WWII vets die everyday. I thought of him right away. This was before I even knew about his stroke. It was a strange way to foreshadow the events of this week.) He was on the USS Nautilus during the Battle of Midway. He was a radioman, listening to the sonar when the battle began. In 2007, the Navy brought him to Washington, DC, to honor his service. He said that he was just doing his job.

Later in life, he honed his art skills. He took as many classes in art that he could find in San Diego. For many years, he and his wife, Sandy, would spend about half of every year travelling in Europe and Asia and Africa. He would bring his camera and take the most amazing pictures of people and the sights.

He would come home and create artwork of the things he had photographed. Every spot of practically every wall of his house was filled with his creations, all of them unique...quite the collection after years and years of painting. [We also always loved about his house the feature that the radio was tied into the light switch in the bathroom. Turn on the light and you get your music ... gotta have your tunes. :) ]

He was a great example of learning. He always loved to learn. He spent years of his life taking classes at the community college. He even took Calculus because he had always wanted to know how to do it (even though it took him a couple of tries). And, he loved crossword puzzles. I have many recollections of him working on the New York Times puzzle with his felt-tip pen and trusty crossword dictionary book.

If you were really lucky, every once in a while you would receive a type-written letter detailing some aspect of his family history or a trip he'd been on or a note of congratulations. I believe every Republican in the White House received some of those letters, too. The first George Bush even wrote him back. My grandpa framed the response and hung it on his wall next to all of his art.

There were always a couple of constants with Grandpa:

1. He loved to tell the stories of his life. He had had some interesting voyages with all of his travels. (I especially liked the one about bumping into Ernest Hemingway.) He loved to entertain a group of people with his adventures.


2. He always had a black cat named Inky. I don't know how many hundreds of cats he's had in the role of Inky, but the number has got to be up there.


3. That blue shirt ... no matter the year, he always looked the same ... jet-black hair and that blue shirt. Hah!

The world is going to be a darker place without you in it. We'll miss you, Grandpa. Here is a video with all of us singing happy birthday for his 90th. He gives his own wish for all of us. I'm the voice behind the camera.




--Leslie