My gramp and my son
My gramp passed away on Friday night. I sure loved him. And he sure was proud of me - he told me so pretty much every time I talked to him. One of my fondest memories of him was when I was about 8 years old and he took me out for a run in his truck. He drove an 18 wheeler for Dean Foods and I was thrilled that I was old enough to go out on the road with him for an out-and-back in one evening. We stopped at the greasy truck stops. He tried to explain how the air splitter gears worked. We talked on the CB radio. I got back and barfed all over the place (and all over him). Dunno if it was the burgers and fries or the diesel fumes or what. I wanted to be a truck or bus driver well into my college career. Sure will miss him. Got to have a brief Skype video chat with him just a couple weeks ago. He wasn’t well, but it still was great to see him.
venessa
| 16-Jan-07 at 9:05 am | Permalink
I am so sorry for you loss Jason. It’s wonderful that you have such fond memories to remember him.
Heather
| 16-Jan-07 at 11:59 am | Permalink
Oh man. I wish I could have gone for a ride in the rig. Did Jordan go for a ride?
I remember the 3 of us going up to the Lake during the summer and hanging out. I think we were very fortunate. There are a lot of folks out there who didn’t get to spend time with their grandparents. (I also remember Gram combing Grandpa’s hair in the bathroom every morning.) I guess it kind of seems weird that he is no longer with us - just like it seems weird that Anna is no longer with us.
I was basically hoping that I would get married one day and my spouse would know Gram and Gramp….
Jen
| 16-Jan-07 at 6:57 pm | Permalink
Oh Jason, I’m sorry about your grandfather.
James Welborn
| 17-Jan-07 at 2:50 pm | Permalink
Sorry to hear that. Did the kids get to know him much? A great-grandparent is a pretty amazing thing. It’s good you at least have some pictures to share with the kids later so you can tell stories.
jase
| 17-Jan-07 at 10:29 pm | Permalink
James - thanks for checking in! Alyssa and Ian met him several times. Emma only once over Skype just this past holiday. He was already pretty gone, mentally, by then. Being 2 timezones away, we didn’t see them as often as I’d have liked (and not nearly as much as I did as a kid), but we did see them about once a year for the last several years. Great grandparents are indeed super. I remember my great gram. She literally died at a party with a drink in her hand, having a good time in her mid-90s.
jase
| 19-Jan-07 at 2:52 pm | Permalink
Jen & Venessa - Thank you both.
Heather - I don’t know if Jordo ever went in the Dean’s-mobile. I’ll have to ask him. I would have loved to have had gramp meet whomever you got together with. Who knows what the future will bring for you. I’m still very hopeful for you.
Frank's best Friend
| 29-Jun-07 at 4:52 pm | Permalink
My best friend in high school was Francis McSorley. We clicked because our many of our interests were in common. Apparently there are many others by the same name. He died of pancreatic cancer around 1999 (I would have to go back and look up the exact year). He moved from Kearny, NJ to Dallas, TX about 10 years ago? I am writing this in June 2007.
Frank's best Friend
| 12-Aug-07 at 4:58 pm | Permalink
Frank was a fanatic about rocketry. Unfortunately, he was not, and did not seek, education in that field. However, he was experienced in the practical applications of experimenting in that field, and in 1962 (about) his home-built rocket outperformed his friend’s, who was a student at Newark College of Engineering, and who collaborated with Eugene Mihilaik, also of that institution, in a double launch which culminated many years of activity leading up to that point.
Frank's best Friend
| 12-Aug-07 at 5:09 pm | Permalink
The main problem was that Frank used our (Frank and Ed’s) standard method of gluing fins to the rocket, fins made of cardboard, whereas Ed and Wugene started to use a new (”more sophisticated” technique of learning from radio-controlled model aircraft builders of model aircraft of using balsa wood instead. The balsa wood fins sheared along the grain and the rocket went out of control. We should have followed existing recommendations that the grain follow the direction of the fin. If so, we would have been successfut (maybe… because we never tried that approach.) But we should have known that a fin that could shear or break along it’s grain’axis would have and would.
12 August 2007 edmund.kijak@us.army.mil.
Frank's best Friend
| 12-Aug-07 at 5:22 pm | Permalink
Poor Frank - Although he died in Dallas, Texas, his body lies interred in a cemetary in North Arlington, New Jersey. His life has motivated this remembrance of his goals, what he thoght was important, what he would want to be remembered for. His grave overlooks the New Jersey meadows across which are visible the New York (actually Manhatten) Skyline. As one of his best friends, I think it would be befitting that he lie in repose in view of the same skyline that he launched his solid-propellant rockets, and in view of the same skyline that he hiked and loved during his early high-school years when he was most incited by the current press.