2.10.2009

Grandpa's Funeral

Isn't he handsome?
I've posted about my grandpa before. I love my grandpa. I grew up just a couple blocks from him and I have amazing memories of him in my childhood. Magic shows and Christmas morning menu breakfasts. He used to hide sugar-free candy around his house for us to find. Weekly Sunday dinner and accompanying card games (usually Pounce, which I usually lost). We sang a lot too. I remember him playing the organ. later, when he lived on his own, I remember lots of meals with microwaved pot pies and bland vegetables. Grandpa had a wry smile. He was old and a little goofy but he was sharp. Until I was maybe 8 he worked as an aerospace engineer at Boeing. I remember his retirement party. He had worked on a lot of prestigious projects.

About 4 years ago, grandpa moved to Courtyard at Jamestown, a senior living community here in Provo. Here he got a girlfriend (NancyLee) and fell into a lovely routine of participating in lots of activities. I visited him a lot in this time of his life and I feel like I really built a relationship with him. Whenever the ridiculousness of student life began to get to me grandpa's was always a fresh escape. By this time his memory had really begun to deteriorate. He spent a lot of time doing crossword puzzles to protect his memory (hundreds of his old crossword books and pens were used as center pieces at the service. See right).He had a stock of about twenty stories that he would rotate through. Some of them I can recite from memory, complete with his facial expressions and hand movement.

I really miss my grandpa. He was such a solid, strong, amazing man. I hope this isn't disrespectful but his funeral weekend was SO much fun. All of the extended family was there (except a few in-law wives and their children). I can't ever remember everyone being together. The men sang a BEAUTIFUL rendition of Brightly Beams our Father's Mercy and all the grandkids cried through Love is Spoken Here (at least me and Kelsie did). We laughed over silly grandpa stories and just had so much fun!

2.01.2009

Rene Descartes says Live Here and Now

"It is good to know something of the customs of various peopls, so as to judge our own more soundly and so as not to think that everything that is contrary to our ways is ridiculous and against reason, as those who have seen nothing have a habit of doing. But when one takes too much time traveling, one eventually becomes a stranger in one's own country; and when one is too curious about what commonly took place in past ages, one usually remains quite ignorant of what is taking place in one's own country. Moreover, fables make one imagine many events to be possible which are not so at all. And even the most accurate histories, if they neither alter nor exaggerate the significance o things in order to render the more worthy of being read, almost always at least omit the baser and less noteworthy details. Consequently, the rest do not appear as they really are, ad those who govern their won conduct by means of exampeld drawn from these texts are liable to fall into the extravagances of the knights of our ramoces and to conceive lans that are beyond their powers. "

Renee Descartes, Discourse on Method