I've been to Kentucky twice in the last few months, bracing for this. When I was home the last time I thought things were headed into steep decline and was amazed when they discharged him. His return to the hospital was for bed sores and things had been looking up before this afternoon.

The last few months have really been hard for a lot of reasons. Louise, my dad's mom, has been having some problems with her memory and it's been rough. With my mom's dad it was his physical health, not his mental facilities. (Although anyone who ever had to sit through one of his conversations about why we should all avoid fluoride might argue differently.) Today wasn't really a surprise so much as an expected event that I just didn't expect today.

My grandfather was a father to me growing up. When my parents split when I was young it was my mom's parents raised me. (They were over a decade younger than my dad's parents at the time of the divorce.) There are a ton of memories that have come back to me over the last few hours and it's hard to not let my mind race through them.

I'll be driving tomorrow, a long trip that I'll try to knock out in a day. Ironically my one good suit is back from the cleaners and, for once, a supply of dry cleaning isn't a problem. No arrangments yet but that will sort itself out tomorrow.

After speaking to my grandmother I got a hold of my mother to let her know. The usual strain of our conversations was even worse with the news. I said I was sorry to be the bearer of the news and tried to keep the call short. This weekend is going to be filed with enough angst that, hopefully, the regular frictions will be kept to a minimum. Who knows. I might end up taking more of my flight medicine than if I tried to fly around the world a few times.

I've got a nice picture that I have been meaning to post for months of us. Here it is:

That's yours truly being instructed on how to use the new radio that Granddaddy got for Christmas in 1969. (I would have been about a year and a half old.) The glasses and tie are a great touch. If you look closely you can see he's moving my hand to try to prevent my breaking something before he's even had a chance to work with it. He used to record me with the cassette recorder that was in that radio. (Including my awful 1st night as a radio announcer.)

He was, it's safe to say, a nerd. (I now own his slide rule that I will give to Jack one day.) A chemical engineer by trade his passion really lay in trying to help people. (Even those who didn't want it.) For as weird as he could be, and he could be truly weird, his heart was always decent. My great aunt Shirley's oldest son was having a hard time making ends meet his last year in college and my grandfather never hesitated to give him the money he needed to finish his degree at a time when money wasn't plentiful in our house. He was as decent a person as you could ever hope to meet.

I just have to quit writing for a while tonight. Part of me is holding back tears and the other part of me wants to just keep pouring out stories about him. (He never swore in front of me until I was 12 and even then he had to force it.) Despite everything, knowing it had to happen eventually, I just miss him. I miss him because, while he isn't my father, he was my father for so long. He bought my tricycle, he let me stay up late to watch "Kelly's Heroes" the first time, he took me see some weird movie in 1977 because it had Alec Guiness and if he was in it then it probably wasn't half bad despite the weird name of "Star Wars" and hundreds of other things.

I miss him. I miss him and wish Jack had gotten a chance to know him better. The last time he saw Jack he said that Jack was afraid of him and seemed disappointed. That's all he said afterwards, "Jack's afraid of me" or similar. Everything I would say counter to that was in one ear and out the other. Now it's too late to argue with him anymore and there is nothing I can say.

Jack came up to me and asked me if I was sad tonight and I told him that I was. I explained that daddy's last grandpa had died and when I was finished I just sort of stopped. After a few seconds Jack said "It will be ok daddy."

I know it will but it just hurts like Hell right now.

First United Methodist Church
Attn: Jeanne Howell
1811 Carter Ave
Ashland, KY 41101

in the name of Steve Ogden (please forgive me if I spelled his name incorrectly)

Jim also wanted me to let you know that visitation with the family will be held this Saturday (July 28th) at the Miller funeral home in Ashland. The funeral will be at noon on the same day.

If you get a chance to ask Jim about his grandfather, do so ... I never met him, but have heard a few great stories from Jim about him. OK, back you your normal blogging poster.

Two days of long driving alone in the car. (I'm going to be here for the next 10 days so it just made more sense to drive than fly and rent a car.) All in all things are about what I expected.

My grandmother is holding up ok. She's tired and could really use some peace and quiet but she's not had any for about the last 6 months so why should the last few days be any different. We sat down last night and talked about things a bit. She needs to start talking to her family lawyer to get things rolling, go to the bank to the safe deposit box, etc. Lots of procedurial things.

At one point last night the facade cracked and she started to break down. How do you spend 63 years, 1 month and 17 days next to someone and then have them leave your life? Hard to contemplate.

My phone has been ringing on a pretty steady basis with people's kind thoughts and wishes and that is greatly appreciated. Also many thanks to the Astronomer for his post yesterday. (My grandmother is swamped in food and flowers and I told her to give me an alternative for people to exercise.)

I slept last night at the hotel for a while which was the most sleep I've gotten in the last few days. (No one tried to rob me checking in this time.) My mind is racing with thoughts of my grandfather and everywhere I go this morning I keep thinking about him.

I'm at the local library typing this and had the most pleasant surprise: I ran into Selma! Yes indeed the Kentucky Philosopher's wife works here! We're going to spend time this week together so this means I get more of his stories to share. (His instant messenger motto is currently "Mess with one bean you get the whole burrito!")

My Mother arrives tonight. She leaves tomorrow night. 'Nuff said.

I've been playing the CD "Sam's Town" by the Killers since I got here last night in the car and it might end up being the soundtrack for this visit.

Surprise #1: Burial instead of cremation which makes no difference in the long run.

Surprise #2: Cost was less than I thought but still in the range of the above mentioned combined automobile purchase price.

Surprise #3: Tim Horton's, at least the Ashland ones, are the slowest Tim Horton's ever. (Ok. Not really a surprise.)

Surprise #4: The hotel bar is closed until further notice. *sigh*

Surprise #5: I'm not as sad as I thought I would be but it's going to hit me at some point.

Surprise #6: After spending decades of having his Sister in law, Beulah, living behind him he's going to spend the rest of eternity with Beulah eventually next to him in the mausoleum. *chuckle*

Saw my high school classmate last night at the next door neighbor's last night. (Her name is Noel. Want to guess what day she was born on?) She and their family were very kind. We agreed that next year brings the Birthday That Shall Not Be Mentioned and that is the way it should be.

The funeral home is the same one that friends of mine wound up at after the 20th reunion last year. (The daughter of the owner was in my class.) When the party was winding down they were being kicked out of the venue and, at one of the staff's urgings, took the remaining contents of the open bar back to the funeral home and sat around in one of the parlor's having a bit of a kitchen party.

The library has changed so much since I was a kid. The computer I am typing this on is a direct result of the Gates Foundation's inititive to empower libraries around the country. It's part of a bank of 12 with high speed access and everything you need to, in theory, find a job. Currently, in my field of vision, someone is looking up a trip to Disneyland and a young gentleman with a number of interesting tattoos is checking out some of his friends on Myspace. Alas, dear reader, the myspace patron's baseball cap is indeed sideways. *sigh*

Death is inevitable. I know that. You can't think that it won't come for you. I've been bracing for this for months but nothing can prepare you for the words when you hear them. What eases the pain, somewhat, is that he died smiling holding his wife's hand and that it was peaceful and easy.

Amen.

I was pleasantly surprised by how many people came out on Saturday. (About half were my grandparents age and the other half split between my mother and aunts ages and closer to mine.) I had no shortage of "Look how tall and handsome you've become" compliments which proves that using the belt sander to get the ugly off earlier that morning was the right thing to do.

The minister's words were well received and everyone I spoke too thought he did a great job. I had wanted to speak but it didn't work out for time. By the time things were over Saturday I just wanted to sit somewhere under a tree with a beer.

Jack wanted to see my grandfather on Saturday and I lifted him up in my arms next to the casket. He asked if "grandpa" was sleeping and I said that he was. He asked if he was going to wake up and I explained that he wasn't. Finally he asked me if I was sad and I said "yes". Jack then leaned in to me and put his head on my shoulder and said, for the second time in the last few days, "It's ok Daddy."

And then it got just a little bit better.

Yes, he's still working in the county Jail.

Yes, he's got more stories.

Yes, he looks even more like Sam Elliot.

What I posted earlier is true: his sister in law will be parked one spot down and one to the left of him for all eternity. I told my grandmother today, when we were both laughing about their final resting places, we should see her buried with her favorite waterpot so she can still come over for tea.

My grandmother's name is on the marble, waiting for her time to come. It's a bit weird to see that and was more than a bit unsettling.

I took my grandmother to the lawyer yesterday. My aunt went along to make sure she's in the loop. The lawer is very nice and talked about probate vs. non-probate. Pretty typical stuff. We've already got clear cut "living will" papers and powers of attorney in case she's incapacitated so that's not a concern.

Lot of mortality talk today as we sat and chatted. Her own mother was 90 when she passed away so that's in the back of her mind. She misses my grandfather so dearly. They fussed and fought the way old people do but it was clear that the exercises of aggravation only came after their deep love for one another had given them so much. She's numb in so many ways but so sad in others.

That said anyone that thinks they can get anything over on her at this point in the game is fooling themselves. I pray I'm half as witty as she is when I reach her age.

Jack and I had gone to the Racetrack’s house for dinner. They have been on a nice vacation to Hawaii, so we were catching up on all the activity and the kids were playing. About 6:20, Mr. Racetrack's mother called from Fargo wanting to know if they were OK and that the ‘35W bridge fell down.’ We kind of were laughing, thinking this was insane and she was exaggerating, but turned on the TV anyway. What we saw was shocking. Our nice dinner ended with the three of us sitting slack jawed in front of the TV with the map from the phone book trying to orient ourselves to the helicopter video.

I took this bridge pretty frequently over the past three years. 35W is the easiest route from my office to downtown Minneapolis and to the Univ of MN where I did my MBA. The kind of strange thing is that the bridge is so high above the river, you don’t really feel like you are on a bridge, plus there is usually lots of traffic, so you don’t have time to look around a lot. Probably the hardest thing to get from all the video and pictures is the actual size of the structure. It is a wide, long bridge. I haven’t made it to the site, but next week I have a lunch meeting in the general area at the U so I will probably get to look at it then.

We don’t know anyone directly affected. Several of my coworkers had crossed the bridge an hour or so before on their way home. They are pretty shaken up over this. The mood here is very eerie. Since not all the victims are identified yet, many people have this feeling that they ‘are going to know someone.’ It seems to be hanging over everyone’s head. The traffic seems OK now, but I think a lot of people stayed home from work on Thurs and Friday. Monday will be the real test of the system. We are in for a long, long process of rebuilding. All of this is on top of at least four other major construction projects going on in the Metro.

Which brings me to the one closest to the house. When we moved here, a major bridge replacement project had just gotten underway – ‘Wakota Bridge Project.’ The Wakota bridge was an ancient steel four lane bridge across a wide part of the river. The replacement plan was for two new spans with six lanes each direction, started in 2002 to be completed in 2007. The project started at like $250mm and 5 years. I often wondered driving over the old bridge during the construction of the first span – ‘how does this thing handle all the huge trucks on the 494 bypass and something like 160,000 cars per day.’ Very often the traffic was bumper to bumper like on 35W. The first span was near completion and inspectors found cracks in it before a single car drove on it, so they had to go back and reinforce it before it opened because It was designed incorrectly. That delayed the opening 1 year and created such construction differences, that the company hired to complete the project backed out. Now the state is rebidding the project, adding another year to the process. (The new cost estimate is something like $400mm.) This week’s tragedy really made me think about how close the old Wakota bridge was to failure and ‘how structurally deficient was it??’

Well, I just wanted you to know that we are OK. It is really strange to see your city on wall to wall media coverage. The last time this happened was in Seattle during the WTO riots. Somehow we find ourselves in interesting situations.

FB

I tried to tell a friend of mine that it's like losing one of your parents but it doesn't really seem to be the right phrase. A lot of the emotions are colliding off of each other in some sick parody of the old Atari game "Asteroids". (A game Granddaddy bought me the day it came out for my 2600. He was so proud of having found it and getting it for me.) I know I am grieving but it's hard.

In some ways I can feel myself closing up. My usual "talk to strangers / run for office" sort of personality lends itself to covering up my emotions pretty well but now I'm not even trying. The local McDonalds staff were actually concerned enough to ask me what my name was so they could ask if I was ok. When they go from calling you "Large Coke, Sausage Biscuit guy" to "Jim" thats probably a warning sign.

It's worse since I got back. Nothing seems normal anymore. I just keep looking around at stuff I've lugged around the world for 25+ years and all I can think is that I don't want Jack to have to sort through it. (Or God forbid my grandson or granddaughter.) I'm tempted to try selling it but then part of me just wants to throw it away.

Bleah.

If you've not seen this yet then you probably want to give this a read and then start passing this around to your friends:

The Duct Tape Bandit.

Yes, it's my home town.

But wait...

He's also staying at the same facility the Kentucky Philosopher works at. I called him this morning to ask if he knew the suspect:

"Oh yeah. He's a frequent flyer."

More to come as soon as I can catch my breath. My sides hurt.

(I wonder if his homestead is going to show up on the Ashland Walking Tour?)

I've been putting off writing here for a number of reasons: A desire to see less visitors whose nature is less than savory. (Although I've taken all the reasonable precautions you can with the interwebs.) Time to sort things out in my head about my grandfather's death and what that means to me.

So why start again?

Jack's story isn't over and if I don't do it no one will.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I broke my leg!"

*pause*

*Jack giggles*

It's not like I didn't see this coming.

To quote Scrooge, Ebenezer not McDuck, "Humbug."

Most of the time with birthdays I try to keep my head down and plow right through to just get it over with. (A strategy that I also employ with Christmas for similar reasons.) Alas, this one is a bit more monumental.

Bleah.

My 30th was marked by dinner and drinks at "The Outback" in Whitemarsh, Maryland. The earlier part of the evening was fine but as drinks were offered up with no right of refusal things became a bit blurry. I do remember my co-worker Lance attempting to poison me with a mudslide followed by a shot of Sambuca which I managed to dodge but a nearby potted plant didn't.

40 however is something different. For some it's a halfway point. For others it's two thirds. For some it's at a point you never thought you would reach. Our society has, at least for men, marked it as a time to examine your selfworth and your accomplishments.

Swell.

I've been doing a lot of reading about what some people have done with their 40th birthdays. In one of those strange pieces of irony that proves, once again, that God has an inifinite sense of humor, I actually recovered a file from an old hard drive a couple of weeks ago that had some notes on what I wanted for my 40th birthday. Most of it reads like what I currently hope my wake will be like. (With a few changes here and there.) Despite this the question remains of what to do.

I'm going to try to figure that out over the next couple of weeks. We'll see how it goes.

Jim

I can't imagine having Jack do this to me but despite the sheer terror of the moment my poor grandmother actually tried to pull it off. She made a cake and then explained what happened to each little girl's mom as they pulled up. A few stayed for a while but most left without getting out of the car.

Both sides of the equation, grandson and grandmother, were pretty scarred by this. We didn't have any sort of party for my birthday that I can remember for at least 3 more years.

I got in bucketloads of trouble after the "party" was over. I remember tears and a spanking but mostly it was the heaping amounts of guilt my grandmother smothered me in that left me dreading birthday parties to this day. Even now the thought of them gives me hives.

If there's one thing being older gives you it's perspective. Typing that last paragraph is like opening a window in the spring and letting fresh air into a musty house. It's a bit carthartic.

Jack had seen two movies before today. Both were kids movies and both were well received. He was well behaved and sat reasonably still through both. He didn't spill his drink or popcorn and was as good as could be.

For the last couple of months Jack's interest in Iron Man has been building as the press machine has been grinding it's gears. He thought the trailer was cool. I got him some of the little Marvel characters to play with including Iron Man. All in all he seemed on board to see the movie.

Big mistake.

The big difference is sound. Lots of it. The noise level had Jack pretty spooked. I'm betting he doesn't sleep well tonight. If he doesn't it's all my fault.

All child enducing terror aside the movie was fantastic and big credits go to Robert Downey Jr. for taking on the role. Hopefully when the DVD comes out I can catch the final scene that I had to miss.

I've spent the last couple of months moving things around and going through them. (Which despite my efforts seems to have hardly made a dent.) In the process I've uncovered some items here and there that actually mean something to me but that I think I want some other people to have.

A few are books. I weeded out a gigantic haul of books to the local library and my half price bookstore a while ago but there are some choice volumes that I need to find some homes for. A couple are valuable but most aren't. A few I'm boxing for Jack for when he gets older but I'm trying to cull the herd to a far more manageable size.

Odd knicknacks make up a significant chunk. They're things that meant something to me but if I were to keel over tomorrow would doubtless be thrown in a dustbin. I always marvel at little things at estate sales that have no value but were obviously kept for years by someone who had a memory attached to them. Before mine get pawed over by bargain hunters someday I want to actually have a hand in their placement to better homes.

My movie collection is pointlessly large. Most of what I own is shown with depressing regularity on cable TV. Numerous viewings have only strengthened the arguement that most anything shot in color isn't worth the time you would invest in it. I'm making up a list of movies and matching it with some people so if a small parcel of movies shows up you'll have to guess the theme because I'm not telling.

My CD collection, vast and epic, is boxed up and sulks in the corner like a dozy fat relative that demands attention but whom you know is nothing but far more work than will ever pay off. I'm going to rip it all once more onto a hard drive and then ship most of it off a la the movies. You may, if you receive any, feel free to use them as coasters.

There's more but you get the drift. Be on the lookout.