My Fishing Buddy

January 24, 2006

Two weeks ago, I was in Virginia sitting at my brother Steve's computer composing an email I knew I would send sometime this year. The first one was sent to my boss. I thanked him for his kindness and understanding on letting me take two weeks off on such short notice. The second one took a lot longer. I was sending this one to K. I ended it with "The waiting is over. Come celebrate my Dad's life."

My father had died the night before. He was 81 years old.

I'm luckier than some people. I made it back in time to see him a few days before he died. It was only three days, but it meant so much.

Diane, my sister, had the unenviable task of making "the call" to me. I had just dropped my cell phone service and she didn't have my new home number, so she left a message at my work number. I listened to it early Friday morning when I got into work.

I caught the first flight out on Saturday morning. By that evening I was by my father's bed with my brother Steve, his wife, Joyce and Diane. Dad died two days later.

I've been mourning my father's demise for the past two years as Alzheimer's slowly took him away. I cried the most on Christmas morning sitting alone in my backyard watching the stars. Mom had called me a few days before saying Dad was in extremely poor health. He was being moved to a convalescent home after a few days in the hospital for pneumonia. I didn't need to read between the lines to understand what she meant.

I spent a coupla hours that morning railing against the gods.

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It was barely 4 AM and it didn't feel like Christmas. I sat in the comfortable Adirondack chair, carefully bundled against the cold desert air, watching the meteor shower and a few low earth orbit satellites whiz overhead. The stars were bright and the moon was hardly there, just a crescent slip descending into the southeastern sky. I couldn't appreciate the beauty and I didn't care. It was cold and my Dad was dying. *uck it all.

As the night drifted away to morning, nocturnal animals headed home. A large bat whispered over me. It tumbled to the east like a broken flip-flop thrown out a car window after a day at the beach. Sometime later, a barn owl, barely ten feet above me, its immense wings making no sound, headed east.
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(Within two weeks, Diane would make a phone call and I'd be heading east too.)

I didn't want to return to Arizona without my father with me, so I asked my brother, Steve, for some of Dad's ashes. On the day of internment, Steve placed two small urns on the kitchen table: one for me and one, as a surprise, for Mom. She put her urn on the shelf above the kitchen sink. It's next to the photo of Dad and Christina, his other lovely grand daughter.

I'll keep some of Dad's ashes at work and some in my truck. I'll disperse a little bit of him into the river when I go fishing on the Colorado this spring.

And I'll store some of Dad's ashes in my tackle box. He taught me that "a man you can go fishing with is a good man". He's also a good friend.

Amen, Brother.



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Sunday Morning Breakfast

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My alarm went off at 6:15 am. It was Sunday morning and I had to get ready for our Sunday morning breakfast at the Hangar Cafe. It's something K and I do every Sunday. It's our family time. However hectic the week was, Sunday morning breakfast is our time to share and catch up on our lives.

This Sunday morning was different. I didn't hear any activity from K's bathroom, so I opened her bedroom door. She was sleeping as only college students do. I didn't wake her. She needed sleep more than my scintillating, early morning humor.

Thirty minutes later, I was showered, shaved, lightly cologned and lookin' studly. Well, as studly as a middle-aged man can muster at 7 a.m. Yeah, I'm the Man.

I divvied up the Tribune and left the good parts on the kitchen counter along with a note for K. She'd still be asleep when I returned, but I left the note nonetheless.

I threw the weekend edition of the WSJ into the truck and selected an R & B compilation CD called "Funky Love". It's eleven dance songs, some slow, some funky, eliciting love and lust from my junior days. As I eased onto the street, Aretha Franklin eased into her spiritual testimonial about Dr. Feelgood.

I was driving past Arizona Avenue when Marvin Gaye started singing "Let's Get It On". Nothing like getting sanctified on a Sunday morning. Mercy, Mercy, me. Next came Aretha Franklin with "Rock Steady", a jump-up dance celebration that had me moving in ways that are illegal in some parts of Arizona.

She was still pumping when I parked the truck in the lot adjacent to the airfield. I walked through the security gate and saw four private planes parked on the apron outside the restaurant. They had flown in for a $100 breakfast.

To get to the cafe, I walked past the hangar of an acrobatic school. Two guys in slimline parachutes wet diaper-walked to a nearby acrobatic biplane. Both experienced pilots, the student was taking advanced acrobatic training to hone his abilities to get out of a "tight spot" - stalling, spinning, loss of an engine, frozen controls or a bad lunch. Within an hour, he'd be twisting the tiny biplane in the designated acrobatic air box five miles to the East.

Once inside the Cafe, I waved to the owner and waitresses. "Where's, K?", they asked. Lisa, our favorite waitress, made me promise I'd say hey to K when I got home.

The pilots, spouses and friends from the four planes were on the patio. They were a jovial bunch, so I joined them. Within minutes I was sharing the WSJ with those in need and conversation with those who were morning folk like me.

We were roughly the same age bracket, so we talked about our elderly parents, our adult kids and our own lives. Some of the topics were light and induced laughter and some earned shared nods and faraway looks.

It was the same kind of conversations that K and I share during our Sunday Breakfasts, but these were shared with strangers. It wasn't the same.

I guess that's what family is all about.

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