Because We Need To Talk About It

Hey Roberto from Alaska, take it slow my friend!
😎

So as I come onto three years as an active participant of these forums I also come to a crossroads in life. Well not really even a fork in the road, more like the leap off a step across the river of life. The next step where ever it leads.

On the last day of last month after 93 years my dad passed away. The last six months have been hard as he needed constant support and attention. So have not had my 50 to 96 hours a week to pursue projects uninterrupted. Or even write long missives such as this one. This may be a draft of what I say in a few weeks when we hold the memorial. I have waited three weeks to sit down and write this. To shout to the wind and strangers 'My dad is dead!' Writing this was supposed to be simple. these things never are. It has taken all morning and I have many other things to be passionate about. Some might even call them selfish. They can be difficult to share with others.

Grab a cup of coffee or other favorite beverage and prepare to be entertained in a satisfyingly macabre way. I was a strange kid, who liked James Thurber and Charley Addams, but never Steven King, as I think in ways King wrote my childhood. So I never read any of it. Kubrik on the other hand my favorite director and Dr Strangelove my favorite film. I never watched the Shining, I did not have to. I am still waiting for NBC to renew the next season of 'My world, and welcome to it.'

In some ways Dad got an extra 30+ years after he had a heart attack, close to the age I am now. I am on some of the same meds for hypertention he was, although at much smaller doses. 20 years ago I moved back to the family home after that scare to help with things and take some of the burden off. I had just returned from a year attempting to work in Kentucky after the whole dot com crash and six months of working with Steve Jobs.

My return to the nest enabled him and my mom to really enjoy retirement. Go on cruises or simply work in the garden attend concerts and plays. Watch the grandchildren grow up. There have been a few scares over this time. A second minor heart attack a decade ago, when he fell into the fish pond. Then last year, a number of falls. He was able to come home to his botanical garden, and watch the ships sail through the straights.

In books it is often said that 'affairs were put in order.' Not quite as easy as it sounds. Mom is not that much younger, although she is in good shape, and can once again do her daily walks with friends. They were married 67 years. Her aunt just turned 107. So there is some longevity in the family. Dad's sister is 100. These though are the exceptions. The rest of the extended family is gone. It seems strange not having most of the aunts and uncles around. Many whom did live into their 90s.

I met death early at around age 7, when my brothers died who were younger than I. So I have had 58 years to prepare for this. I had a close cousin pass at that age. So there is no predictability here. My cousin's mother is the one that is 100, and was expecting to have her daughter with here in old age, as dad had myself. Perhaps this is why the family tended to have so many children. I opted to have none myself, as I have 50 first cousins. Many which have large families of their own. Now spread like seeds in the wind.

I still have a brother, who is 10 years younger. He lives on the opposite coast. There is not much in common. We have a different wold view. There was another sister who also died. So we never became close, as one never were sure what may happen. His wife is one of those who is not the inclusive sort, and does not like competition. She even has minimal contact with her own sister.

I also have a niece, who seems much a stranger, and lives on tick tock or similar social media. I am not the sort who make close relationships myslef. Becouse they always come to and end as the world changes.

We also had to share our father with many others. For his 31 years, he worked for the county caring for 1000s of at risk youth. Dad himself lost his father at a young age. He worked with abused and neglected children, then when the programs were cut in the 1980s which many of the same children incarcerated in the juvenile hall. His work was tough and he never could talk about it. He would come home and sit silently at the organ keyboard and noodle through his ez-play music.

He was good with children. I think he never stopped being one himself. Dad was also active in the theatrical community. He liked to act in the community plays. When he got older he liked to attend and support them as much as possible. He liked to dress up as a Berkley hippie and deadhead. He graduated from Berkley in the late 1950s just before the counter revolution. He knew the contemporary bands better than I did. I also think he was always trying to grow a blue rose.

It is still strange that these strangers called him Dad and Grandpa. Even into his 90s he drove meals on wheels to those in need. I would sometimes assist. He also played bocci every Wednesday in the summer, even attending games to watch after his first broken hip.

We did share passion for the garden and the organ music. He opened the house to collector meetings and was a regular at the concerts. We would often attend the shows of the greats while growing up. Be it Fred Waring or Psycedelic ice shows at the old Winterland Arena. Our house was decorated with black light posters and beaded curtians, shag rugs, lava lamps and other hippie stuff. Wore hawiaiian and tye died shirst and birkenstocks on his days off.

It is strange though to see his pictures in work attire with the 1950 rimmed glasses and button front shirt looking like the juvenile probation officer/counselor he was. Funny how after a person dies the photos no longer look the way you remember that person in life.

It really hurt when Elvis died. I think that was when he sort of had to grow up. In his youth Dad was a ringer for James Dean. In old age he looked like Col Sanders with the white goatee.

Dad never did understand my passion for watches. I would give him watches from time to time. In the end it was an apple watch I made from parts. He liked to wear it at night so he could see what time it was. It was an older model, and did not have sleep tracking. For his 93rd birthday he decided to get new phones for the family and a new apple watch with sleep tracking. Even that last day as he lay dying he was able to face time my brother and his grand daughter.

I miss him terribly. He loved photography, another passion we shared. Liked to make photo albums, then little videos (some posted to you tube) Would make little travelogs of his trips. His photos are like post cards. He liked to visit the community darkroom back in the 1960s. I think he may have at one time attended some of the workshops and classes Ansel Adams did. Or at least read the textbooks. Dad really had one camera a Nikon F. Mostly in the later years he liked Canon. Then it was simply the 'phone.' In a lot of ways it was never about the camera, he could do wonders with a simple point and shoot. He showed me that no amount of expensive equipment can make a bad photo good.

When he got a new camera I often got the old one. Ironically, if that is the word my interest was more in the technology. For much of my life I wanted to be a filmmaker. Even taking the two year degree at the local Jr College. So we watched a lot of movies together. Even up to the end. Watching family favorites, the day before his last.

I have 100s of negatives to scan. I did scan many of them. I did get a fancy Kodak PCD scanner. Was in the process of reverse engineering the drivers when he had his first fall. I also got interested in e-Waste cameras. This is actually what lead me back to watch making. I started to take apart camera lenses. Then started noodling about with the watches in the drawers I had not looked at in decades. Watchmaking requires total focus, almost to the exclusion of others.

Since I had to be with him much of the time, this last year, I started looking more and more into APS technology through online searches. Which really is the worst product made. I was able to have one day a week with the organs, and could visit the laser cutter on the way home. I started using it to make a slitting machine for the film. Then realized I needed a way to process the hand slit film, so started to make a small film processing machine.

Modern medicin is wasteful. Dad was on oxygen and ventelators and had other tubes. So I started looking at ways to repurpose the disposed tubls and things into a little film processing lab. There are many of these online, including one made from lego. Something I could download and cut on the laser. The pipe organ controllers used to open and close the valves and keep the tempratures constant. Pumps from and old waterpick tooth flossing machine. He may have not understood this, but he taught it to me, when he said "you can pay someone to do things for you, or you can do it yourself."

I am not sure he understood any of this. That was never the point. I realized that even if he was to live many more years, there are more photos and such stuffed in the closet than there would be time to really sort through all the stuff covering nearly a centery of a life.

Of course, as noted here in passing there will be a time when this needs to be sorted through. We found a wooden duck decoy which had lost its head. I think he was going to glue it back together. I had no idea he had a wooden duck decoy. This was one of the first things to go into the trash.

and I still have the garden to care for ...