sendoff

Last weekend, my family hosted a rollicking sendoff for my grandpa.  There were friends, there was wine, there were stories, laughs, tears, and a 21-gun salute.  (And don’t forget the Olympia; it’s the water.)  Grandpa died in August, a wonderful man well-loved by his friends and family, and last Friday we had a ceremony at the National Cemetery in Tahoma, Washington (honoring his service in World War II) and on Saturday we celebrated his life.  What a life!  He was a scientist, a soldier, a husband and father, and one of the funniest people I ever knew.  The stories that came out at the celebration were fantastic—most were old family classics, but one was new for me: he was down at the experiment station looking at nematodes in carrots, so he had carefully cut away the dirt along a row of carrots and was on his knees, sweeping the dirt away and peering closely at the roots.  A car pulled up along the road bordering the experiment station field; the people stopped and stared.  Grandpa continued working and the people kept staring, but he was never one to pass up a good prank.  He grabbed two carrots, put them on top of his head like horns, and charged the car.  The people took off and went down to the local hospital’s psychiatric ward and told the superintendent that one of their inmates had gotten loose; eventually it got back to his boss, who wasn’t too pleased, but Grandpa kept the job and apparently relished re-telling the story.  We all told his favorite stories in his honor, and raised our orange cans of Oly (one of his old-time favorites) to him.  We sure miss you, Grandpa.