Celebrating A Life

A YEAR AGO, we lost my father in-law, a man who touched many lives besides my own. At the request of my wife and her sisters, I had the honor of putting together a photo book celebrating his life. While many hours went into it, I really can’t say it was work. I love sifting through vintage images and documents and reliving the stories they tell. This book hardly captures the complexity of his life, but it certainly keeps his memory alive for the people who loved him.

Time Travel

FOR MY DAUGHTER’S 30TH BIRTHDAY, we boarded a space time machine. That’s the way it seemed to me, anyway. Our family quartet — one Renaissance nerd, two space nerds, and one nerd herder — convened last weekend in Houston to explore Johnson Space Center, Megan’s birthday wish.

The pull/push of past/future was never more present than in the two Mission Controls we visited. To reach each one we rode separate trams through the NASA campus, a time-trapped paradox in itself. The building exteriors have hardly changed from their early 1960s origins, right down to the vintage, gearless Schwinn bicycles that were donated to the facility when it was established and that now are lovingly maintained and ridden freely around the campus. It’s not until you’re deep inside one of those buildings that the retro furniture and fixtures recede and NASA’s innovative core reveals itself. 

First stop: the future. A few walls away from the International Space Station’s 24/7/365 Mission Control sits the future Mission Control for NASA’s Artemis program, which will land the first woman and next man on the moon by mid-decade and then take the next giant leap for mankind, sending astronauts to Mars. Significant among the many computer screens are the large projections at the front of the room, heart-felt reminders of the price of space exploration: the single Apollo and two Shuttle crews who lost their lives in tragic accidents. Later, we walked the massive building where the Artemis spacecraft are being built and tested; it is a visual representation of the complexity of the undertaking.

Our second tram ride deposited us in the past: the fully reconstructed Mission Control that managed the Apollo 11 mission, 50 years ago, which fulfilled President Kennedy’s dream of an American man walking on the moon. The tiny black-and-white screens, the ashtrays, the three-ringed binders, even the coat rack on the side wall — all of it cast us back in time and made me wonder, “How the hell did we ever pull that off?” We took it all in from the visitor/VIP gallery glassed off from the working control room. Turns out, according to our jovial tour guide, my birthday-girl daughter occupied the very seat that Queen Elizabeth sat in when she visited. “The Queen probably farted in that chair,” I whispered to Megan.  

Both Mission Control visits were humbling experiences for me. Like any good space explorers, though, we pushed forward, meeting an astronaut, visiting exhibits, and dropping some coin on space swag. Astronaut Clay Anderson was funny and self-deprecating, reminding me of the other astronauts I’ve met or read about. He graciously took a selfie with our family. The day ended with a look inside the Space Shuttle replica Independence, which sat atop its transport carrier, then a hearty dinner at a quaint Mediterranean restaurant nearby. 

Time trickles on. I’m so proud of my children as they pilot their way smartly on this planet. And for me, it’s fun to wonder how life might have been different if my own astronaut fantasies had been realized.

Our encounter with The Ordinary Spaceman, Clay Anderson. Who was more surprised?

Papa Bear at 90

IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT MY DAD, who turns 90 in a few days. He’s a devoted TV-watcher whose heroes ride horses, seduce sexy spies with ’60s-style gadgets, and body slam other men in skimpy tights; a man who prefers the company of dogs to most people; a devotee of apple pies, banana pudding, and – of late – tamales; a man who’s possibly happiest when he has something to worry about: his grandkids, the weather, the dogs, his prescriptions, his grandkids some more.

He’s much more than the sum of this blog post, but words might be the best thing I have to offer for a man who asks for so little – although you can bet your mustache that cowboys, sweet treats, and dogs will play a role this week as we celebrate Papa Bear rounding the corner toward the century mark.

*  *  *

FLOYD BROWN, no middle name, probably never had a childhood. He was born two weeks before the stock market crash that birthed the Great Depression, when the life expectancy for U.S. males was 55 years. He grew up fast in the hills of East Tennessee surrounded by poverty and not much else. He never knew his father, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was young. “We watched our whole house washed away in a flood,” he told me once, the memory making his eyes tear up. His education ended in elementary school, and he began building a hardscrabble resume and work ethic that reveals itself even today as he insists on doing the daily dinner dishes.

One of his early jobs, at the local roller rink, taught him to be a graceful, first-rate skater. His love of movies took root during a stint as a movie theater usher. Amid the many menial jobs, he found time for fun, sneaking off with cousins and friends on beer and moonshine runs.  

Unlucky in enterprise and denied entry into the military (4F because of an inner ear problem), he found solace in the arms of a woman who wasn’t really right for him. With a steady new manufacturing job and a newly adopted son (me!), they started a life in Memphis in a home where he would live for 60 years. 

Soon enough, he would divorce her but keep me. 

*  *  *

MY CHILDHOOD YEARS spanned the ’60s and ’70s, a period ushered in by JFK and the Beatles with serious detours through Vietnam, civil rights, disco, and Watergate – a challenging time for any single parent, much less a newly divorced one who had barely been parented himself.

Early on, Papa Bear relied on the kindness of relatives (divorced in-law relatives, at that), a smart move that put me in the company of an aunt and cousins who knew a little something about nurturing a kid. I shiver now as I remember walking – or being carried – through the cold, pre-dawn mornings to my aunt’s house before Dad would catch a bus to work. 

Segue to my high school years, when he worked the graveyard shift, leaving me overnight to myself. Luckily, by then, I’d gained enough discipline to stay clear of the teenager minefield of opportunity lost. Still, it was a lonely time, for both of us.

We seemingly parted ways for some years as I made my desperate escape into college, career, and my own parenting venture. Me the occasional son, he the occasional but devoted dad and grandpa, it took a health scare to reunite us for good.

Eating like a college freshman for decades caught up with Papa Bear when his body finally said, “Enough!” and blessed him with a minor heart attack that led to triple-bypass surgery. If I hadn’t already realized he was a 5-foot-4 bad ass, he proved it over the next three months. For an 86-year-old, that kind of surgery is an ass-kicker, but it’s the recovery that shows if you’re made of the right stuff. After 15 days in ICU post-op and another three weeks in the hospital and a rehab center, he came to live with our dogs … and us. But mostly the dogs. 

*  *  *

ALMOST FROM THE MOMENT he moved in, he and our pups, Abby and Rocky, were like infatuated teenagers who couldn’t stand being out of one another’s sight. Most mornings, they hang out on the back porch, watching for the mail lady’s truck to appear on the next street over. When it does, Dad makes his way up our long driveway to greet Cathy and swap stories. It wasn’t long before she was delivering cupcakes and gifts on his birthdays. 

We could never get him interested in the local senior center, but he finds comfort in his routines around the house: Eating the same lunch each day, playing fetch with Rocky from the shallow end of the pool, asking when the grandkiddos are coming over again, and watching reruns with Perry Mason, John Wayne, and James Bond (when WWE isn’t on).

His legacy isn’t one of work but of kindness. Despite a rough beginning and some lean middle years, he’s always been an optimist with a strong will to do the right thing. He says he wants to live to be 100, so maybe I’ll update this in 10 years. Until then, cheers, Papa Bear!

Empty houses

I’M STILL ON THE MEND from my surgery, holding off on firing the Canon for a while, but I’ve been looking back on some recent images and trying some fresh edits. This photo was taken in March on the day of my father in-law’s funeral. Tears and sorrow in the morning gave way to smiles and even some laughter as we gathered at my sister in-law’s 30-plus-acre spread to celebrate family.

The image is a comfortable sight, one subliminally absorbed often during many visits. I’m not sure why I was drawn to the vacant bluebird house as I stole away for a quiet moment. Perhaps it represented the emptiness of a family gathering without the big man. Viewed months later, though, there’s a sense of solace.