Two Stories, Plus Advice

I want to thank everybody for their support over the last week. I'm back from Pittsburgh, and will soon resume writing the usual action-packed blogs you so eagerly seek. I'm gratified to hear so many people actually went out and did a nice thing and thought of my grandfather. I'm sure he would have appreciated that.

To cap off this week's non-posting, two stories about my grandfather I heard this week. Both involve food. Apparently he ate with great gusto when he was a younger man, although I never knew him to have anything but a normal consumption of food.

-Sam would occasionally eat a banana that he had placed in a hot dog bun. He would also put mustard on this concoction.

-Once, he mistook a box of Bugles for cereal. He poured himself a bowlful, added sugar and milk, and ate the whole thing. When confronted about the odd choice for breakfast, he admitted that the cereal was a little salty.







It was my first experience at a funeral, and won't be my last, but to those of you who will be attending one, allow me to give you this piece of advice: Bring a cheerful baby. My sister brought her nine-month old daughter along, a little girl who does little but laugh and smile, and every time there was either an emotional moment, or a dull moment, or an awkward one, she would gurgle and coo and throw an object at a mourner, and that would break the tension of the moment. It made things a lot easier, let me tell you.

The Idea of Progress Will Return Soon

I was woken up on Sunday morning with the news that my grandfather had passed away. Some of you have lost loved ones at some point in your life; I've lost a great aunt a few years ago, but my grandfather was the closest relative who has passed.

He had been suffering from Alzheimer's for a couple of years now. I rarely saw him--he lives (lived) in Pittsburgh, and I'm in Chicago--perhaps once a year or so. One visit I saw him and he was fine. I later learned that he had shown symptoms of Alzheimer's. The next time I saw him he was quieter, more withdrawn. The visit after that he was barely there at all.

I'll be seeing him for the last time tomorrow.

I'm not here to write a eulogy for the man. He was a good man, and well loved. That's all any of us could ask for on this earth. When I die, if I'm remembered the same way, I'll be pleased with that.

I'm in Pittsburgh right now, and I don't know if I'll be able to write again before I return. Do me a favor, though. Today or tomorrow, do something nice for someone. Hold open a door. Say 'bless you' when someoen sneezes. Let someone make a left turn out of a parking lot.

I'll consider that a tribute to my Grandpa Sam.