My grandfather passed last week. He had a good life and went quietly at 94-years-of-age. I can only hope that I have such a long life and leave so many people with fond memories. Tomorrow is the funeral and I said I’d like to say a few words… but now that it’s crunch time I’m coming up empty. Lots of memories and fond thoughts, but nothing that really formats itself nicely into a memorial. I’m half tempted to just go from the hip and see what comes out; but I have a tendency to ramble and I’m not the only one speaking so I don’t want to ramble on. I need something short, sweet, and ideally, something that’ll make folks cry. Making folks cry at a funeral usually means you’ve hit your mark.

So I’ve come up with some of my most vivid memories surrounding him and admittedly this is a purely personal list. Now all I’ve got to do is weave this into something good.

• Slingshots made out of tree branches and bicycle tire tubes
• Fishing, catching fish, turtles, ducks, and even one time my cousin Jim
• Taught me how to ride a bike and how to maintain that same bike and all the bikes that came afterward
• Handy with a wrench or a hammer
• Church going, honorable, honest, admirable
• Corn and strawberries right out of the garden
• Pipe smoke in the evening
• Sleeping in his chair while the baseball game was on
• Waking up with the sun

I’ll work on it a bit more and whatever I come up with I’ll post later.