GimletBlog

Our first official day of summer vacation, and the big guys are already heading out.

The Gimlet and Thing One are working on NYLT staff in August, and their final training session is this weekend.  Next week, it’s off to camp staff for Thing One.  While picturing (1) scout camp subsidizing a teenager’s food intake and (2) Thing One doing his own laundry are happy thoughts, we always miss Thing One when he’s not at home.

Meanwhile, Thing Two and Your Humble Narrator are keeping vigil at the local fruit stand:

We’re down to our last container of homemade strawberry jam, so we really hope “Soon” means soon!

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Today was the last day of Thing One’s sophomore year of high school.  Note the soggy rhododendron, the rain jacket and umbrella.

At the beginning of the school year we mentioned that Thing One would be replacing several high school courses for BYU Independent Study online courses.  How did that work out for us?  Quite well!

With the help of a very patient math tutor (Uncle B), Thing One managed to do much better in geometry than in last year’s algebra.  He also did very well in European history, economics, geography, and language arts.  Meanwhile, his grades at school were great; he made the honor roll!  The last part of the school year was difficult as we were mourning Bopa, so we don’t know yet how that will affect Thing One’s grades for this semester, but his grades look quite good pre-final exams.  He also passed three of the standardized tests required for graduation, which was a relief, as Thing One doesn’t test well.

We were very happy with the organization and content of the BYU courses, and felt that Thing One learned a lot of useful information that the high school fails to provide in its curriculum.   Throughout the year we’ve all had to rethink and learn how to help Thing One with test taking and time management.  While he’s stayed on schedule with BYU’s timeline – students have one year to complete an Independent Study course – he’s two courses behind the school’s semester timeline (although he has earned more than the required credits).  That’s partially due to the extra time it has taken to rebuild Thing One’s confidence; he procrastinated writing papers and working on math because he thought he would fail.  When he received an A for his first writing portfolio in the online language arts class, a large mental obstacle was removed and he was able to move ahead.  We expect that the second semester language arts and math classes will proceed much faster than the first ones.

Independent Study has been a great stress reducer for Thing One and our entire family.  His grades improved substantially, his attitude towards school and studying has improved, and he has more time for the activities he’d rather be doing (Scouts, sleep, etc.).  We’re looking forward to a good and successful junior year.

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The last day of preschool is traditionally a picnic in a local park.  The sun didn’t shine, but it didn’t rain either, which is about as good as it gets for fair weather this year.  Thing Two went to preschool every afternoon, and he was especially excited for the days when he got to play with his best friend (pictured above).

Most of the games today involved a lot of running, spinning, and yelling.  Good times.

Thing Two has had a wonderful time at preschool and made many friends.  He’ll attend the special program this summer, but this was the last day with his teachers and his class.

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All of us, and Thing Two especially, had a lot of fun playing with his cousins while they were here.  They live on the other side of the country, so we don’t get to see them very often.

Visits to the many neighborhood parks were always an easy way to have fun.  In this park, the kids were able to tour a community garden and explore a walking path as well as play on the playground.

The children almost enjoyed the play areas at the zoo more than the animals.  Zoomazium, with its treehouse and mountain, were a big hit.  In the exhibits, we were able to see the mother ocelot teaching her new baby how to catch and eat prey; fed birds at the Willawong Station, and the penguins, bears, and otters provided a lot of entertainment as well.

They returned to the zoo a couple of times during their stay, but we were only able to join them once.

The group photo is blurry, but that’s as close as we could get to taking a picture of five excited kids (six, including the baby in the stroller).

Speaking of group photos:  Smile, you’re at a funeral!

To be sure, a family gathering of this size is unrepeatable, so we all accepted the necessity of commemorating the event with a picture, but probably only the children were excited about having their picture taken.  As for the memorial service, we all agreed that Bopa would have approved of and enjoyed the blend of happy and poignant memories which were shared, as well as the lovely performance of Bach’s Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major.

Our family gatherings also involve plenty of food, and preferably fresh, local seafood.  For Sunday dinner, the Gimlet grilled Copper River sockeye salmon to perfection, and Uncle Q baked three pies.  Our final family meal together was a Dungeness crab feed.  Upon inspecting the “bone bowl” for missed tidbits, Uncle Q claimed to be rendered speechless by the amount of leftover crab he discovered.  For all his claims that words failed him, he seemed to have plenty to say on the matter. (And he did recover about a plateful; not too shabby.)  Here he lectures on the proper extraction technique:

Another blurry photo, because high dudgeon moves nearly as quickly as excited children.

Monday morning the GrandGimlets packed up and returned home; Tuesday morning Uncle Q, Auntie Lou, and all the cousins did the same.  It’s been a mostly fun, always busy week.  On one hand, it feels good to put away all the folding chairs, extra dishes, bedding and towels and take a break from preparing large-scale dinners (and cleaning up after them!) — at times these past several days have felt like Bilbo Baggins’ unexpected party from The Hobbit, as we marveled at how many people we could seat and feed in our little house. But it’s sad to recognize that all the work has ended because our family is no longer with us.

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Shortly after Christmas Bopa expressed an interest in selling his 1967 Rover TC2000, which had been driven into the garage around 1980 and had remained there ever since.  As luck would have it, while the Gimlet was on a business trip he had met a gentleman from Kamloops who collected and restored old British automobiles.  The Gimlet contacted Mr. S, who then put him in touch with another British automobile enthusiast in Vancouver, and he was very interested in taking a look at the Rover.

After we emailed him some photos and a phone conversation with Bopa about the condition of the Rover, Mr. K made a visit in January to examine the car in person.  The Things had fun playing in the car while we cleaned it up a little for the pictures and inspection.

Unfortunately this was one of the first of many bad health days for Bopa; the excitement and exertion of showing off every detail of his Rover to a fellow aficionado, combined with the cold, damp winter weather caused him to collapse at the end of the visit.  Mr. K. agreed to purchase the Rover, but it would take some time to prepare the paperwork and fees necessary to transfer the car from the United States to Canada.

Finally the paperwork was done and approved, schedules matched up, and Mr. K brought a truck down the first week of May to collect the Rover.  Meanwhile Uncle B, under Bopa’s direction, had prepped the Rover so it could be rolled out of the tiny garage and down the steep, narrow driveway.  However, one of the wheels stuck.  No amount of pushing could budge the car.  It was as if the Rover didn’t want to leave.  We ended up calling AAA for their most interesting tow job of the day.  The dispatcher had never heard of a Rover saloon, and told the tow truck operator he would be assisting a Land Rover.  Needless to say he was surprised, then intrigued, when he arrived.

Once the tow truck was on the job, everything happened very quickly.  The Rover was pulled out of the garage, lowered to the street below, and loaded onto Mr. K’s truck.

The Rover looked even better out in the daylight than in the dim light of the garage; Bopa and Mr. K were both very pleased.

Bopa happily described the Rover as looking like a queen on a chariot, regally gliding to her new home up north.

What is a Rover saloon, anyway?

• Rover Car Club of Canada
• Hemmings Motor News features a great set of information about a 1968 TC2000:  a general overview video, and a blog about the restoration process.

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Readers of GimletBlog may remember reading about the Things’ grandfather, their Bopa, and our “senior member of Team Gimlet” from our 2008 trip to Hawaii.  We are very sorry to report that Bopa has been in failing health since January 2011 (which partially explains why we haven’t been posting to the blog this year).  Over the past months several aneurysms were discovered on his lower aorta as well as blockages around the heart which made surgery to repair the aneurysms impossible.  Bopa made the decision to have surgery to correct the blockages, as he had been very active all his life and couldn’t stand to be bedridden, and if the blockages were corrected, then the aneurysms could be repaired as well.

We visited him Sunday night (May 22) before the surgery.  Thing One had been ordained to the office of priest in the Aaronic Priesthood at church that day, and told his Bopa about an upcoming Mount Si hike with the older scouts.  Bopa was fond of Mount Si, and shared his old maps and trail guides with Thing One.  He congratulated Thing One on his ordination, and was looking forward to seeing Thing One’s photos and hearing his trip report after the hike.  We left with the usual hugs and promised to come visit him in the hospital Monday afternoon, as we had been assured that this would be a quick, easy morning surgery and he would be ready for visitors after lunchtime.

What followed was neither quick nor easy, and he spent nearly 48 hours constantly in surgery.  Late Tuesday night the doctor telephoned to report that everything was repaired, his heart was strong, and we could see him the following morning.  As the doctor hung up the phone, Bopa went into cardiac arrest and passed away.  Later we learned that his condition was so fragile that even without the surgery he would not have lived much longer, and his passing would not have been as quick and peaceful.

While our unwavering faith in eternal life and the eternal bonds of family is a great strength and comfort at this time, we miss our father, father-in-law, and grandfather very, very much and wish that we did not have to be separated from one another for so long.  We treasure the time we had with him and are grateful that our last visit was full of love.

A few notes about the obituary:

• One of Bopa’s many projects was keeping track of how many days he had been alive.  He was especially fond of round numbers, and would calculate out the date on which he would reach a landmark number.  If anybody asked him how old he was, he enjoyed telling the answer in days.   As we drove home from the hospital in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Uncle B did the calculations and determined that Bopa was about half an hour short of reaching 32,000 days.  That was close enough for us.
• Bopa was a bicycle commuter long before it was fashionable.  Once the Burke-Gilman trail was built, he had a safe, quick way to ride to work.  And ride he did, every day (and in the dark if he worked late), regardless of the weather, even in the snow.  His bicycling days came to an end when he was well into his 70s, after a bad collision with another septuagenarian cyclist (they actually knew each other from riding the trail all those years).

Morgan Powell (Tony) McKay, Jr. passed away on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 in Seattle, Washington at the age of 32,000 days.

During WWII he served his country in the Army as the communications chief for the 379^th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion.  He worked as an engineering technician in the Psychology, Electrical Engineering, and Civil Engineering departments of the University of Washington for 39 years and was a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He loved being active in the outdoors and instilled that love in his children. His REI membership number was 4179 and he rode his bicycle to work on the then-new Burke-Gilman Trail every day until he was in his 70s.

Blessed with a legendary memory and a love of poetry, music, and science, his curiosity about the world around him and interest in new things kept him young at heart.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the charity of your choice.

The family would like to thank the doctors and nurses of Swedish Hospital – Cherry Hill’s Cardiac ICU for their care and kindness.

He is survived by his beloved wife of 44 years, his four children, and his seven grandchildren.  He is also survived by his younger brother.  He has been reunited with his parents, his two younger sisters and youngest brother.

A gentleman and a scholar, to the very end possessing quiet dignity with a twinkle in his eye.  Atque in perpetuum, pater, ave atque vale.

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One of our friends coordinates a visit to a local fire station to bring them holiday treats and thank them for their service in the community.  This year, Thing Two and Your Humble Narrator were able to go.

When we arrived the fire engine was away assisting with a traffic accident, but we didn’t have to wait long before they arrived, followed by the ladder truck!  The ladder truck is based at a different station but it was driving around the neighborhood today so its new crew could get used to operating the truck.

The firemen put on a wonderful presentation for the children.  We saw how the infrared camera works to help the firemen see in smoke filled buildings, and one fireman put on his gear, explaining to the children how each piece protected firefighters or helped them do their work.

Then, they were invited to climb aboard the fire engine and explore it.

Thing Two and the other children (and their parents) had a wonderful time!  It was a fun morning.

Team Gimlet has two firemen in their family history:  Great-Grandpa Gimlet was a fire chief in the town of Logan, Utah, and one of the Things’ great-great grandfathers was one of the early firefighters in Seattle’s history.  When we returned home, a call to Hå was in order, and she soon found and emailed some pictures.

Based on what we know about this great-great grandfather’s careers in both the fire and police departments, we believe these photos were taken around 1900, and judging from what can be seen of the building we think this is probably Fire Station #3.  Great-Great Grandpa is fourth from the left in the back row, the clean-shaven gentleman wearing a vest.  Love the dog!  It looks like the dog owned by these great-great grandparents; perhaps theirs was a puppy or grandpuppy from the firehouse dog?  We don’t know, but it’s fun to wonder.

Isn’t this a great action shot?  Look at those horses go!

And here are the great-great grandparents; Great-great grandpa is wearing his fireman uniform.

One of our neighborhood firemen suggested that we visit the Fire Department Museum downtown.  We would like to get a better look at the apparatus the horses are pulling (a hose carriage?), hopefully identify some of the other men in our group picture, and learn more about what it was like to be a fireman over one hundred years ago.  Sounds like a good field trip for the upcoming school holiday break!

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Today Thing One picked up his tuxedo for the high school chamber orchestra.

He also had his braces put on, so no more popcorn until his 17th birthday.

Which probably explains his serious expression.  He was a good sport about having his picture taken, sore mouth and all.

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