The End of an Era

Dr. Clare A. Gunn born October 28,1916

 

On Sunday the 15th of November my brother Richard called and said that our father had passed out and that he was in emergency. Later that day he called and said ... "last call, bro." It was about as succinct as it could be and we packed up the bus and drove down to the Bryan area to see what was up.

 

The old professor was in the ER first and then they said that there wasn't anything that they could do in the future for him as he was in pretty dire straits physically, but no effect mentally.

A couple of days later we transferred him back to his room at the St Jo Manor Assisted Living unit where he had lived for the past 5 years. He looked stable and talkative so we hired some help to make sure he was comfortable but still thinking that this might be only a temporary pause in his long active life.

On the 18th I went down to the nursing unit and got Mom and brought her up to Dad's room for a chat as she hadn't seen him in a couple of days and he hadn't gone down to see her as he usually did every evening to watch their favorite TV programs together ... 74 years together!

Over the summer Dad had drawn a pen and ink drawing of the Flying Scotsman RV in his usual meticulously perfect style and had it framed as a future gift for me.

As we are in Bryan infrequently and the moment seemed right I said, "Why don't you present me with the picture instead of waiting for my birthday or some future occasion." He said that was great and told me to get it out of the closet.

He talked about the drawing and Mom was also engaged in the conversation during the presentation. All the paintings and drawings in the background were done by him, some dating back more than 60 years and the subject of a few were back to 1928 ... a really long time.

We chatted for a bit till he looked tired and then I took Mom back to her room down the hall and went back home ... and at about 3 am the next morning (November 19, 2015) he passed away ... tough to say any more other than we all will miss him ...

Ghosts, Goblins, and ... Ninjas

 

We went over to the kids place for Halloween to see what this year's creatures would be and what grandson Ev would be for the evening.

THE GREAT NINJA WARRIOR

 

 

Above, the young Ninja Warrior is being prepped for his night's activity .... trick or treat, eh, with papa Brooks and grandpa Larry helping the future candy-snatcher. And then below other Star Wars and Ninja looking big and little people got into the neighborhood act of whatever recent character was more important to the adults in the crowd.

 

 

Some of the costumes were off the rack and some were pretty creatively done from the leftovers in the garage.

And even one young lady with a LIVE boa which we had to coax Ev into touching ... but the girl was really totally into the snake handling and acted quite professionally in her role as the snake lady.

Then below is the neighborhood group of goblins in the local park. Our Ev Ninja is at the lower right in the group in the black outfit.

We watched the ninja trick or treat .... quite funny and entertaining actually ... until it got dark and really enjoyed the Richardson neighborhood organization work with the kids and the local park ... great local stuff and super kids just having plain fun acting out the action hero stuff .... neat!

Soggy Birthday

 

Like we have every recent year we decided to head for Bryan for Bruce's Dad's birthday on the last week of October. We reserved a site at the Karstens RV place in College Station where we have been before. His birthday was on the 28th yet we had arranged for Leigh and Brooks and grandson to come down on Saturday night the 24th, go to Cenere's on Saturday like usual and go home after the great occasion. Well, it began to rain ...

 

As we left we had to stop at the Walmart in Addison to pick up prescriptions and then on the way in the pouring rain.

 



As we went through Corsicana on the way down to Bryan it began to rain more and later Friday night it had rained more than 14 inches ... wow ... with derailed trains and massive flooding. Eventually Interstate 45 and 35 were closed that night due to flooding.

We were lucky and moved into Karstens to the rainbow view below. Soggy park but high and drained well so that we were free of the heavy rain and flooding.

With both interstate highways closed heading south the kids couldn't come down to Bryan for the annual celebration on Saturday night.  OK we had to ensure the kids could cancel out of their hotel and then we planned for plan B for pop for his 99th on next Wednesday the 28th.

To help us decide what to do we went over to Messina Hof Winery for a break. We had their goat cheese and salami plate with a couple of nice Temperanillo wines which allowed us to make some plans.

With some coordination with the staff at the St Joseph Manor we arranged to have the birthday party.

OK this is the 99th ... let me say this again THE 99TH BIRTHDAY ... pop has been doing stuff in this world for almost a century ... wow!  We would have rather had the party at Cenare but because of the nasty weather we cancelled the normal dinner at Cenare and worked out a place for us to host pop with less attendees.

Here's brother Richard and myself with the old dude who continued to regale us with stories of cousins and work acquaintances as we had a really neat birthday cake and a couple of presents. It was sad that mom couldn't make it but she is not quite as responsive as the old boy here is ... but holy cow back to the almost 100 year thing ...

After the annual celebration of life in the Bryan area we headed back up to the Dallas area along the favorite two lane highway 14 toward Mexia.

Below for our lunch entertainment was a caracara which is an unusual but not rare roadside visitor.  These critters work with the vultures to help the Texas Dep of Trans keep the roadside clean but also will get their own prey as they are really in the falcon family.

And then finally back to Plano and the allergy shot for Jo-Anne. Fortunately (not for them) Calloway's garden center has a big parking lot that we can park in and Jo can run through the hedge and get her shot while I pretend to work on emergency repair to the RV ...

Back to Aubrey to chill and repair and clean and repair and clean etc for a bit at the Shady Creek RV place.