Fireworks, Family, and Times Gone By

Last night I made a little video comparing fireworks and sunsets, posing the musical question, "Which is Better?" Here it is:



Since then, I've been thinking about my memories of past Independence Days. Here are the ones that came to mind:

Awesome fireworks, with shaped displays, on the boardwalk at Seaside Park, NJ with my cousins, circa 1964, while my mom was in the hospital.

Boring fireworks seen from the Suburban Park parking lot with my family, circa 1970.

Fireworks on the beach at Cape Canaveral with my mom, July 4, 1976.

Fireworks at Hi Corbett Field while John collects Tucson Toros autographs, circa 1994. I think I took my mom there one year.

Fireworks at Disneyland, July 4, 2003. Best part was when John took an interesting picture of a kid watching a popcorn cart.

Lots of years in which I tried to photograph distant fireworks that barely clear neighborhood trees, 1998-2018. The one above was a composite from 2006.

A fire-less picnic at Inspiration Rock with John and my dad, 2013.

Photographing A-Mountain fireworks from the car while waiting for my friend, 2017. I actually watched from the convention center once, but mostly we don't bother.

A mediocre sunset at Gates Pass, solo, July 4, 2018.

What I'm realizing is that the memorable part - except maybe Seaside Park - isn't the fireworks at all. It's about where I was, who I was with, and what I was trying to do. I've never managed great fireworks photos, and that's part of it, and also the fact that I find most fireworks pretty boring. But more important has been the human connections. Spending the Bicentennial with my mom. Disneyland with John. Even seeing Spiderman with John this afternoon, and hoping he's started the charcoal for tonight's dinner.

I'm going to post this now, and try to spend some more quality time with John. I hope that whatever you are doing this holiday, it's a) with someone you love, and b) interesting, fun and memorable.

Fireworks optional.

Karen

The Many Obituaries of Dr. Frank E. Funk

If you follow me on Facebook or attend my church, you probably already know that my dad, Dr. Frank E. Funk, died early Friday morning last week. The memorial service in Tucson is this Thursday at 12:30, and the funeral and interment of his ashes will be at First Presbyterian in Wilmington, NC, probably the following Tuesday. even though my dad planned ahead, prepaid his funeral arrangements and had things all organized, there is still a lot to do.

The final arrangements for my dad are an interstate web of communications. My stepsisters are in Vermont and in Phoenix. The cities where people would care that my dad died are Syracuse, Wilmington and (a little bit) Tucson. Tucson obituary ad rates are exorbitant. Even with everything remotely interesting about his life omitted, the Tucson ad will be over $500. The Wilmington one will be much longer, covering his military service, professional career and Wilmington volunteerism. I just sent a  very long, Syracuse-centric version to Syracuse University, where he worked for 32 years, much of it as Dean of University College. And of course, there's always the Internet: my Facebook page, the page of a group dedicated to the 463rd Bomb Group for which my dad was a WW II navigator, this blog, Find-a-Grave and probably my website.

I've lost track of how many versions of the obit my stepsisters and I have labored over these past few days. There were cuts to the Tucson one, to the point at which - oops! - I temporarily left out mention of my stepmother! There was a cut to the Wilmington one to deliberately omit my own mother, who was out of the picture by the time he and Ruth moved there. There were additions to the Wilmington one to mention more of his volunteer and board member work in Wilmington, and to omit all mention of my time with him after he moved to Tucson. And there was a weird hybrid version that I put on Ancestry.com last night, filling in details around the ages of family members at the time of his birth and other genealogical details.

Sometime in the next few days, I'll put together the definitive, kitchen sink tribute to Dad. Watch this space.

Karen

Round Robin Challenge: So Many Goodbyes, Part Two

(This is sort of a continuation of my previous entry: Home Again: Part One)

For the last-ever Round Robin Photo Challenge: Goodbye, I asked people to post pictures that convey the theme of saying goodbye - to a person, a place, a stage of life, even to this meme.  As you probably know by now, my brother Steve died on Saturday, September 6th, so I have been saying my goodbyes to him. Beyond that, my trip back East for his burial included a little side trip to the town where I grew up, a place I will probably never see again. And finally, I should say a proper goodbye to this meme, which has been part of my life since 2005.

 

This is the last picture I took of my brother Steve when he was alive. It was December, 2012, and we were in Wilmington, NC. My stepmother had died six months earlier, and it had become evident that my Dad could no longer live safely in his condo, even with round-the-clock unskilled home care. He had been in the hospital in November and almost died. So we four heirs - Steve, my two stepsisters and I - had gathered to make decisions, sign papers in a lawyer's office and close up Dad's place, taking an equal share of its contents and selling the rest to pay for Dad's care. This picture was taken as we visited Dad in a rehab facility. I don't think Dad knew who Steve was that day.

As for Steve, he had spent a good chunk of 2012 in hospitals and a rehab facility himself. He suffered from heart failure, kidney trouble, sleep apnea and edema. The spring of 2014 was sort of a rerun of Steve's 2012 troubles, with a serious leg infection (cellulitis with a bit of gangrene) as an added bonus. But he came through ICU and many rough moments, did his rehab and eventually got to go home. He even had a cataract operation. He was nervous about it before hand, but delighted with the results.

Here is the last photo Steve took with his Canon EOS. At the end, he was sitting in his apartment, enjoying his newly-restored vision and waiting for a pacemaker operation that never happened. Meanwhile, he used his great camera to take pictures off of the TV. 

This was the view from Steve's balcony. We grew up visiting Lake Ontario every summer, with occasional trips to Cape Cod or some other beach spot. I know he loved listening to the waves crashing into the shore of Lake Erie.

Anyway, we all thought he was doing very well, but on September 6th he fell in his tiny bathroom. He managed to call 911, when when the EMTs arrived he had a heart attack in front of them and died. It became my responsibility to fly to Cleveland, arrange for his funeral, sort out his papers, dispose of his furniture and other possessions, and arrange for his burial in Syracuse before returning to Cleveland for the flight home. And that is what I did. I also wrote a brief obituary:

STEVEN ERIC FUNK was "born in Bethlehem" - Pennsylvania, that is, to Frank E. Funk and Ruth Anne Johnson. Steve grew up outside Syracuse, NY, where he earned a Bachelor's degree from Syracuse University. A computer programmer-analyst, he also had a lifelong love of Turkish Angora cats. Heart disease led to several hospitalizations before his death from a heart attack after a fall at his home on Saturday, September 6. Steve is survived by his father, his sister, Karen Funk Blocher (husband John) and numerous cousins. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions to the National Wildlife Federation or the cat shelter of your choice. Funeral Mass was Saturday, September 13, 2014 at St. Francis of Assisi Church, Gates Mills, OH. Interment was Monday, Sept. 15, 2014 at St. Mary's Cemetery, DeWitt, NY. Buried next to his grandfather, Ambrose Alexis Johnson (1891-1950). Please sign obituary guest book on Cleveland.com.

Here is a Google+ "story" that covers my trip Back East in detail. Warning: it contains a few shots taken at the funeral home, and a few taken at the burial.

Beyond all that, Steve was my big brother, my friend and protector when I was young. Later in life I mostly tried to return the favor. Seven years my senior, at one point as we were growing up he liked the idea of having me call him Jem while he called me Scout. We both read To Kill a Mockingbird that year. Occasionally he even let me hang out with him and his friends. If my parents were fighting, he tried to cheer me up by playing with my stuffed animals. 

As an adult, Steve lived far away from my parents and me. In fact, the four of us lived in four different states, hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Steve did his best to hang onto family connections as best he could. He was the family genealogist, and he kept in touch with Dad's sisters (particularly Aunt Marie, the only one who is still alive) and our cousins. Politically, he drifted to the right as I drifted to the left, which made for a few uncomfortable emails.But there was never any doubt that we loved each other. He was my brother! My only sibling, irreplaceable.

Steve believed in the Rainbow Bridge idea, the story that dead pets hang around in a beautiful meadow, waiting to be reunited with their people when they die. If anything like that is true, Steve is hanging out with a number of beloved cats about now.

I have at least one more entry to do here at the Outpost to finish up, probably two. I'll get that done on Monday, and make my rounds. Meanwhile, check out the other Round Robin entrees:

Linking Listas of Monday, October 14th, 12:35 AM

Karen Funk Blocher - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.ca

Ellen - Posted!
Ellen's Phlog
http://ellensphlog.blogspot.com

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Sylvia D. - Posted!
SMD Paper Arts
www.smdgreetings.blogspot.ca

Karen

Home Again: Part One

Where is home? Is it this house, where we've lived for about twenty years, only to frequently revisit the question of whether to fix it up or move to a better house? Is it Tucson, Arizona generally, where we've lived since 1986, after driving around the country looking for someplace it wasn't winter? Do we go back to Manlius, NY, where I lived from age 4 through age 18, or still further, to Dewitt, NY, where I lived before Manlius?

Whichever option you choose, I've been there this month - plus Ohio, a state I lived in from 1979 to January 1986. I didn't get to Columbus, where I actually lived at that time, but still. Ohio.

This was not some lighthearted nostalgic tour. Well, it was toward the end, a bit.

This was me arranging my only sibling's funeral and burial.

I'll have a proper write-up about Steve in two weeks, as part of my last-ever Round Robin Photo Challenge entry. For now, I'll just point you toward his obituary, his listing on my family tree on Ancestry.com, his Find A Grave listing and his Facebook page. I've put in a bit of time today, adding listings and photos and facts. None of those web pages tell the story of my trip, though: the slog through flooded streets to get to Sky Harbor Airport, the rescheduled flights, heartbreaking days spent sorting papers and disposing of medical equipment, and so on. I'll get to all that later. Some of it I've already mentioned on Facebook and Google+.

But after the funeral in Gates Mills, Ohio and a seven hour drive through an unreasonable number of construction zones to Dewitt, NY for the burial, I did insist on going "home" for probably the last time.

First stop: the old house on York Road in Dewitt.

I'm not sure this is the house Steve picked out years ago as being the right one, but it's the one that matches my memories. There's an odd-shaped architectural detail over the door that I found intriguing, even at age 4. The house used to be white with black trim, I'm pretty sure.

Second stop: Pickwick Road.

Again, I was mostly going by my memories from childhood, but my source confirms: this was the house my Grandmother and Aunt Flora lived in in the 1960s, before moving to Fairfax, VA. The house used to be red. My grandmother, Flora Missellier DuFour Johnson Ballantyne, was a real estate agent who ran for Congress twice in the 1940s. She also once stayed at the same flooded hotel in Venice as Thornton Wilder. Her Cream of Wheat wasn't lumpy like Mom's, and consequently wasn't as good. She kept dog biscuits in her kitchen for the Cocker spaniel next door, Candy. Candy once got so excited that she accidentally tried me to a tree in the neighbor's back yard.

My aunt, Flora M. Johnson, was an engineer who lived briefly in Guam and later helped to design the Interstate Highway System before retiring early due to migraines. She gave up a child for adoption, a fact I didn't learn until the mid 1970s. Her daughter did not learn her relationship to Flora until well after that. I finally got to meet my cousin Vereene at Steve's burial, which is the main reason we made a pilgrimage to this house.

Next stop: Manlius. But not tonight.

Karen

Round Robin: Someone Else's Family

For the Round Robin Challenge: Family, I asked to see pictures of family, or pictures of something that represents the concept of family. I knew it was going to be a tough one for me to do; John does not allow me to take pictures of him, much less post them. The only family in reach is my dad, and I post lots of pictures of him already!

But I did have a few family-related encounters in the last month. First off, there was the All Souls Procession in Tucson on Sunday, November 3rd. Most of the people who take part in this annual local tradition do so on honor of dead family members. They often carry a photo of the deceased as they walk through the streets of downtown Tucson.

 

After the procession passed by me, a family set up to sell ice cream to passersby:

Here is a little film I made of that night. Note it doesn't play on mobile devices for some reason.

The other encounter with a family was last Saturday, November 23rd. It was a rainy, cold, blustery day. I took my dad for a drive, and stopped briefly at Agua Caliente Park, a place I've photographed before. I got Dad to walk around for about five minutes, at the end of which he was complaining his hands were cold. As we returned to the car, I spotted a woman in a bridal gown, and her family!

Agua Caliente Park is a beautiful place for a wedding, but not on a day like this! Note the bridal gown under a dark jacket.

 As we left, the bridal party was gamely carrying folding chairs from their cars to set up for the ceremony. "I bet you were hoping for better weather than this!" I called out to the father of the bride (or whoever).

"Sure was," he said ruefully.

Now let's see the other Robins' family photos!

Linking List
as of Saturday, 12/`/13, 1:18 AM

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.ca

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Karen

Travels With Frank #2: An Origin Story

Those of you who were blogging at AOLJournals in the old days may remember a blogger named Mary, who used to write about her Italian-American father. He lived in some kind of assisted living facility, and she would spent significant time visiting him. She also got to know and spend time with other residents, who weren't so lucky as to have relatives who turned up frequently to see them. Mary's posts were loving and strong and honest, not hiding at all from the difficulties of the situation. I really admired her for that, and was glad I wasn't going through the same thing.

Now I am.

Dad gets a haircut, 8/10/2013. He's obsessed these days with being clean-shaven.

I don't promise I can write about all this as steadily or as wisely as Mary did. I'm not sure exactly what my situation and my dad's calls for, here and now, but I know I need to say more than I've been saying. Recently I asked whether I should be blogging about my dad's dementia, and I got two votes for, two against. The first two comments were the nays. The concern was that I would violate my dad's privacy and dignity, putting him on display like a cute cat video. I can see that as a potential problem, but I don't think what I plan to do here will rise (or sink) to that level. I may make a few YouTube videos at some point, but if I do it won't be to have my Dad perform for the camera.

I also have more than a few things to say about parts of my life that don't involve my Dad.

Building on last night's intro, I'd like to use this entry to explain further the dynamics of the situation, and to respond to Bea's and Wil's comments to the previous post.

First: here's a quick look at the family tree.

My parents, Frank E Funk and Ruth Anne Johnson Funk, were divorced in 1976. My mom moved to Florida and lived in the Space Coast area for something like 17 years before moving here to Tucson. She had mild dementia in later years, compounded by mental health issues. Her last days, in late 2002, were a bit of a horror show, and I'm convinced that her extreme vagueness at the end was more psychiatric than memory-related.

Dad married Ruth Christy (formerly Ruth Christy Sisley) in 1977, and they moved to North Carolina around the beginning of 1989. Ruth had two daughters from her previous marriage, Jan and Amy, both around my age. They're both terrific people, but we never spent significant time together. They were very close to their mom, of course, and grew to love my dad as well. Financially and geographically, they were able to visit Dad and Ruth much more often than I was. I was a bit jealous of that!

Ruth was always wonderful to me, and she and Dad had a terrific marriage. Being younger than my Dad, Ruth always assumed she would be around to care for him at the end of his life, and they made their financial arrangements accordingly. But she was diagnosed with cancer in the spring of 2012 and died very soon after. I was on the phone with her four days before my dad found her body in the kitchen, and tried unsuccessfully to wake her up. Nowadays he doesn't always remember that she died at all. He wonders why he's not home in Wilmington with her, and whether she knows where he is.

Dad, Steve and me, December 2012.

My own brother, Steve, lives in the Cleveland area. His health is poor and his finances aren't much better. My dad used to worry about Steve a lot, when he was still capable of worrying about such things. One good thing about this dementia is that it seems to have blunted his emotional response to painful situations. Dad doesn't seem to feel Ruth's death as keenly as he otherwise would, although I'm sure he misses her. I'm not sure how much he remembers Steve at all, let alone Steve's heart issues and financial problems. As Jan says, Dad has trouble remembering who someone is unless they are right in front of him.

In 2011 or so, Jan had moved to Wilmington, NC to spend more time with her mom. My Dad had a few strokes and fibrillation early that year, leading to significant memory loss after his being remarkably active and functional well into his old age. When Ruth died, Amy and I flew out to Wilmington and strategized before and after the funeral. The plan was to keep Dad in his home as long as he could be safe and comfortable there. Jan was next on the list as successor power of attorney, so she set about settling the estate, making sure bills were paid and hiring caregivers, led by a wonderful woman called Bunny. But by November Dad was in the hospital with heart problems, kidney problems and a UTI. If he survived, he needed to move into a facility that could do more for him than Bunny and Co. could. And Jan and her husband wanted to move back to Vermont. The logical thing was for Dad to come here. Jan and I researched assisted living facilities in Tucson with memory care, which could also keep an eye on him medically. We settled on Cascades of Tucson. I'll pick up the story from there tomorrow night.

Regarding questions about the Mâvarin books: yes, Wil and Bea, I do intend to publish them as e-books. I was well on my way through a final edit on Heirs of Mâvarin when I got sidetracked by other concerns, mostly Dad. Part of the purpose of this return to blogging is to get me back into the discipline of writing in general, so that I can get the books done as well. One thing I still need to complete the project is a good cover illustration. I approached a former next door neighbor from 40 years ago who has illustrated children's books, and asked whether she would be interested in a commission, but I haven't heard back. Maybe she doesn't want to tell me I can't afford her services, or assumes I'm not serious and prepared to pay for them. But looking at the e-books I download, I can see that a professional quality cover image is a must. Any leads, anyone?

Karen

Round Robin: Give It Up - For Good

For this week's Round Robin Challenge: Give It Up!, I asked to see "something you've given up at some time in your life, or would like to give up, or wish someone else would give up." I could maybe get clever or esoteric or, more likely, depressing on this one, but let's go with the obvious for once. Where does a successful dieter go to look at all she's given up? Why, the supermarket, of course!

In July 2011 I gave up high carbohydrate foods. I've since lost over 130 pounds, but I've been stuck at 170 pounds since December. I've going to have to give up carbs even more stringently. Part of the problem is I had to give up running, or even walking long distances, after injuring my right knee.

The empty plate here had a little round layer cake for one yesterday. I bought it for my dad's 90th birthday, deliberately small because we can't help him eat it. He didn't eat it, either. Tonight my dad is in intensive care, but not because of some food he ate or didn't eat.

My healthy choice is not to eat even "healthy" bread.

And my candy consists of one or two squares of sugar free dark chocolate per day, and maybe an Atkins bar.

Please visit the other Robins' entries, and comment if so moved. The list of entries is below, but please do check the Round Robin blog for any updates and late additions:

Linking List
as of Saturday, February 23rd, 2013, 12:02 AM

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin
@mavarin

Sue.
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words.
http://susiesphotospace.blogspot.it/

Carly
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

I have a defensive driving class in the morning and my dad is still in intensive care, so I won't be around much this weekend. I'll try to check in when I can!

Karen

Flashback Friday #4: Thinking of Dad

Martha of the blog Seaside Simplicity has a meme, Flashback Friday. I have a bunch of photos from my dad's papers that need scanning, so....

My mom had this old photo of my dad on her vanity mirror as I was growing up. Until the divorce, that is. I found this in my dad's desk in June after my stepmother died.

This was in a box of my dad's papers when we went through his stuff after Christmas. It was almost certainly taken at my brother's high school graduation party in our back yard in Manlius. It's my dad, me, and my brother Steve.

Steve told me something while we were in Wilmington that I'd never, ever suspected. When my mom was pregnant with me, my dad asked Steve what girl's name he liked for a little sister. Steve was watching Mickey Mouse Club at the time, and he had a bit of a crush on little Karen (Steve was six years old at the time). So I'm named after Karen Pendleton! 

He doesn't know it yet, but my dad is leaving North Carolina soon and coming to live in a memory care unit a couple of miles away from me here in Tucson. He'll be here on February 6th.

Karen

Round Robin: In My Hermit Cave

Two weeks ago, when it was time for the Round Robin Photo Challenge, I was at my dad's condo in Wilmington, NC. My stepmother died back on June 1st and my dad had been in the hospital or in a rehab facility since mid-November, and he wasn't very computer-savvy even before his dementia hit. So there was no longer any Internet at my dad's place, except for on my iPhone. If you've ever tried to do a photographic blog entry on an iPhone you know it can be a tedious, frustrating process.

The next night I was on the road when I posted the next Round Robin Challenge, In My Room. I was trying to play catch-up that night on some work I'd promised to do for my second job, so I didn't put a lot of time into my post. Neither did anyone else: so far I'm the only one who has signed up for it. (Updated: Jama has posted her entry, too!) And I only signed up yesterday myself!

Nevertheless, here's my entry. I asked to see anything you might think of as your room, whether it's a bedroom, an office, your favorite room at a museum or library or whatever. I illustrated the Challenge post with a shot of my hotel room that night. But now I'm home, and my thoughts turn to other rooms that have been "mine," past and present.

Here's the only bedroom shot I intend to give you tonight. This is me in my room in Manlius, NY in 1971, age about 14.

I grew up, ran a store for a while, worked in other people's stores, became a travel agent, and then became a bookkeeper. At Worldwide Travel from 1993 to 2005, I worked in a back room with a window on the rest of the office. I used to say that someone could give birth up front and I wouldn't know about it unless someone thought to come back and tell me. I called that office my "hermit cave."

My next office, at First Magnus, was not a hermit cave. It wasn't even a room, just a flimsy cubicle.So never mind showing off that one tonight!

This shot of my office at church was taken three years ago. It's a bit messier now, and the bulletin board has a lot more on it. Otherwise it hasn't changed much. And it's a bit of a hermit cave, too. On Tuesday I brought my dogs to work, because they're welcomed there and to give the dogs a treat after being left alone at home and at the animal hospital, respectively, while we were out of town. Unfortunately, Father Smith's very jealous dog was also in the office that morning. So my door was closed to keep Stevie from getting at Cayenne and Pepper. At least two people who wanted to stop by and see me saw the closed door and did not feel free to come in.

My other hermit cave is a little office off the reception area of Small Non-Profit, my second job (not its real name). The post-Christmas addition is that black box on the left side of my desk: a SoundFreaq dock and speaker system for my iPhone and iPad. Hooray!

Just yesterday I took a lot of pictures of another room, another potential hermit cave.  I had just received word that The Cascades of Tucson, which has a memory care unit, is willing to take my dad, based on detailed discussion of his medical history with the place where he is now. The room pictured here is the mirror image of the one I just put on hold for him. He'll be in Tucson before the end of the month. With me now working three jobs and resuming work on my novels and trying to start walking again as my knee heals, I don't know how I'm going to fit it all in once I add daily visits to my dad to my routine!

It's not too late to join in on this Challenge. Check out the link, and let's see your room!

Karen


Linking List
as of Saturday, January 12th, 2012, 1:21 AM


Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin
@mavarin

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Round Robin: Good Riddance, 2012!

For the Round Robin Challenge: Goodbye 2012, I asked to see one or more photos that represent 2012 in some way. For me it's been a year of transitions, and mostly not in a good way. I am actually in a car going west at 68 mph right now, so let me just share one photo on my iPhone and fill in details later.

Here are my dad, myself and my brother on Friday, December 28th, 2012. It's been a difficult year for all of us.

In January, my brother Steve went into the hospital with congestive heart failure, severe edema and kidney trouble and nearly died. He was in two hospitals and a rehab center for the next several months, recovering his ability to walk and feed himself while navigating his way through the Social Security and health care systems and trying to get the doctors to coordinate his meds and not overdose him. He's much better now, but still walks with a walker.

As for me, I lost a friend, Jan Lockett, to MRSA and kidney failure in January. In March I finally got a second part-time job, but as a temp, with a long commute. I finally became an actual employee in November. I've lost over 90 pounds this year, but hurt my knee a couple of weeks ago, which puts the kibosh on my walking any decent distance for exercise until it heals. So it's definitely been a year of ups and downs!

My dad started the year slowly going downhill with aortic fibrillation and dementia. In May my stepmother Ruth was diagnosed with cancer; on June 1st she died. Since then my dad has deteriorated rapidly in cognition. After five months of round the clock caregivers at home he went into the hospital with a-fib and urological issues, got a UTI and MRSA and nearly died. He's about to be discharged from rehab, and will need to be moved to Tucson, never again returning to his home. I had a great place lined up for him, but the concern is that his level of health may preclude his going there. So it's back to square one in finding him a place to live.

This week what's left of the family - my two stepsisters, Steve and I - convened at Dad's house to divide his personal property so the leftovers can be disposed of and the house sold to help pay for his care. Steve was delayed over 24 hours by storms and US Airways shenanigans and missed Amy entirely, who had to return to Detroit. Dad had no clue who Steve was, and introduced himself. But we got the job done and the papers signed.

Now John and I are on our way home in my dad's 2005 Prius, which is now ours. My dog Pepper is currently in an animal hospital at home, recovering from tick fever, not eating much or popping at all, and possibly cancerous. And my boss wants to know when I'm going to get the work done that I promised to do while on the road. But there was no Internet access at Dad's house, so this is my first evening back online since Christmas. I'm sitting on a bed at a truly cruddy motel with a cracked microwave oven and a messed up heater, but at least I've got free Wi-Fi. I'd better get to work!

Normally I would post the Linking List here so you could visit the other Robins and see what they found photographically worthy for this Challenge, but it's already taken me forever and three different devices to get this far with this post. Please click the link at the top of this entry to see the original Round Robin Photo Challenges entry, and click on the links you will find there. Thanks! And I promise to be more cheerful in my next post - I hope!

K.

RRPC2: Fly the Fluffy Skies

When I announced the Round Robin Photo Challenge: Clouds, it was just two days after my stepmother Ruth's death. The next day I would be flying across the country to Wilmington, NC for her funeral, and I hoped to catch some cloud pictures either in Wilmington or out an airplane window. (Hooray for window seats!)

What I didn't realize was that US Airways rules required that my iPhone be turned off for the entire flight. I was only able to catch clouds from the ground with that. I didn't have my Canon camera with me because it was only a short trip, and I was traveling light.

I did, however, have my iPad with me. Because it doesn't have a built-in hot spot, I was allowed to turn it on while we were at cruising altitude and take pictures with it. The iPad was about as big as the airplane window, but I got a few interesting shots anyway.

And let's not forget what comes from clouds: rain! We thought the gray, rainy day was appropriate for Ruth's funeral.

The reason I wanted to photograph clouds out of town is that Tucson's rainy season, the summer monsoon, has not yet arrived. But I did catch some clouds at Gates Pass on a blustery April day earlier this year.

I will be posting more photos from the Wilmington trip on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter, but this will do for the moment. Check out all of this week's participants!

Karen

Linking List
as of Saturday, June 16th, 2:01 AM

Karen  - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/mavarin
http://mavarin.tumblr.com/
@mavarin

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/#!/ondinemonet

Sue **Welcome, new participant!**
A Picture is Worth 1000 words
http://susiesphotospace.blogspot.it/

Freda
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.ca

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Tina - Posted!
Tina's PicStory
http://tinaspicstory.blogspot.de/2012/06/wordless-beautiful-piece-of-heaven.html

Family Matters

Ruth with Dad in 2006.

As you may know if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, my stepmother, Ruth Funk, died this morning. She was a good egg. Married to my Dad since the late 1970s, she had a great relationship with him, much better than my Mom ever had. With Ruth at his side, Dad mellowed considerably and enjoyed a long, happy, healthy partnership until last year, when Dad had a stroke and fell into dementia. Until then they had a very active retirement, full of friends and charitable work.

Ruth had suffered from a painful but mysterious urinary tract condition for years, about which she seldom if ever complained. Last month, signs of internal bleeding sent her to the doctor for tests. Result: cervical cancer. I think this was her second week of combined chemo and radiation treatment. When I spoke with her on Monday she was gamely trying to force food and stop the unwanted and dangerous weight loss.

Given Dad's dementia, it's hard to be sure just what happened this morning. Dad told me that he got up around 6 AM and went into the kitchen, where Ruth was in a chair, bent over and vomiting. He tried unsuccessfully to help and they ended up on the floor together. He tried to prop up her head but she breathed out, a long sigh, with no intake of breath to follow. That's when he called my stepsister Jan, who fortunately moved to Wilmington recently to be closer to her mom.

Ruth was my friend, advisor, advocate and ally, and I loved her. I'm flying out in a few days, not just for the funeral but also to consult with my two stepsisters about Dad's care. Ruth told me a month ago that she had always assumed she would be around to care for Dad for the rest of his life. Now she won't be.

My brother was released from a ManorCare nursing facility yesterday, saw a doctor today and is trying to get moved into an apartment this weekend. He's still wearing a defibrillator/heart monitor vest until his cardiologist signs off on ditching it in a few weeks (we hope). I doubt that he's well enough to fly out for the funeral, even if he's so inclined, which he may not be.

John is willing to have us move into a bigger house that will accommodate Dad and Steve living here, if that turns out to be what's best for Dad. I doubt it will happen, but it's a generous thought.

Karen

Round Robin Challenge: Families Where We Find Them

I set myself a bit of a Challenge this time. The Round Robin Photo Challenge topic is Family, and how am I meant to photograph that? My dad is in North Carolina, my brother outside Cleveland. I haven't seen either of them in years. My own family is John, who doesn't like having his picture posted, plus the dogs, who have no opinion either way.

But I went to Reid Park, on a chilly day of intermittent rain, to see if there were any families my camera could find. I stalked one family from across the duck pond with my zoom lens:



I like that we can't see their faces. They become a generic family. The adults are both women, but they're still a family.



We don't know who these people are, really, what their actual relationships are and why they came to the park on such a blustery day. I hope they enjoyed the park and each other's company.

Okay, let's go for an even more generic family, albeit an extended one: the bronze people of Cancer Survivors Plaza:





According to my previous post on the subject, the entire sculpture (all the bronze bits) is titled "Cancer...There's Hope." It was the last work of artist Victor Salmones. The five figures at the back - a dad and his Picachu-toting little girl, the grandparents and a young woman - represent cancer patients and their supporters as the patients enter the maze of treatment with fear and determination.

In lieu of families like this, we build our families of choice, people we aren't necessarily related to at all. In my "church family" are two close friends I spend a lot of time with, Kevin and Jan:



So okay, I managed to find some substitute families to photograph. But at bedtime, after a bit of nagging, my own family graciously posed for me:



Now let's check out the families the other Robins photographed!

Linking List
as of 3 AM MST Saturday
December 3rd, 2011

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Jama - Posted!
Sweet Memories
http://mummyjam.blogspot.com

Freda - Posted!
Day One
http://fredamans.blogspot.com

Dave Richards - Posted!
daves(old short legs)photo blog
http://davesoldshortlegsphotoblog.blogspot.com/

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com/

And it's not too late to join in yourself!

Karen

Who?

Complete transcript of a phone call that took place about 5 minutes ago:

"Hello."

"Hi. We're trying to locate Mark Johnson."

"We don't know any Mark Johnson."

"He put you down as a relative. You're not Ruth Anne Johnson?"

"Ruth Anne Johnson died in 2002."

"Thank you for your time." Click.

Flora M Johnson, Ruth Anne Johnson and cat, circa 1990

I didn't get a chance to ask what the heck it was all about. Who is Mark Johnson? It is barely possibly that he is (or was) a relative of mine. My mom, Dr. Ruth Anne Johnson, had only one sibling, Flora D Johnson. Aunt Flora had just one child, Vereene, whom she gave up for adoption. As far as I know, Vereene, whom I've never met except in emails, is my only living relative on my mom's side of the family.

From Family photos

But my maternal grandfather, Ambrose Alexis Johnson , could well have had siblings. My brother Steve would probably know. He's the only one in the family who tracks this stuff. So this Mark could be a cousin once removed or something. I should ask him.

Or perhaps there is, or was, another Ruth Anne Johnson in the world. Johnson is a very common name. There could be a number of them. And Mark Johnson, possibly Marc Johnson? There must be thousands of those in the U.S. Is one of them my second cousin or something? Maybe. Do I care? Not really. But for the moment I'm intrigued.

So all the best to you, Mark Johnson. I hope they're tracking you down so you can inherit a pot of money from another obscure, distant relative of mine.

Karen

My Grandmother the Candidate

My grandmother picks strawberries at Windswept, circa 1950.

As far as I know, my maternal grandmother's only living relatives at this point are a cousin I've never met, my brother and myself. She was not an especially cuddly, doting grandmother, but I got along with her pretty well as a child. She was a bit of a rebel and an adventurer, a modern woman of the 1940s, more or less. I wish now I knew a bit more about her. She moved away from DeWitt, NY circa 1968-1970, just as I entered my teens, so we never really had anything like an adult conversation.

I was thinking about her today as I chatted in the dog park with a woman who was a feminist of the 1960s. She said she grew up watching 1940s films in which women went out and did things and had romances, unfettered by parents or children. Think Katherine Hepburn, but she named several other major actresses of the day, who "weren't especially pretty" but were strong, adult characters. That was the impression of adult life my new friend grew up with, only to encounter something very different when she got there herself. "I saw all my friends rushing into marriage and children," she said, "and it didn't seem right to me. That's supposed to happen at the end of the movie, not at the beginning." Welcome to the baby boom. My friend went her own way, traveled, had a career, and eventually got married. Twice.

Thinking about strong women of the 1940s, I tried to tell my friend about my grandmother, Flora D. Johnson, the first woman in Onondaga County to run for Congress. But I had my chronology all mixed up and couldn't keep straight what happened when. Tonight I looked it up, both on my own web pages and in other sources, including The New York Times. Here is what I know of her story:

The two Floras, circa 1940s.

Flora Missellier DuFour was born June 28, 1895 in Stratford, Connecticut, the daughter of Charles Edwin DuFour of New Haven (Jul 27 1867-Feb 6 1950) and Mary Adelaide Beardsley (dates unknown). She married Ambrose Alexis Johnson of Scranton PA (Sep 12 1891 - Aug 18 1950), with whom she had her two children, Flora M. Johnson and my mom, Ruth Anne Johnson (originally Ruth Louise Johnson). As a small child my mom, who looked a bit like Shirley Temple at the time, tap danced in the street and was given money by strangers, much to her parents' mortification.

Ambrose Johnson owned a small machine tool company, for which the elder Flora was Vice President. The two daughters also helped out in the office. There may have been trouble in the family even then, though, because I'm not sure Ambrose was around when Flora and her daughters lived at Windswept, a farm in Tully, NY. Mom told me that sometimes other farmers would bring them vegetables to eat. Flora and her daughters picked their own strawberries. I gather that my mom and grandmother didn't get along very well, but I only have the vaguest idea why.

My grandfather, Ambrose Johnson. As he was dying of cancer,
he tried to bribe my mom not to get married.

A member of the Democratic Party, Flora ran for the Congress of the United States in 1940, the first woman in the history of Onondaga County, NY to do so. She was successful up to a point, becoming the Democratic nominee for Representative at Large. According to The New York Times, Eleanor Roosevelt was scheduled to attend a reception and tea at the Hotel Astor in her honor on September 24, 1940. But Flora lost in the general election, reportedly due to personal scandal - which is to say, the local newspapers reported she was having an affair. She got a divorce from Ambrose (a Roman Catholic) in Reno in 1943, and in 1944 she married Thomas Ballantyne. Ballantyne had this second marriage annulled in 1948, and the court ruled she was still married to Johnson. Ambrose Johnson died of cancer two years later. Flora retained the name Ballantyne on correspondence for decades thereafter, but finished her life as Flora D. Johnson.

Flora in her officer's uniform, probably well after the War.

It must have been shortly after her run for Congress that my grandmother enlisted, becoming an officer (a WAVE or a WAC, I don't remember which) in World War II. After the war she was a licensed real estate broker in Dewitt, NY (1950s-1960s). My Aunt Flora, a civil engineer, lived briefly in Guam, got pregnant, came home to live with her mother and gave the baby, my cousin Vereene, up for adoption in 1954. (I'm not sure of the order of events, where my Aunt Flora got pregnant or when she moved in with her mother.) At some point after that, my aunt worked on the Interstate Highway System.

Once she was single (and possibly before that) my grandmother frequently visited Europe, especially Venice, where she once shared a flooded hotel with playwright Thornton Wilder. She brought back a fair amount of Venetian glass and jewelry, very little of which remains among my mom's effects. Sometimes my aunt was with her on her overseas adventures.

I remember the two Floras as living together at the end of a street in DeWitt, near Clark Real Estate and not far from Grandmother's favorite place to eat, Howard Johnson's. I remember visiting overnight once, and Grandmother made me lumpy Cream of Wheat, which I loved. (I upset my mom asking for lumpy Cream of Wheat thereafter.) For Christmas one year she gave me a drink and wet doll, which I didn't care about because that was the year I got Chatty Baby. Around 1965 she gave me her 1941 printing of Winnie the Pooh and an 1868 book called The Cricket's Friends. She kept dog biscuits for the cocker spaniel next door, which tied me to a tree one day by running around and around while I cried out for help. She took me to Tully once to pick strawberries on what remained of her land there, which by then was heavily overgrown. On the way back we ate at a diner, possibly my favorite restaurant at the time, the Orville Barbecue. That's when she introduced me to ice tea. And that's pretty much the extent of my memories of her.

The two Floras moved to Fairfax, VA in the late 1960s or possibly 1970s, where Aunt Flora continued her career until health issues forced her to retire. They moved to Cocoa Beach, FL (1977-early 1980s). My grandmother had a series of pacemaker operations in the 1970s. She died in Florida on July 6, 1984.

I have questions now that can't be answered by paying $3.95 each for PDF copies of old newspaper articles. Was she a New Deal Democrat? It seems likely, and good for her. It doesn't sound as though she was much cut out to be a wife and mother, although the two Floras got along well as mature adults. What was the issue between her and my mom? Why did she risk a seat in the House of Representatives by getting involved with another man? Why didn't she and Ambrose get along? When the the family live at Windswept, and was Ambrose with them at the time?

I guess I'll never know.

Karen