A good time on a sad day

To celebrate or to grieve, that was the question.

Today would have been Joanne's 68th birthday had she survived.  This being the first birthday since her death I was at a bit of a quandry as to what to do with myself.  First inclination was to make the 65 mile drive down to the cemetery to put new flowers on her grave.  (I'll do that tomorrow.)  The more I thought about it she would have preferred a more joyous time than that.  So, I decided to surround myself with family and have a cookout at the house.  All three of my kids with their families came together today along with Joanne's mom.

With everyones busy schedules it is hard to get all of them together at one time.  As it was I had all of them except for one granddaughter so we had a good crowd.  Cooked hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill and had potato salad and cole slaw.  Plenty of food to go around with enough left over for me to eat for a few days.  (Since I'm really not much of a kitchen person I relied on the local deli for the salads.)  For desert Carrie and her grandmother (Jo's Mom) brought a cake.  Everything was pretty much ready when they all arrived and afterwards the kids jumped in and cleaned everything up. 

The adults:

Alex and his girlfriend Cristie; Alan and his partner Cathy; Carrie and her husband John; Mardell and me.

The Grands:

Catlin and Madison

JJ, Aurora and Cadence

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, Alex and Alan are my biological children.  Carrie is my child by choice.  (She is biologically Joanne's niece but she is just as much mine as the boys are.)  Mardell is Joanne's Mom.  Catlin and Madison are Alan's stepchildren, JJ is Carrie and John's son, Aurora is Alan's daughter from a previous relationship, and Cadence is Alan and Cathy's daughter.  The only one missing was Emma, Alan's other daughter from a previous relationship.  (Got all that firgured out?)  We are not the most typical of families but we are family and I enjoy each and everyone of them.  Filling the house with these people was the best thing I could have done to make a potentially sad day into a celebration.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day in this country.  This is the day we are to decorate the graves of our loved ones.  It all started as "Decoration Day" and was a day to decorate the graves and honor of the people who had died as a result of serving in our armed forces.  Later the name was changed to Memorial Day and has, over the years, come to be a day to decorate all graves, not just those of Veterans.

I did my decorating duties this past Saturday at the family plots in the cemetery in Byars, Oklahoma.  (See previous blog entry.)  Due to some medical issues that I'm having taken care of later this week I have been limited in what I can do.  Actually I overdid things last Saturday and paid for it yesterday.  Today I was feeling a bit better so I drove out to Chapel Hill Cemetery here in Oklahoma City to take some more grave pictures for the website findagrave.com.  This is a large cemetery that I've been visiting for some time in an attempt to get all the graves documented in Find A Grave.  Today the place was full of people seeking out their loved ones graves.  Wound up spending about two hours there taking pictures of headstones and visiting with some of the people there.  Most people find it interesting as to why I'm there with a camera taking headstone pictures.  In most cases people are very appreciative of what we are trying to accomplish.

I was inspired by the number of people out today and it really lifted my spirits.  After returning home I decided to look up on the Internet some of the tunes posted by my good friends, Ron & Kay Rivoli.  One of my favorites is the one they made specifically for Memorial Day.  It is called "Freedom Is Not Free".  They have recorded several video's of this number on You Tube over the years.  Please go to You Tube to hear what these folks have to say about this special day by clicking on the name of the song above.

Getting ready for Memorial Day

A trip to the cemetery.

With Memorial Day coming up this next Monday it was time to go to the family plots in the Byars, Oklahoma, cemetery to spruce up the graves of our loved ones.  I met up with my Dad and his youngest sister, Laveta, today and went down with a car load of artificial flowers.  I had picked up things for my Mom and Joanne's graves.  Aunt Laveta, who normally takes responsibility of taking care of this each year, had arrangements for all the rest.

First stop was at Joanne.  Prior to leaving for the RV rally earlier this month I had put some nice flowers on her grave.  They still looked pretty go but I replaced them today with some new spring flowers.

Next was my Mom, who is one plot over from Joanne.  The pink flowers were the ones I brought today.  Earlier in the week, on May 22, my brother Chester had taken Dad down and placed the wreath there.  The 22nd marked the one year anniversary since Mom passed away.  We also put flowers on Aunt Esther (another of Dad's sisters) and uncle Joe's grave.  They are on the opposite side of Joanne.  Actually there are four family markers in a row here, along the main road coming into the cemetery.  The fourth one (the red on in the picture below) is a pre-need marker for my oldest brother and his wife, who are still very much alive.  We joke that since Bill is the oldest and I am the youngest of our parents four sons it is appropriate that we be on each side of the folks.  That makes us the bookends.

After finishing up in this section (which is referred to as the new section of the cemetery) we moved farther south where many of the other Stone's are buried.  The center of that plot are where my paternal grandparents are located.  On each side of their headstone are flower pots that were originally on the front porch of their house in Byars.  The pots need to be painted but it was just too windy to accomplish that today.  I'll go down on a day when the wind is a bit calmer and take care of it.

We wound up spending about three hours at the cemetery taking care of the graves while also visiting with some of my cousins that came by to take care of their parents graves.  With Dad and Aunt Laveta getting up in years it was a bit tiring for them.  Additionally, I've got some medical things going on right now too so we were all ready to head back to town.

After dropping them off at the assisted living center where Dad lives in Purcell I headed back home.  On the way I stopped by the cemetery in Oklahoma City where Joanne's Dad, Ted Priolo, is buried.  One of my granddaughters and I had put flowers on his grave some time back and they need to be replaced.  Also, since he is a World War II veteran I try to keep an American flag on his grave year round.  I had picked up some red, white and blue flowers for him.

Hopefully during this holiday weekend, while people are enjoying themselves at the lake or cooking out in the yard we can all stop long enough to remember what the day is for.  Though originally a day set aside to honor our war dead it is now more a day to remember all of our loved ones who have left this life and have gone on ahead of us to prepare us a place.  So, have a blessed Memorial Day.

Dinner with some cousins

Fine dinner and a good visit.

Met up with some cousins tonight for dinner.  Actually these are first cousins, once removed.  These are the children of my first cousin, Jerry Stone.  Jerry's youngest daughter, Sue, now lives in South Dakota where she works as psychologist for the Indian Health Service.  She has been visiting friends and family here in Oklahoma this week.  We met up at the Charleston Restaurant down on the south side of the city for dinner.  We were joined by two of her brothers, Bob and Rick.  This was a great visit with some relatives I have not seen in awhile.

Dr. Sue Stone

Bob & Debbie Stone

Sue with Juquetta & Rick Stone and their daughter Holly

Spring Rally 2012--Day 16

Working the rally, a little Pacific Island music and then it was over.

The rally just keeps rolling along.  Most of my time has been spent taking care of the financial matters but otherwise I've pretty well hung out at the coach with my dogs.  It has been really hard doing all this without Joanne.  Outside of our families the people in this club were the ones that Joanne was closest too.  I did spend some time out on the golf cart taking a few pictures of this beautiful park.  Directly in the middle of all of this is a great little lake.  It is situated between the RV Park and the rest of the facility.

CERAland Lake

Thursday and Friday were pretty routine with the necessary seminars.  Some of the members took tours of the Cummins Engine Plant to see how the big diesel engines that push these beast along are made.  Thursday evening after dinner, in lieu of paid entertainment, was a rousing evening of Bingo with some pretty good prizes.  Friday evening we were entertained by the Jerry Clark Group.  This basically consist of three brothers who sing music from the Pacific Islands while their wives perform as hula dancers.  The theme for the evening was Hawaiian including the meal. 

Jerry Clark Group

Many of our members dressed in their best Hawaiian attire.  Here is Carol Lenoir and Ernie (Ernestine?) Robertson.

During this rally we had an election of officers for the next two years.  Most of the current officers were reelected.  After four years as the Treasurer I chose to step aside and let someone new take over.  This decision was made during the past year, before we knew of Joanne's illness.  I have enjoyed keeping the accounts for the club but in this past year my interest has waned.  On Friday night I was recognized by the club President, Gary Granat, for the job I had done.  Was given a very nice Discover account gift card.  I took a few minutes to address the rally to express all the support that I had been given and especially there cards, letters, e-mails and phone calls that came in over the past few months.  There are no better people on earth than RV people and the Monaco America club are the best of the bunch.

Gary Granat recognizing my work as club Treasurer

Today was spent mostly with closing out the financial records for this rally, making sure all the bills were paid and transferring all the files and records over to the new Treasurer, Bob Allen.  This included a trip to the next town, about 20 miles away, to the nearest branch of Chase Bank to have me taken off the accounts and Bob put on.  We also spent a couple of hours going over the accounts so he felt a little more comfortable with our accounting spreadsheets.  Around 7:00 this evening we transferred all the boxes of material from the back of my car into his motor home.  This included all the financial historical records of the club and the rallies, all the club logo merchandise that we sell at the rallies and the large plastic tub that holds the working supplies.  Can't say that I'm sorry to get rid of all that stuff I've had to haul around for the past four years.  So, the rally is over and most of the coaches pulled out today.  There are probably a dozen or so left here.  Most of us will be on the road tomorrow morning.  The dogs and I will head out in the morning.  If all goes well we should be back home sometime Monday evening.

Spring Rally 2012--Day 13

A visit with the Army and a POW camp.

Today was a visit to the local Army base, Camp Atterbury.  This is a training and staging base for troops heading off to Afghanistan.  The first part of the tour was was to an area of a World War II prisoner of war camp.  Many Italian and German prisoners were held here during and immediately after the war.  (Many people do not know there were many of these camps scattered all over the country during the war.  The purpose of to remove the prisoners from the European Theater of War so they could not escape and rejoin the fighting.)  About all that is left of this POW camp is a rock inscribed with the camp unit number and a small chapel that was built by the Italian prisoners.

The base tour was done using two school type buses.  We had a young Army Captain conducting our tour and she was very knowledgeable about the base and it's mission.  After the tour was complete our last stop was at the base Dining Facility, what in times past would have been called the Mess Hall.  We had a good lunch there and an opportunity to visit with the soldiers who would be deploying soon.  This was a pretty good tour and a chance to say thank you to our nations defenders.

Spring Rally 2012--Day 12

And the beat goes on.

A bit of a different day here at the rally.  Breakfast served by the caterer and then pretty much on our own.  I had scheduled for the local Cummins people to do service on my coach and that took most of the afternoon.  Oil and filter change on the diesel engine, lube job and then oil and filter change on the Onan generator.  Also had a new air filter installed.  Took them about two hours to do all the work but the charges were very reasonable.

The evening consisted of dinner by the caterer but no entertainment was scheduled.  The park here, CERAland, works with the Make A Wish Foundation so the club volunteered to help.  Tickets were sold for $1.00 each all during the dinner hour.  After dinner a drawing was held with two winners.  Half the proceeds went to Make A Wish with the other half split between the two winners.  One of the winners then donated his winnings also.  We wound up raising $319.00  for Make A Wish.

Spring Rally 2012--Day 11

Busy day and Rock & Roll.

The rally officially started today.  This morning was a "flea market".  Each coach owner was encouraged to set up anything they didn't need anymore for sale.  There were several folks who put out tables with their wares.  Some had RV related stuff, some had antiques and several had craft items they had made.  Everyone seemed to have a good time browsing through each others "junk".

A big part of my day was spent working in the coach on club's financial records.  We are receiving applications, along with checks, for the next rally that will be this October in Iowa.  Also, there are a couple of tours set up for later in the week.  The club, meaning me, collects the individual fees for the tours and then I'll write one check when we arrive at the location.  I did take a little time to go over to the shooting range here at CERAland.  They have a nice range set up for those of us who have an enthusiasm for guns.  I took one hand gun and one of my AR15 rifles over and punched about 300 hundred holes in some targets.  (The only problem with the shooting range is it is located directly next to the area set aside for walking the dogs.  Buddy Joe does not like being that close to the sound of gunfire and jumps each time someone shoots a round off.)

 

Tonight was the first night of entertainment at the rally.  After a great dinner, that was provided by our caterer, we were entertained by Blair Carman and his band.  This is a group from Cincinnati, Ohio, that does a great 1950's show.  The theme for the night was the 50's so we did have several of our folks show up dressed in their best 1950's attire.  (This is Judy Wagner and Carol Lenoir all decked out in their poodle skirts.)

Spring Rally 2012--Day 10

Activities starting for real and some really down time.

Most of our rally attendees have arrived and have set up their coaches, even though the rally does not actually begin until tomorrow evening.  This has been a bit of a down day for me.  This being Mother's Day everyone is in a mood of celebrating their wives and mothers.  This just brought back the thought of losing both my mother and my wife this past year.  At dinner tonight roses were handed out to the ladies and I was given a white one in honor of Joanne.  It was all I could do not to burst into tears.  Everyone here means well but most don't really know how to react or know what I'm going through.

A big help has been my friend Judy Wagner and her husband Forrest.  Judy lost both of her parents this past year and is also trying to cope. with this.  Tonight we had a pot luck dinner for all the folks who have come in early and I made sure to sit with the Wagner's.  Judy and Joanne had become good friends during the last few rallies and she is very understanding of my situation.

Our club President and his wife, Gary and Caroll Granat, have also been a great help also this week.  He has encouraged me to stay involved and busy with the club business and that has helped.  I've got the club treasury records to maintain and will be giving my Treasurer's report to the membership during our business meeting later in the week.  At that same meeting we'll have officer elections and a new Treasurer will be elected since I have decided to give up this position.  I'll then spend some time transferring the records to the new Treasurer and helping that person to get up to speed with the accounts.

Spring Rally 2012--Day 9

Gearing up for the rally and meeting up with old friends.

Been a busy few days as the club member's continue to arrive to get ready for the rally.  As of today most of the coaches have come in.  Many of our long time friends are here and it is good to see them again, although it is a bit hard to deal with all the condolences about the loss of Joanne.  Most of these same people were with us at the Fall Rally last October and were as shocked as I was with her sudden death.

I've been helping with the parking the last couple of days so due to that I've been furnished my own golf cart for use during the rally.  The RV campground is a good distance from where the rally activities will be held so this will help in carrying all my stuff, as club treasurer, back and forth.  This afternoon we had several coaches arriving at once so it took all three of us with carts to escort them to their sites.

We've been eating well here in Columbus.  Went to dinner on Friday evening with Forrest and July Wagner, friends from Missouri.  We went back over to Seymore to The Pine's Restaurant for their buffet.  Tonight I joined up with Bob & Sally Allen and Bert & Kathy Garcia to go to a Chinese food buffet.  One thing this club does well is eat.  In addition each night we had a fire circle for everyone to visit and catch up on what has been happening since last October.