Well well well it has been a little while. I must apologize for not blogging recently, I've only now really gotten the stomach to take time to come back and do it. You see in between now and the time of my last post my grandfather passed away at the age of 81. He went in his sleep, which is how he wanted it. It really got to all of us but if anyone was ever asking for it, it was him. He was on chemo, though he was still beating down the cancer. He had two hernia surgeries recently, the second because he was extremely stubborn and refused to sit and recover like the doctors told him. He was out shoveling snow off of his roof about 4 days after the surgery. He still drank a manhattan (At least 1) every day while watching TV, he still worked around the house, and he still spent most of the year in his cabin in Great Valley hunting.
If anyone in my family ever really lived their life it was him. He had hunted for years. He did ice fishing, he was an Air Force Vet, and he was a hardass. To give you a bit of an idea, some favorite stories:
One year at Thanksgiving I was offered a piece of pie. I turned it down and said no thanks I've had enough I'm trying to lose weight. Whitey responded by looking me up and down and saying, "What are you 20? It's far too late for that eat your damn pie!"
His preferred method of body disposal, and I'm fairly sure he was just kidding was to be cremated. Then strung to a couple balloons and set afloat over the land they owned in Great Valley. He then asked that his sons drink up and take pot shots at it with their hunting rifles, and wherever he fell, to just leave him there.
My grandpa was also a pilot, and an ice-fisherman. Needless to say these do not tend to go well together. Anyways, he decided to land his Cessna 150 on frozen Lake Chautauqua, then taxi to his friends and fish. He'd done it twice successfully, but the third time, and this can be looked up in old papers, his front wheel fell through the ice, damaging his propeller. When the press showed up his only response was "I'm fine, go away, go away, go away." The title of the piece that ran was perfect. "Pilot, 61, suffers only one injury in plane crash. A bruised ego." He installed a new propeller that day, and took off from the lake later.
Whitey was the best. In 81 years he never failed to fix something, bring home a kill, or win an argument. There was a right way of doing something, a wrong way, and Whitey's way. Which was invariably even better than the right way. And always worked. In the word's of his brother Howard, "He was the greatest. And we all miss him."
I miss you grandpa. And I hope to God he stocks Whiskey and a broken down home or twelve in Heaven, because I know you won't be happy otherwise.
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