WARNING: Image heavy rant ahead, so I made two pages.
Our Earthly toil plows ahead. Back in PDX now after a week in Minnesota, with a wedding, a surgery, a funeral and a lot of living inbetween. Just hours after my arrival, the family asked me to do the eulogy for my grandmother Marion. OK, cram 94 years of globetrotting, teaching, being the town and family matriarch, playing music - not to mention slaying the world with laughter - into a few minutes on folded paper stuck in my suit pocket. A humble man, I am.
I wanted to do an old gospel song for her, but it was quickly decided all us music and theatrically inclined relatives would have to fight for the spotlight, so let's keep it simple. Grandma Marion would have loved the big show, but things don't always come together, yet we go on.
This is Staples, Minnesota, home of most of my family. A lot of the Midwest looks like this and if you could hear the train whistle and feel the humid air you'd be there. The view is from the ??? star Super 8 motel on Highway 10. Color TV and phone in every room.
Church buddy John Moore won grandma's car at the church auction a few years back ( he didn't intend to buy it, he was just driving up the bids. But he ended up with it anyway. He drove it to the funeral and parked it on the curb as a tribute. When grandma was coming, ya best get outta the way, or deal with the consequences.
They let us tour the recently restored Batcher's Opera House. Marion played for the silent movies here before the 'talkies' came to town.
She played Lord knows how many gigs. I think, but I can't be sure, that I absorbed classical, the blues, gospel, dixieland, big band swing, and country from this woman. I mean, did I miss anything?
Just off Main Street, Staples USA. Not a whole lot had changed since I was there last. It feels like an S.E. Hinton novel.
Wendy (my sis), myself, cousin Ann, and brother in-law Chris at the opera house. Downstairs is an antique store where I got a Johnny Cash 'I walk the line' 45 on the original Sun Records label for $5.
