Maybe God Really Is Love

The signboard at the church across from our new place in Greenwood, Seattle.  Here at IBL we echo the congratulations, and hope the two brides have a beautiful day they can look back on with much happiness...

Everybody in...

IBL:mm

In Which I Drive My Dead Father's Pick-up Truck

It was a 1976 Toyota long bed that I'd originally thought was white, but in fact turned out to be the faintest shade of some kind of odd green.  (I got colour blindness issues - what are you gonna do?) Anyway, the week before my father died, my brother and I came down from northern California to Orange County to see it through, and we were staying at my mother's house (his mother, my father's first wife, died in childbirth).  After my father died, on March 9th, 1987 - just around the corner; I wonder if that's what's put all this in my mind - there were things to attend to, and one afternoon I was out with the pick-up running errands.  When I was done, I parked the truck in front of the house and came through the living room and into the kitchen, and they were both there, both of them staring at me with utter and complete disappointment.  I will never forget the looks on their faces.  They'd seen the Toyota pull up in front of the house, but then it had gone out of sight, and they were wondering if maybe.  And, when it wasn't him...

How can you blame them.  I'd seen that truck pull up in front of 721 N. El Rey Drive, La Habra, CA  hundreds of times myself - I mean I can see it right now, 27 years later - and each and every time there he was, with a sack of groceries under one arm or with the mail in his hands or with a story about something he had seen when he was out.  Each and every time, there he was...

Ah, here he is now...



IBL:mm

My Dead Father Received Quite a Bit of Mail

I mean it happens, of course.  It might have happened to you with a loved one of your very own.  It's nobody's fault, but I'd come home to visit my mother months later, more than a year later one time; I'd run out to the mailbox and there it would be - "Mr. Murray - DON'T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY!"  Or it was time to renew his Driver's License.  (I still have it, his last Driver's License, in his last wallet, with a variety of other cards and six one dollar bills.)  Or AARP wanted to share some important news.

Danielle and I moved into our new condo in Seattle this past Saturday, and I was reminded of my dead father's mail just yesterday when I received something addressed to Mei Tso Sporman, who lived here before us, and from whose estate we bought our home.  I expect I will be seeing quite a bit of her name in the coming weeks and months.  Wherever it is that she may be, I sincerely send her my very best.


IBL:mm

And So Then RIGHT This OTHER Guy I Knew

got invited to dinner at the house of a blind man who owned a vacuum repair shop and when the blind man opened the door this guy stuck out his hand for a shake and didn't HE look the fool.  Though the blind man couldn't see that, either...

IBL:mm

Then I Knew This Other Guy One Time

who somehow mixed up Jethro Tull with the character portrayed by Max Baer, Jr. on The Beverly Hillbillies and, to be perfectly honest, this caused quite the kerfuffle as well...

IBL:mm

I Knew This Guy Once

who was talking about that one album by Rush and he called it "Two One One Two" instead of "Twenty-one Twelve" and OH! the abuse he took from everyone, so much abuse...

IBL:mm

And We're Back...