I suppose
I had better go about posting something here. Usually if I wait too long, Becka attacks my blog and then I'm in trouble.
Classes started for me at The Wichita State University and once again, I hate Spanish. Why we have to have 15 freaking hours of it is well beyond my shallow grasp. Sure I can understand 5 hours or even 6 hours, but 15 is almost a semester's worth of spanish classes. Hell if I know.
Things are about to get retarded busy too. Dove season opens shortly and hopefully the parts for my gun will be here. The only thing that really sucked about that was that the two parts I needed came to a total of $6.00. However, my order will cost me $14.88 thanks to shipping and handling. Is something wrong when the S&H charges are more than the original order itself? All for two little detaining springs. Of course these parts are incredibly important as they keep my trigger from dropping out. Yes, that has happened. There is not a lot of shooting one can do with the whole trigger system dangling like a broken tree branch still attached by a string of bark.
Football on the radio starts on Sept. 1. Throw in my sister's high school volleyball and my cousin's college volleyball and suddenly I become busy. However, with college volleyball there one nice factor and that is the shorts the players wear.
ENOUGH ALREADY!!!
I've had it.
Since the general public is apparently out to kill me, I'm going to carry a handgun and start shooting back. Tonight it was some idiot Iowa driver who thought that the STOP sign was a yield sign. They nearly plowed me and my bike as they sped through the intersection. It wouldn't have been pretty as I'm pretty sure I would have lost.
However, I do know what car it was and where it will be parked. Revenge anyone?
You'd think I'd remember?
Oh heck no.
My password to my WSU stuff was long gone. That made it rather tough to log in to register for my classes. I had to go back in through a long-ago process of logging in to change my password to something I could remember. Then it struggled to work. Finally it did, and I was able to register for my classes.
I hate WSU. Really I do. That's all there is to it.
On a serious note, I thank everyone for the kind words that were said to me after my grandpa's passing. It meant a lot to me.
The funeral is over
Robert Dale Erb was born October 13, 1926 to Mose and Ida Erb in Beaver Crossing, Neb. He was the sixth of 11 children.
When Gramps was about 8, the family moved south of Shickley. Shortly there after, the family moved north of Shickley, to Martland, where Gramps attended school. At 12 years old, Ida passed away and his older sister took care of the family. His father instilled a sense of family, which generated to our present family.
On June 13,1945, he was drafted and chose to be a non-combatant in the Army for World War II. He worked at Fitzsimmons General Hospital in Denver, before being assigned to Ft. Eustis, VA. From there Gramps worked as an aide on a medical ship, which voyaged to France and returned loaded with wounded. After his stint aboard the ship, Gramps worked in the motor pool where he tested potential Army truck drivers. When testing the drivers, he always said that if they "jammed the brakes or ground the gears," he'd flunk the people being tested.
He was discharged in October of 1946 and returned back to the Shickley area.
He married Mary Troyer on August 25, 1949. In 1951, the couple had their first child Kathy. In 1952, the family moved to the Geneva area where Gramps took up farming. Their second child Jim was born in 1953 followed by their third child, Lori in 1957. On the farm, they had a little bit of everything from a few chickens, to hogs, cattle and even horses.
During the time when Gramps was farming, his family became wonderful friends with the Kimbrough family. The two families were intertwined for many years as the children played together, and the parents worked together or helped one another. From playing croquet under the lights after the farming was done, to watching the kids take part in the Saddle Club, or even playing pitch after the winter chores were finished, the Erbs and the Kimbroughs were often together.
When Gramps's kids had an interest in something, he always tried to accommodate his kids in the best way he could. He took a genuine interest in seeing his children happy. Kathy received her first horse, Jim ended up with a go-cart, but by the time "Pee-Wee" Lori came along, it seemed she got everything she wanted.
In January of 1966 the time came for farmers to either buy more land and new equipment or pursue other interests. Grandma had attended the Hesston academy and loved the community so the family packed up and moved to Hesston. Gramps worked in the Post Office part time and at the local Ford dealership, eventually working full time at the dealership. During 1969, Gramps built and managed the local mobile home park until 1982. Once again, the selling of cars called him back to various dealerships until 2005.
Grandpa was a kind and gentle soul. One of the fairest people ever to walk this earth, he took a real joy in helping people, a task he often did behind the scenes. In his fairness came his attitude of "Don't be critical," a way of thinking that Gramps always had. He was always the rock of the family, often in the background, but always a quiet strength on which to lean on. Never needing any personal accolades, he was satisfied with seeing people happy. When asked one time what appealed to him about the selling of cars, he replied that he really liked seeing people happy when he found exactly what they wanted.
That joy of seeing people happy also carried over into the mobile home business because again, he felt a true joy when he could help people, especially young couples that were after their first place to call their own as they just were beginning to get their feet underneath them.
Family was everything to Gramps. He loved spending time with his children, and his grandchildren. A proud grandfather, he attended events, banquets, concerts and last but not least ballgames as best he could. He treasured every moment that he spent with his grandchildren. Gramps and Jesse spent many one on one lunches together and he enjoyed that time immensely.
As one of us tells it, his lap was always a place the grandchildren congregated. Gramps always liked to have one of the girls in his lap. Fortunately as the girls got bigger, there seemed to be another one that was the perfect size to hop up into Grandpa's lap.
Gramps also opened his home to friends and family especially during the holidays, every one from Thanksgiving to the Fourth of July. People looked forward to coming to the Erb household for the gatherings.
Gramps loved to laugh. He could tell jokes with the best of them, and he could also laugh at himself with ease. Blessed with a wonderful sense of humor, he could take gentle ribbing but could give as good as he got.
And the sayings. Oh the sayings. No one has ever explained where they came from, or where they originated, but there always seemed to be a saying for every occasion. Once, Dad and Gramps were working on something that they needed a piece of rope about 4-5 feet long. Dad cut a piece of rope and Gramps fixed it with a appraising eye before summing up the situation with "When I go to catch that bull, that rope will be too short," which made no sense because Gramps had no bull to catch.
"Twice around the pump," "Not worth a plugged nickel," have often been uttered if the situation demanded it.
Gramps never lost his sense of humor throughout everything that he battled in his waning days. After his diagnosis he always said of his illness "It's no hill for a climber." Of course, following that, Gramps topped himself with "Don't put me in a box yet." As his illness progressed, Gramps even asked the doctor "Well Doc, is it time to call a spade a spade?"
Even then, his humor prevailed. Once, Grandma dashed him through the house in the wheelchair. Afterwards, he said "Gimme the phone. I'm going to call Skeet." (Gramps's long time local mechanic)
"Why?" she asked.
"I'm gonna see if he can take high gear outta this thing."
When Grandpa was called to heaven, he went willingly and knowingly, not concerned with himself but with how everyone else would be because that's the kind of man he was. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that there's a whole bunch of souls driving new cars up in heaven.
I look back to april
and to a post I wrote on April 26. At that point, I really thought my grandfather was on the verge of passing on. Little did I know that he would plateau. And plateau he did. Thing seemed good but like all terminal paitents, he slipped a little.
During the last month or so, I would dash over to their house in the morning, help him into his wheelchair and wheel him up the stairs by myself. Usually I'd count the eight steps in spanish or german, just to say i'm trilingual. I'd wheel him to the barish/counter thingy so he could have his breakfast. Then in the evenings, I'd cruise back and take him downstairs so he could get ready for bed. By now he was weak, but he could still stand on his own to make the wheelchair. There was always some witty comment that would cause me to laugh, especially when he referred to the nurse that came as a "squaw."
Mom, my uncle or even my aunt when she came from Nebraska, would take turns sleeping over there to help Gramps up if he got up in the middle of the night. The past few weeks, they've had him on oxygen at night to ease his breathing. On Friday though, he was too weak to even stand. Steph's boyfriend was the one who helped him down that night as I was previously occupied.
Saturday came and Gramps couldn't stand on his own. Dad and I went over and helped him up the stairs. The Hospice nurse came to put in a catheter so we wheeled him back down stairs to the hospital bed. She installed the catheter, so dad and I wheeled him back up the stairs to his favorite chair. Then my pops and I tore apart the hospital bed. We hauled that monstrosity upstairs so he could be in the living room, along with the oxygen tanks plus we moved the furniture around in the living room. At that point, I knew that Gramps was officially bed ridden because he didn't have enough strength to sit up and the pain was tremendous. They upped the dosage of morphine.
Yesterday he had trouble communicating at times. Today, he was nearly comatose and his breathing was becoming incredibly laborish. The pain medicine was going to be upped again as minor movements caused my grandfather inordinate amounts of pain. I was over there at about 3 ish because I was planning to mow but the mower was dead. I went home showered, ran a couple of errands and came back to the house at 5:25.
Today at 5:20, my grandfather's battle with the cancer ended. To be honest about it, I feel relief because it was such a battle for a long time. Longer than what we were expecting after the April diagnosis. Lung cancer that goes to the brain is truly horriffic stuff but his fight was heroic. I just feel as if I was incredibly lucky to spend as much time as we did with him. Everyday after April was a bonus and he even made it to a couple of my softball games because he wanted to see one of his two grandsons play ball since he has been nearly a fixture at all of his children's and his grandchildren's events.
Being the humanitarian Gramps was, a long time ago he had decided to donate his body to science since he suffered from celiac sprue, a condition in which he was allergic to gluten and wheat. Hospice came and got the body ready to be transported to the KU Med Center. Now for some reason that idea gave my mom the heebie jeebies so she decided she wasn't going to be in the house. She went home while most of us stayed there.
To set the scene for what happened next, my grandparents live in a split level house. You walk into the house through the little foyer and on your left is the open living room, then stairs on your right just past two closets up to the three bedrooms and the bathroom that are up stairs. The kitchen is on the other side of the living room. The hospital bed was up against the wall in the living room. Jim told me to call mom and tell her it was over after they had removed the body from the house.
I did as I was told. I helped bring in the food that a family friend went to the trouble of preparing just as Mom pulled in the driveway. Coming out of the kitchen I bounded to my stairs, a place where I always perch during the "gathering" moments of family getogethers. At this point i'm desperately trying to conceal laughter because Jim is being really really bad. He mouths for me to get mom, so I call her over with a straight face under the pretense of asking if there was garlic in the food. She turns to see Jim laying on that hospital bed, stiff as a board, staring at the ceiling with his mouth open. I lost it as did everyone else. I'm slowly sliding down the steps weak with laughter as the rest of us in the living room are laughing. My mom did the only thing she could do and she flipped Jim off with both fingers which caused us to laugh harder. It was a much needed flicker of light in a dim day.
