I know all the conic sections

garth<metablahg>I go for days and days on end without being able to think of something to blaaaahhhhg about. And then three topics happen at once. An OCD daily bla[aaaa]h[hhhh]gger asks herself, “Do I try to jam them all roly-poly-pell-mell into today’s post or do I save a couple of them for next week when I am heads down boogity-boogity into the technical writing aspect of my systems analyst job and by the end of the day can’t string a sentence like, “Go wash the dishes.” together to save my life.</metablahg>

It turns out that all of my potential posts for the day centered around the GG and his various activities and antics but it was a request of his that made me decide on one. As you can see, it is the anniversary of the guy in the drivers license’s birthday today. He would’ve been [checks birthdate and does math] 93 today. Alas, he died in 2001. His death was not unexpected and many family members made it down to see him that fall including his first great-grandchild, who was a very young infant. The GG wasn’t there when his dad died but traveled down to Fla that Halloween to say what turned out to be goodbye. (and being immediately post 911, his Broker’s knife was confiscated (if I have it right). I bought him a new one. I’m pretty good at going down to Sam’s to get Broker’s knives…)

I cannot put into words how lucky I was to get the parents-in-law that I did. There were a lot of ways in which they were not like my own parents. 10 children for one! On the flip side, as I may have said before, one of my lots in life is large Catholic families. All I can say is that it’s a dern good lot in life!

Still, Garth always felt a lot like a dad to me, I guess he was simply good at being a dad. The title? Garth was a very talented mechanical engineer and he loved to quiz people about math topics. Once, we were eating dinner (or whatever) outside the Moldy Old HL cabin and he asked me if I knew what a parabola was. My answer? Yes, I know all of the conic sections. He never asked me a math related question again.

Miss you Garth. You were a wonderful father-in-law.

6 Responses to “I know all the conic sections”

  1. Sam Says:

    Love his careful signature…. I may adopt …permission?

  2. Sam Says:

    Oops, that’s “adopt “….

  3. Sam Says:

    Okay, you know the trick & I don’t!

  4. kayak woman Says:

    Love you Sam! I have to add that Sam’s dad Nicky Smith aka The Botanist was another wonderful father figure in my life. He met my mouse late in his life and always asked about her. She remembers that. The Great Generation was wonderful and I miss those folks so much.

  5. Sam Says:

    Thanks, yes, he was very taken with Mouse. It was her, of course. He loved seeing her examine the foot-treadle sewing machine so carefully. And that she cared about it. Also, he loved that you and your dad walk/walked for walking’s sake, to see the countryside; he did, too, and not many “get” that.

    Regarding the missing text above I tried to insert simulated tags in my comments above, and…the software detected the angle brackets and automatically did its thing…. I am slow to learn, but I’ve got that one!

  6. Margaret Says:

    You were very fortunate. I lost the in-law lottery!