Even wonder what other people think of you? Or how you affect other people's lives? Of course you do. I think what's more interesting is trying to figure out how important someone else is, to other people.
My Uncle Ty (see previous journal entry) designed and flew model airplanes.
Let me tell you what I knew about Ty. He wrote long rambling letters, filled with insane musing born of a mind struggling with schizophrenia. Each was hand lettered in plain script, with no mistakes, and often included intricate hand drawn astrological charts that were only valid in his own head. He took heroin, smoked pot, dropped acid, and ate shrooms; people with schizophrenia often self medicate to try and balance the demons in their heads.
One time when I was little, he went over to my grandparent's house (his parents) when no one was home. He was quite high. He broke in, stole all the rifles and shotguns (my family did and still does hunt), and smashed them against my grandmother's cement flowerboxes. A lot of damage was done that day.
One of the last Christmas presents I remember getting was a wooden and stone Go board.
He lived alone, with no friends to speak of, and frequented Salvation Army on a daily basis and was probably two checks away from living from a shopping cart.
When my family had a falling out with my grandparents a few years ago, he sided with his parents; not speaking to his sister for several years. Ty had been married once and my mother had named my sister after his wife.
Thats what I know about Ty.
His funeral was at the flying field. It was raining, miserable, everything a funeral should be. At the field where he flew for so many years, he was in the process of building a dragon out of softball sized stones; each a piece of spine. The head was a paper cut-out that he had built and painted himself.
Nearby, was a sign: Beware of Dragon, painted in red, dripping letters. The sign was guarding a pile of stones, near a paper and foil pyramid kite he had built and set out there. It was an odd, but comforting coincidence that I had worn a shirt with a dragon motif that day.
After a few words, my father slowly took hands full of his ash and threw them into the rainy wind. My mother wasnt able to do it. Near the end, since real life doesnt have the decency to fade at the end of a scene, my father dumped the last bits over the pyramid. His arm was tired from the throwing. My niece, horrified at the thought of someone being cremated, refused to look into the box; but heard and saw the tiny bits of bones bouncing on the rocks. She never really knew him and what she knows about Ty is going to fit into a square, ash filled box.
My Uncle Ty, who lived alone and had few friends? He had at least 40 people at his funeral; more that couldnt make it. In the rain soaked field, two hours drive from Seattle, at the bottom of a farm so remote that the only other buildings belong to a commercial dairy, the trucks and cars filled the tiny grass parking lot of the fly field.
Mostly men in their 40s and 50s, all came to greet my mother with a kind of sorrow and reverence. They said Tyrone (as they called him) was a private person, but no where in there minds where the stories of drug and mental breakdown or family drama. They all came to gaze at me and my sister, my niece and nephew; until now only names to them.
This is what I learned about my Uncle Ty.
My Uncle Ty designed and flew model airplanes. His real name was Louis, Tyrone being his middle name.
In the 50s, that meant a plane with an engine, connected to a handle by two long ropes. You'd start the engine, then someone would have to run around in a circle holding the plane while you held the handle, until enough force and speed was generated that the person holding the handle could fly it unaided.
My mother would hold the plane and do the running, but was often too small to generate enough speed for the plane to fly. She hated to do it, and was bad at it, but with the age difference, it was one of the only ways she got to play with her older brother, who she loved very much; so she kept at it.
Later on, the planes became completely radio-controlled, using complex controls set in a box roughly the size of a PS2. Ty began to build both the planes and even tinkering with the engines at that point.
Ty was a master flyer. He often placed first in both competitive contests and what was called 'friendly flies'. Sometimes he'd place 2nd and never below 3rd. After a time, some contests allowed him to fly, but did not award him prizes; to give others a chance to win.
Ty mentored other fliers, teaching both flying and building. He built his planes from scratch, using a rapidograph drafting pen and a straight edge to design the plane and draw full sized plans. Then, using a #5 exacto blade, he cut the shape of the parts out of balsa wood, then treated and covered the wood to make a smooth flying surface.
An immaculate painter, his planes were decorated in whatever struck his fancy and occasionally he would build mock cock pits, complete with miniature controls (such as the P-38 Mustang he had built for one of his friends, who showed it to me with no small amount of pride).
A long time kite builder and flyer, he would often fly kites with the kids of the other pilots, such as he used to do with my sister and I, when I was 5. Only because of the lack of contact we had in later years did I feel jealous of such wonderful generosity.
His house was surrounded by rock gardens that he built and decorated.
This Christmas, all the planes he built will be hanging from my mothers ceiling, their temporary storage. The Ty I remembered was easy to forget. The Ty I remembered sat in a 400 square foot house, a hunched over hermit with a troubled past; who someday I thought I might have the courage to go visit.
But, thanks to 40 random strangers, instead, Im going to look up at all that dangling balsa and paper and the Ty I remember will be flying them.
Im not going to regret not knowing him the way they did. Theres no reason to go down that path. Instead, Im going to hope that when my ashes are scattered on some rain soaked grassland, that theres someone there; to tell my stories.
My Uncle Ty (see previous journal entry) designed and flew model airplanes.
Let me tell you what I knew about Ty. He wrote long rambling letters, filled with insane musing born of a mind struggling with schizophrenia. Each was hand lettered in plain script, with no mistakes, and often included intricate hand drawn astrological charts that were only valid in his own head. He took heroin, smoked pot, dropped acid, and ate shrooms; people with schizophrenia often self medicate to try and balance the demons in their heads.
One time when I was little, he went over to my grandparent's house (his parents) when no one was home. He was quite high. He broke in, stole all the rifles and shotguns (my family did and still does hunt), and smashed them against my grandmother's cement flowerboxes. A lot of damage was done that day.
One of the last Christmas presents I remember getting was a wooden and stone Go board.
He lived alone, with no friends to speak of, and frequented Salvation Army on a daily basis and was probably two checks away from living from a shopping cart.
When my family had a falling out with my grandparents a few years ago, he sided with his parents; not speaking to his sister for several years. Ty had been married once and my mother had named my sister after his wife.
Thats what I know about Ty.
His funeral was at the flying field. It was raining, miserable, everything a funeral should be. At the field where he flew for so many years, he was in the process of building a dragon out of softball sized stones; each a piece of spine. The head was a paper cut-out that he had built and painted himself.
Nearby, was a sign: Beware of Dragon, painted in red, dripping letters. The sign was guarding a pile of stones, near a paper and foil pyramid kite he had built and set out there. It was an odd, but comforting coincidence that I had worn a shirt with a dragon motif that day.
After a few words, my father slowly took hands full of his ash and threw them into the rainy wind. My mother wasnt able to do it. Near the end, since real life doesnt have the decency to fade at the end of a scene, my father dumped the last bits over the pyramid. His arm was tired from the throwing. My niece, horrified at the thought of someone being cremated, refused to look into the box; but heard and saw the tiny bits of bones bouncing on the rocks. She never really knew him and what she knows about Ty is going to fit into a square, ash filled box.
My Uncle Ty, who lived alone and had few friends? He had at least 40 people at his funeral; more that couldnt make it. In the rain soaked field, two hours drive from Seattle, at the bottom of a farm so remote that the only other buildings belong to a commercial dairy, the trucks and cars filled the tiny grass parking lot of the fly field.
Mostly men in their 40s and 50s, all came to greet my mother with a kind of sorrow and reverence. They said Tyrone (as they called him) was a private person, but no where in there minds where the stories of drug and mental breakdown or family drama. They all came to gaze at me and my sister, my niece and nephew; until now only names to them.
This is what I learned about my Uncle Ty.
My Uncle Ty designed and flew model airplanes. His real name was Louis, Tyrone being his middle name.
In the 50s, that meant a plane with an engine, connected to a handle by two long ropes. You'd start the engine, then someone would have to run around in a circle holding the plane while you held the handle, until enough force and speed was generated that the person holding the handle could fly it unaided.
My mother would hold the plane and do the running, but was often too small to generate enough speed for the plane to fly. She hated to do it, and was bad at it, but with the age difference, it was one of the only ways she got to play with her older brother, who she loved very much; so she kept at it.
Later on, the planes became completely radio-controlled, using complex controls set in a box roughly the size of a PS2. Ty began to build both the planes and even tinkering with the engines at that point.
Ty was a master flyer. He often placed first in both competitive contests and what was called 'friendly flies'. Sometimes he'd place 2nd and never below 3rd. After a time, some contests allowed him to fly, but did not award him prizes; to give others a chance to win.
Ty mentored other fliers, teaching both flying and building. He built his planes from scratch, using a rapidograph drafting pen and a straight edge to design the plane and draw full sized plans. Then, using a #5 exacto blade, he cut the shape of the parts out of balsa wood, then treated and covered the wood to make a smooth flying surface.
An immaculate painter, his planes were decorated in whatever struck his fancy and occasionally he would build mock cock pits, complete with miniature controls (such as the P-38 Mustang he had built for one of his friends, who showed it to me with no small amount of pride).
A long time kite builder and flyer, he would often fly kites with the kids of the other pilots, such as he used to do with my sister and I, when I was 5. Only because of the lack of contact we had in later years did I feel jealous of such wonderful generosity.
His house was surrounded by rock gardens that he built and decorated.
This Christmas, all the planes he built will be hanging from my mothers ceiling, their temporary storage. The Ty I remembered was easy to forget. The Ty I remembered sat in a 400 square foot house, a hunched over hermit with a troubled past; who someday I thought I might have the courage to go visit.
But, thanks to 40 random strangers, instead, Im going to look up at all that dangling balsa and paper and the Ty I remember will be flying them.
Im not going to regret not knowing him the way they did. Theres no reason to go down that path. Instead, Im going to hope that when my ashes are scattered on some rain soaked grassland, that theres someone there; to tell my stories.