Our Dumb Blog

A memorial service was held for my grandmother in Mobile today. There will be another one in her hometown of Richmond, VA on June 5th that Berck and I are planning on attending.

Here’s a eulogy my dad delivered at the service today. I thought it was a pretty cool synopsis of my grandmother’s life…

DOROTHEA BOCK STAPLES
June 11, 1915 – May 11, 2004

Most of you here in Mobile knew her either as Sarah’s mom, Robert’s mom-in-law, Joanna, Stephanie or Ben’s grandmother or the little ole lady in the wheelchair with the big smile.

She was certainly all of those things, but her younger days were pretty amazing.

Born in Cincinnati Ohio to first generation German immigrants, she had to work diligently both in helping her parents with their business as well as completing her studies in school. And it was in these educational endeavors that she really excelled. In fact, one of her great achievements was winning a national academic award that resulting in her, and about 11 other young ladies, joining Eleanor Roosevelt for Tea in the White House.

After getting her degree from the University of Cincinnati, she entered the Navy and served as a lieutenant in the Waves. While in the service she married Ernest Staples, and left the service to give birth to their son Bill in 1945. Then after the war, the family settled in Virginia where Sarah was born. When Sarah was 10 the family moved to Richmond where Dottie became a school teacher.

Dottie excelled in teaching and in the early 1970s she was chosen VA Public Television’s Educational Math teacher. For a number of years, her lessons were broadcast into schoolrooms statewide.

Dottie poured herself into whatever she did and church was no exception. When the family moved to Richmond in the late 50s, they joined a large downtown church, Second Presbyterian, and became an integral part of that community. She helped with hospitality events, sang in the choir, ran the soup kitchen that fed the homeless, and was the adopted mom to countless refugees and seminarians that attended the church. Dottie was also deeply involved in the Presbyterian Women’s programs and when she was in her late 70’s, she served for several years as President of the Presbyterian Women of the James, a network of 100 plus churches. On May 1, 1993, she was awarded an Honorary Life membership.

She also served on the Session of Second Presbyterian Church and in 2001 was awarded the honor of Elder Emeritus.

But without a doubt, her greatest joy was as a grandmother. She dearly loved her 4 grandchildren, and though her German nature tended to require much of them, in reality there was nothing that any might do that would dissuade her from loving them without limits. She relished any news from them–always celebrating the joy of their achievements, and she prayed mightily for them to become strong women and men of God.

In December 1994, while visiting 3 of those grandchildren here in Mobile, Dottie suffered a debilitating stroke. During the following 9 1/2 years, she faced almost insurmountable odds, but with great fortitude and a deep faith she pressed on to finish the race. Many would have given up or become resentful, but somehow she became softer and more in love with Jesus. She longed to go home, but knew the timing was in His hands.

Then the coup de grace happened 6 weeks ago when her first great grandchild, Ian Nathaniel, was born. For days she would wheel around the house with this great big smile on her face saying his name over and over again. “Ian, Ian, Ian.”

On May 2 she participated in his baby dedication which took place on the deck of our home in the country. As a part of the service, there was a time for individuals to come forward and pray for baby Ian. Several walked forward and prayed-some out loud, others silently. After what seemed the final prayer, one could hear the sound of the wheels rolling across the wood decking. We all watched in wonder as Dottie wheeled over to her great grandson, laid her hands on Ian’s head and said with the limited words that she was able to speak one of the most eloquent prayers of all.

“Thank You, Thank you, Thank you.”

And like the 84 year old prophetess Anna who lived for the day that she could give thanks for the Messiah, 88 year old “great grandma Dottie” gave thanks to God for this child who represented yet another generation.

The smile on her face and the joy in her heart must have brought great delight to her Father God. For 10 days later, He lovingly called her home.

And what a home that must be!

The scriptures we read today talked about
A banquet of the best meats and finest wines.
A time when all tears are wiped away.
A home for even the sparrow that is near to God.
A gathering around God in which is so overwhelming that all one can do is forever praise Him.

We as finite beings want to ascribe descriptions to eternal life that have to do more with place than relationship. But perhaps heaven is a great deal less about a place than about that completed intimate relationship with our God that we have so deeply desired since creation.

And if that is so, then all the reason why those who get closer to heaven better understand the power and significance of our relationships on this earth.

The Bible tells us in Psalm 145 that

“One generation shall praise Thy works to another and shall declare Thy might acts.” For it is in doing this that we are able to pass on the real TRUTH about this life we live.

Dorothea Bock Staples did just that
for her children,
her grandchildren
and her great grandchild

and the generations to come will bear the fruit of both her life AND her prayers.

It’s storming. The OKC TAF doesn’t look good for the morning–600ft ceiling at 4am, and only 1200ft at 10am… overcast, mist, etc. Right now there temperature’s 10 degrees with a dewpoint of 8 degrees, which means low ceilings all morning. I talked to D., and we went ahead and decided to aim for tomorrow afternoon. There’s that possibility of a window of higher ceilings before the wind picks up after it gets a little warmer. We’ll see. I’m not going to get too excited.

I’ve been experimenting with classic Italian cooking the past couple of days, serving Joanna multi-course meals. She seems to like them. Yesterday we had Tagliatelli with Bolognese sauce (the dish which after many perversions became American spaghetti, but doesn’t taste anything like it) and pan roasted rosemary chicken. A REAL bolognese sauce is milk/wine based and the only herb in it is nutmeg. Yes, that’s nutmeg. I expected it to be, boring at best and possibly interesting though unappealing. Considering it has to be cooked for a minimum of 4 hours in various stages, it’s odd that I embarked upon it at all. I diligently followed the recipe as best as I could (like I have things like an earthenware pot) and the end result was quite shocking. It tasted completely unlike what I expected. I also handmade the tagliatelli with nothing more than a rolling pin and knife…. This was something of an adventure, but it’s not as bad as you might think. Fresh, handmade pasta puts even homemade pasta machine pasta to shame. And that was just the pasta dish.

Tonight we had potato and onion soup followed by sirloin steak cooked in a tomato-onion-olive sauce. Joanna even liked the olives. I’ve been trying to find a source for real, canned, Italian tomatoes, but it looks like I have to order a whole pallet. I’ve also been searching for the sort of olive oil that I grew to love while I was in Italy– it’s got a darkish greenish hue, is unfiltered, actually taste like olives… Most olive oil here is so filtered and processed and light that it doesn’t taste like olive oil. I found some at Sam’s which is more full-bodied than most, but it’s not great. Good olive oil even online looks to be very expensive. So my brief foray into gorumet cooking looks like it’s going to be hampered by lack of availability of high quality ingredients. Like Parmesan cheese. I have no idea where to find good cheese. The only non-grated stuff in the grocery store is all dried out and missing the crust. But then, it’s fairly cheap and good Parmesian-Reggiano when I’ve found it is REALLY expensive.

Joanna did bring me some Vidalia onions from Mobile which has been nice, even though they’re rather scrawny and some are a little wilted. I can’t even get the Texas Sweet onions here I used to find in Dallas… though I did find some Chilean onions that were okay.

Joanna’s making brownies for some sort of work-luncheon tomorrow. (The recipe on the back of the Hershey’s coco tin is pretty good…)

Well, my grandmother passed away Tuesday night.

I’m now completely out of grandparents.

It’s ridiculous. All I need to solo is a 3,000 foot ceiling, 5 miles visibility, and less than 18 knots of wind including gust factor. And it seems like it’s never going to happen. It’s either cloudy or windy. This morning it was cloudy AND windy for a change. The winds aren’t supposed to get below 20 knots until tomorrow NIGHT. They’re howling right now, and it’s after midnight.

I went up and did some maneuvers today, since I hadn’t flown in 5 days. I’m quite comfortable in the airplane, even while getting rocked around a good bit today. We probably should have worked on landings, since my stalls, steep turns and slow flight is all doing quite well. I’ve gotten to where I can fly at 40 knots in gusty conditions just fine. Not perfect, I waiver between 40-50 knots instead of holding it right at 40. Today D. kept saying, “Man, you’re awfully close to a stall.” “Well, that’s the definition of minimum controllable airspeed– the speed at which any increase in angle of attack or decrease in airspeed results in a stall…” “And yes, you’re there.” Course, he has me fly at MCA and track a river, which is bloody well impossible, because I can’t SEE the river when I’m up at 30 degrees, and can’t think straight with the stall horn going eeeEEEEeeeEEEEEeeeEEE…. “Mike, I can’t SEE the river, this is impossible!” “I know, that’s why I have you do it.”

My stalls are good. I don’t tend to maintain coordination perfectly, particularly in power-on banked stalls, but I can react to a wing dropping off just fine, and I can recover in less than 100ft in a power-off stall and not lose any altitude in a power on stall.

Quick power on stalls still weird me out a bit. I find myself bracing for the inevitable yet unpredictable break. I haven’t gotten used to the feeling of the plane just snapping to some weird attitude with the ground taking up my whole field of view while I consciously have to fight the temptation to apply opposite aileron. I’m not really scared per se, it just feels a little like bracing yourself for a shot with a hypodermic needle. It’s gonna hurt, but you don’t know EXACTLY when or where or how much.

My steep turns are okay. I can maintain altitude within 100ft although not as smoothly as I’d like. Mike covered up the Altimeter, and I found that actually helped me maintain altitude. Kept me from staring at the bloody thing in anticipation of it pronouncing failure.

My landings still suck. They’re safe enough, but I need practice. I have a hard time seeing the needed wind correction. I keep thinking I’m straight when I’m not, and keep trying to hold the centerline with the rudder pedals instead of the ailerons. I did three landings today… I was a little side-loaded on the first two, but got the vertical part right. For the third, I finally got the wind correction right just before I plopped down on the runway (although rather upwind of centerline), unfortunately I wound up a little high and slow and simply dropped the plane from about 8 feet for a rather nice bounce. I just need lots of practice.

KOUN 111731Z AUTO 17018G22KT 10SM SCT029 27/18 A2988

Finally, almost a nice-ish day with just a scattered layer of clouds at 2,900ft…. but now that the clouds have lifted a bit, the winds have picked up to 18 knots gusting to 22, well above what I can solo in. They’ll probably get stronger as the pressure drops and thunderstorms roll in this afternoon.

Yesterday morning, I got up at 6:30am, got all ready to go, then decided I should get a weather briefing. After doing that, I realized I could have just opened the bloody window and looked outside. Ceiling at 900 feet, overcast. Oh, and of course the winds were nice calm in the morning, only 8 knots at the surface. But they were 50 knots at 3,000 feet, all thanks to that nice early morning temperature inversion so common in places like Oklahoma. The wind difference was bad enough that there were low level wind shear advisories out. A 50 knot wind shear isn’t something I’d generally chose to fly in, and certainly not on my first solo. I called D. who hadn’t yet checked the weather. “It’s cloudy?” he asked. “Yeah. 1000 feet.” “Oh… I’ll call you later today.” That was yesterday, and I haven’t heard from him yet. I would call him, but there’s not really any point. After things warmed up and the overcast layer lifted and the temperature inversion dissipated, the surface winds picked up to 30 knots. The weather forecasts look crappy for the rest of the week with convective activity likely.

So I may never solo. I’m not really able to do anything to further my flight training at the moment. Maybe I’ll take the private written test and get that over with. I haven’t yet, because I need to practice some of the problems that require plotting things–but all of the online test-practice stuff (including the ones at the flight school) just have the figures on-screen. Which works fine unless you need to lay a plotter over it. You can’t really hold a plotter up to a CRT… I was going to buy one of the test prep books, but they’re like $30, and D. said he’d just let me borrow his, since he said he’d hate to see me buy it just for a few questions. But he hasn’t remembered to retrieve it from his apartment yet.

And, apparently, I can’t go any further in the flight training until I solo. I can’t start working on cross-country stuff until I’ve passed my check-ride, and I can’t take the check-ride until I’ve soloed, and I can’t solo until the weather gets better…

I’ve been surfing the web a bit. The number of people compelled to keep what they call blogs astounds me. I’m not really sure I understand the phenomenon. There’s a lot of bloggers out there that have real blogs which might be of interest to the random passer-by because they point to current sites of interest (what a blog is supposed to do). Then there’s people with journals (much like this one) that call them blogs. As it is, I’m not really certain why this journal still exists, much less the hundreds of thousands of others. I created this one so people could follow our trip across the states. There seems to be continued interest in our current activities, so I’ve kept it up… I guess my feelings about them are nicely summarized by someone’s slashdot sig line I ran across yesterday. It said, “weblogs suck. here’s mine: [link]”