Frank

I’ve been trying since 8 am Tuesday to figure out what to put here.   That’s when my sister called me to let me know that our sister’s husband, who’d been sick for a couple years, passed away about an hour before.    All I could think, besides how crappy it has to be for Sheil and the kids, was that they’d do anything for anyone, and bad stuff just keeps happening.  I felt like karma is sometimes a load of bull.  Then, there’s the rotten people I know, who only ever look out for themselves, who keep getting all the breaks.  But nothing seemed right.  Then I went over to Peter David’s blog, and as usual, I looked in on his wife’s blog.  She’s got a beautiful post there about the passing of Gary Gygax.   I’d noticed sideways the articles about his passing out of the corner of my eye.  Gygax’s work touched millions of people.  Frank made my sister happy, helped give birth to three great kids, and made sure there was beer at my bachelor party.  (My first and last experience with ice beer.His response–“Well, more for ME!”  Then he got sick on Elder’s Blood.) 

Sheil and Frank first started going out when I was 12.  He was the first of her boyfriends that seemed to take me seriously.  (Well, as seriously as I could be taken as an overtall, chlorine-coated Joe Freak.)  Took me and Sheil to a tractor pull once where Bigfoot crushed a bunch of cars.

 It was very loud.  Not nearly as loud as either his car stereo or any of the cars he drove.  He’d drop Sheil off at the house, wake Mom up, not a good situation.  Mom’d say something to Sheil, so he’d go slow with his loud car to keep it low until he got to the corner, then he’d gun it.  Trouble is, the corner was maybe sixteen feet from our front door.  THAT went over big.  Heard about it forever.   Then there was the time he dropped her off on a foggy night, went to go home, missed the turn, went down the street and hit a Revolution-era brick wall.  OOOOOPS.  Wall was fine, Camaro number 3…wasn’t. 

Then there was his habit of calling Photon, my favorite game, Crouton.   He thought it was hysterical.  Whatever.

He could fix just about anything mechanical.  Cars, stoves, furnaces, toilets(as we found out when we rented the condo from them.)  Computers were a different story.  He’d try, try really hard, but more often than not make it worse. 

For all my thinking how unfair it is, how much this all sucks, nothing even come close.  

~ by Sean on March 6, 2008.