Update on Beach gathering September 12th

OK Everyone! Just wanted to post an update on the Bech party I posted before. I originally said "South Mission", but after some very sagely advise from someone who knows a lot more than I (Higgy-baby!), we are looking at Mission Beach, just South of the Roller Coaster. There is a grassy area and BBQ available, and of course, the fire pits! So, if you are interested, please show up! I will give more details in days to come.

Thanks everyone!!! :)

Beach Bon-fire planned at South Mission on the 12th of September!

I posted something about this on Facebook (late June/Early July) about trying to organize a Bon-Fire at South Mission before the end of the summer before my Dad took ill. Well, it is time to start planning on this again. In fact, after my Dad’s funeral talking to Jesse, Lee, Joel, Dan and Deb and Kevin the whole “wouldn’t it be good if we got together on the beach…?” conversation came up! So, in getting with the above mentioned folks it seems that a good day will be Saturday, September 12th, 2009 for a gathering of folks from Kearny/Taft and any invitees at South Mission. Are you from Mission Village? Serra Mesa? You should be there! :)

We will try and get a Fire ring so we can have a fire into the evening. (We may need some wood to be brought!) Bring your own food and drink (I understand Mission has banned alcohol…?) and let’s have some fun!

Time: ? TBD (More info to come, but I know some cannot make it until after 4 pm. My son and I will want to be there earlier in the day though to exhibit our Boogie-boarding prowess! :)

Let me know if you have any questions. If you need my email address, let me know. (I don’t publish it publicly on here…) More details to come!

The Funeral on Saturday August 1st was very nice.

We had about 30 people attend and the event turned out as good as I could have hoped. I don’t know how you can say that a funeral is “good” (if that makes sense) but the event went very well. I was afraid that I might mess up doing the eulogy. I felt like I stumbled through, but got assurances afterward that things went OK. My brother and I were very happy with the turn out, and everyone was so kind. We had family and friends show up and give a tremendous amount of support. I arrived close to an hour early and we already had people there!
My brother, my family and I would like to thank all those who came out and showed their support and offered their condolences. It is so great to feel everyone’s support!

Something else that happened on Saturday the 1st- after the service my wife, my brother and I were going to get some lunch. Brenda chose the perfect place to eat…The Little Fish Market in Mission Valley. Why was that perfect? The last time my family gathered together to be wit my dad we went to the Little Fish Market and got some take out and went down to Mission Bay and had a little lunch overlooking the water. Well, when we showed up at the Little Fish Market, it was closed! They were taking the signs down from the walls! At first we were bummed…but then we thought how fitting it was that my dad’s favorite place to eat was closing down. (And not sure why it closed…there was always a lot of people there when we went in!).

Finally, for dinner that night we couldn’t decide where to go. My son made the suggestion to go to El Indio Taco shop downtown. That was a perfect place for us, and it has become my son’s favorite eatery in San Diego. I remember it from many years ago when I worked at the Union 76 station that used to be down the street…

All in all, this was a very good weekend as we gathered together to remember my dad, spend time with wonderful friends and family, and take in the beauty of San Diego.

Memorial Weekend- The scattering of ashes

On July 31st, 2009 we held a ceremony to scatter my dad’s ashes at sea. Well, maybe “ceremony” is too formal a word…what we did was celebrate my dad’s love of the ocean by taking his ashes off shore to a place we felt was significant for him and scattered his ashes while telling stories of my dad’s fishing trips and anecdotes of times spent on or near the ocean. One of the truly tremendous things for me was so sit on this boat and spend the time with my only son, who enjoyed the time on the water and found out how wonderful time at sea can be and came to understand why “Grandpa” would love it so much.
The ceremony was simple- just a prayer and a thank you for a dad who worked hard and spent time with us doing things like fishing. My brother and I scattered the ashes, then we all tossed flowers into the ocean around the spot.
A special Thank You goes to Eric Meins for taking us out on his boat and providing the flowers we scattered with the ashes. He was a tremendous help to us and a blessing at this most difficult time…
Due to limited space, we only had 6 people on the boat: Eric the captain of the boat, myself, my brother Dave, my wife Brenda, my son Daniel, and our long time friend Carmen, whose mom was friends with my mom and whose brother played baseball with me for years.
It was a terrific time and I cannot express how wonderful it was. We even had a pod of porpoises swim in front of the boat on the way back in from the scattering! It was awesome!