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By linlah, March 11, 2010

On Wednesday we went to Jack’s house and sorted through papers, took inventory of his shop and arranged a meeting to see the last plane Jack built which is housed in a hanger he shared with his friend Tom.

On Sunday when I got home there was an email from Blossom that she had forwarded from Tom.    He experessed how grateful he was to have met us and how sad he was that Jack wasn’t there to see how much we appreciated the work that had gone into his plane.    Tom also included in his email the note he had sent to the personnel manager at Lockhead Martin in regard to Jack’s death.

I can say that Tom knew my Uncle much better than I did and his words are filled with respect, admiration and loss.

Former Goodyear Aerospace employee, Jack S, passed away suddenly of a heart attack while walking his dog, Jinx, Wednesday morning, February 24th.    Jack was an extraordinary engineer, mathematician, craftsman and friend to many here at Lockheed Martin.

He built and raced midget race cars in Colorado prior to earning BSEE and MSEE degrees at MIT on a full ride scholarship.   Jack moved to Arizona in 1959 with his wife and uniquely contributed to radar image formation and navigation technologies at Goodyear Aerospace for 29 years before his retirement in 1988. He authored several Arizona Engineering Memos still available and relevant today.

Jack was a pioneer in dry humor and asymmetric fashion, developing the one-eared hanging eye glasses and the one pant leg above the boot statement.    Jack was an unlimited category competition aerobatic pilot and accomplished airplane designer and builder, which remained his passion till his death.    His airplane will be remembered by many for its steep glide past the water tower on its return home from daily practice.

Jack is survived by his ex-wife, his brother and his beloved Jinx.   He was 82 years old.   A memorial service for Jack will be held March 26th at 2pm.

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By linlah, March 10, 2010

I feel like it’s taking forever to get to the meat of this story but bear with me.

If you’re new here, yea new people, you can read the two previous posts here and here.

We left Jackson at 5am Monday morning and planned to be in Tucson at Blossoms house by 7pm that evening.   This is not an unusual time period for anyone in my family to be in a car going from one place to another.  Pack some baloney, a loaf of bread, a thermos of coffee and get in the car and go, we moved a lot when I was a kid and that’s just how it’s done.

Dad drove from Jackson to Bakersfield and I didn’t use this time wisely and sleep, instead I enjoyed the Central Valley and its constant fields of produce and grapevines along Highway 99.   My turn at the wheel would take us from just east of Bakersfield and the most disgusting bathroom in all of America to just outside of Phoenix. 

After you leave Bakersfield the desert takes over and you go through places called Tehachipi and Mojave,  past Edwards Air Force Base and through Kramer Junction and all you can see, laid out in all it’s splended glory for miles and miles, is desert.   I love the desert because there is something magical about life in the death of what the desert is.

We arrived in Tucson at 7:30pm and along the way got to see Phoenix commuter traffic, a welcoming sunset and more 18 wheelers going 75 miles per hour without being pulled over than you could ever count.

Tuesday morning was full of dogs, at least these two, a trip to the Mexican Market and in the afternoon a meeting with a probate lawyer.   Of those things all I can say is set up a Living Trust or have a Will drawn because not everyone in your family is as cooperative as we are as a family and probate will suck.

That basket?   My sister the super over-acheiver first child made that basket. Some of the needles came from Idaho and some came from California and that buff colored dog, how beautiful is she?  A bit of a prancer anywhere she goes because I’m sure she knows just how beautiful she is.

My sister prances too.

As always you can click on the photos to make them larger.

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By linlah, March 9, 2010

This is a continuation of the previous post and if you haven’t you can read it here.

Mom called about 9:30 and said she would be up about 4pm to get me which gave me just enough time to do my laundry, charge camera batteries and the cell phone, go to Target for dog bones and read all the blogs I would miss while I was gone.   I’m dedicated like that or maybe just addicted.

Mom arrived a little after 4pm and asked if Scout and I wanted to go eat before heading back to my parents house and since I’m never one to pass up a night of not having to cook I said yes.   We got back to the house about 6:00 loaded my stuff into the car and head for the freeway.

From my house it’s about 20 minutes down Hazel Avenue to get to Highway 50 and after a 10 minute drive up Hwy 50 I take a crappy, winding, narrow two lane short cut  called Latrobe Road and that drops me out onto Hwy 16 and then onto Hwy 49.

About 15 minutes into the drive down Hazel Avenue the car started pulling to the right and then I noticed the battery light came on and then the temperature gage showed hot, like pull over now hot.  We were not very far from a well lit Chevron station and I raced to get there before the car completly overheated.

I called Dad to let him know what was going on and then called AAA to send a tow truck.  Thank all the good karma for AAA and 100 miles of towing.

The tow truck driver showed up in about 20 minutes, loaded the car onto the truck and just for safety sake I called Scout to let him know the tow company name and truck number.  Safe is better than sorry if you’re going to get in a tow truck and drive down a winding, crappy, dark country road with what might be a serial killer.

Joe Tow didn’t turn out to be a serial killer he turned out to be a whack-a-doodle where some of the hour long ride conversation included things like;

I’m a tow truck driver but my real job is as a roofer but with the economy I had to find something to pay the bills.

I have a dog, she’s part rottweiler and when I take her to the park people get their dogs and leave because their scared.  Rottweilers are good dogs it’s just the owners that are bad.

I’m 41, single and I don’t have any children.

I really like having this dog she keeps my mom company while I’m working.  My mom lives with me.

I’ve been a roofer for 23 years and I don’t hire any subcontractors, do you know what a subcontractor is?

I do tile roofs but I don’t recommend a tile roof cause if a tree falls on your house it breaks the tile and that’s really hard to replace.

I have a lot of common sense but nobody else does.  It’s funny they call it common sense when it isn’t that common.

Yeah, it went something like that only he may have said he was a roofer for 23 years about a trazillion times but we made it to my parents house safe and sound unloaded the car and went in and went to bed.

4am comes sooner than you want it to if you’re going to be driving a long, long way.