My paternal grandfather died today. I must come from good genes, though, since he was 90 years old and this is the first immediate relative I've had pass on ... at 37 that's not a bad average, but it's getting late and none of us have all that much time left. I'm not sad, exactly, but I am worried about my father and grandmother, who are certainly feeling this loss a hundred times more than me. So don't cry for me ... far as I'm concerned, anyone who makes it to 90 has won the trophy and should be celebrated rather than mourned.

I'd like to publicly thank him for taking me fishing in the Atlantic ocean, where I caught a hammerhead shark (no exaggeration ... it was a short one, about two feet long, but a fuckin' hammerhead all the same and I got to eat it too). Also thanks for helping me paint a crude and fanciful picture of a Viking ship which still adorns my wall ... my grandfather was an amateur painter in his retirement years, cranking out hundreds of landscapes and lots of bird paintings. What a life, man, he spent thirty years of retirement in Florida painting and fishing, twenty of which were spent in good health with his wife in a pink house with a canal in the backyard and lime trees in the lawn. He worked for it, of course, a full stretch with General Motors in Flint, but he was one of the few who actually got the reward he earned.

I want to go to the funeral but I'm deathly afraid of flying. Taking off work, who cares, jacking up my credit card, who cares, but the thought of having to get up in the air in one of those rattling death traps is already making me sick. But I think I'm gonna go, regardless ... if the plane ends up crashing you can enjoy this entry as an "eerie" "premonition" of my own "death." Hold on to those Clutters singles, they may finally be worth something by next Friday ...

AGAIN WITH THE GRANDFATHER ...

How could I forget ... my grandfather (Marion Beldin) also taught himself to play the organ during his retirement, and he played often, mostly popular standards from earlier in the century. However, one of his many songbooks also had a few contemporary numbers, and when I was first goofing around with the guitar, I stumbled upon the charts for Bob Seger's "Night Moves." I never cared much for that song, still don't (although I'll fistfight anyone who puts the man down), but that instantly recognizable riff was also written out in guitar tabliture. G-G-G-G-F-C-C-C-C-F-G ... a fuckin' monkey can play it, but it's the very first time I was able to pick out a recognizable tune, and it made all the difference towards whether I was going to keep hammerin' at the thing or simply set the guitar down next to my trombone, model rockets and Boy Scout handbook.

This is why I think of my grandfather whenever I hear "Night Moves" ... and vice-versa.