Thank you for the very moving Eulogy, Chef Juke.

Harry

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:10:17 -0800, Chef Juke
> wrote:

>All,
>
>The loss of our friend Hound had me thinking a lot this weekend,
>especially about how we can connect with people that we have never met
>in person and still feel their loss. A few years back, a gal on an
>email list I am on was killed in a hit & run accident. As the
>majority of the people on that email list lived in the SF Bay area,
>there were a number whom I had never met in person, including Jenni,
>the gall who was killed.
>
>Below is a message I wrote at the time, which I think has some direct
>correlation to what I thought and felt when I heard that Hound had
>passed on.
>
>The internet is a strange and wonderful thing, and I think that this
>type of communication (one to many to one) like what goes on in AFB
>and Alt.Coffee and many other newsgroups is something completely new
>(well, maybe there is something similar amongst shortwave
>enthusiasts).
>
>We meet each other. We chat, talk, argue, agree, tease, help,
>chastise and laugh together, while miles away from each other and
>maybe never seeing each others face or hearing each others voice. We
>develop friendships through this strange new medium that are a little
>different from the ones we have in our more-present world, and can be
>at a loss to explain them to our non-internet savvy friends. It
>doesn't mean that we appreciate these friendships any less than those
>of people we've communed with in the flesh, just that they are somehow
>different.
>
>And it doesn't hurt any less when we lose an "Internet Friend".
>
>Anyway, here's that letter I mentioned, along with the lyrics of a
>song that I put on while I grilled some Lamb chops on my "pottery" as
>Hound called it.
>
>Rest easy, friend.
>
>-Chef Juke
>
>Tuesday, June 9th, 1998
>
>Last night...
>
>I was working in the garage on a shelf that I was building for the
>room we're moving our home office into. I had the radio on to the
>local community college/NPR station that was playing its weekly folk
>music show.
>
>As I was working on sanding and staining the shelf a song came on
>called "Down To A River, a moving song about the loss of a loved one -
>and I immediately thought of Jenni, then realized that the memorial
>was happening right at that moment. I didn't catch the name of the
>artist but I will find it and post the lyrics to the list shortly
>because I think it is very appropriate.
>
>Now one thing I feel I should mention is that I don't even know if I
>ever met Jenni in person or not. As most people on this email list
>can understand, the with the many people, places, faces and last but
>not least, intoxicants that come from the fount that flows from the
>our group of friends, sometimes it can be difficult to totally
>connect a name/face/experience.
>
>Also, living so far away (Eugene, OR) from the main stomping grounds
>of this group (S.F. Bay Area), I don't see even the people that I DO
>know on the list anywhere NEAR as much as I would like.
>
>But, I *have* known her a little by her emails to the list (especially
>her notes of thanks after each of the list related parties/events that
>she'd been to), and even more so through a reflection of her as it
>bounced of other list members.
>
>It seems that the last few weeks have been full of images and feelings
>loss in and around my consciousness. One of my co-workers' nephew was
>killed in the Thurston High School shooting, 3 others had relatives
>wounded. The local media was filled with far too many images of grief
>that hit far too close to home. Then last week we received two
>company-wide emails, each telling us of a different work colleague
>from our California office that had passed away.
>
>Then Jenni.
>
>I'd like to think I've learned something about loss & remembrance in
>my life. In 1985 my 17-year-old stepbrother Erik was killed in a
>motorcycle accident, then 1 month later my stepfather Lew was killed
>in a car accident. A lady who had been driving the opposite direction
>in a Cadillac, looked down in her purse for something, crossed the
>double line and hit him head on. He was driving a little Honda CRX -
>she got a sprained wrist - he was killed instantly. My Mom was
>waiting for him at home in their hot tub when the Sheriff rang the
>bell - she thought it was Lew joking around.
>
><sigh...>
>
>As to remembrance and reincarnations...
>
>Last year I had an experience that solidified my belief in, well, if
>not reincarnation exactly, then perhaps a continuity of spirit:
>
>Every summer for the last 9 years I have worked at a booth at the
>Oregon Country Fair selling homemade ice cream. The booth just
>adjacent to ours is The Blintz Booth. This booth, like many at the
>OCF is run by a conglomeration of friends & families that have been
>running their booth at the Fair for many years. They are a great
>bunch of people and over the years we have laughed a lot together and
>enjoyed each other's company. I have watched their children grow up,
>seeing them only once a year, like a time-elapsed camera taking one
>frame per year.
>
>Anyway, I had noticed that they had a gathering in the small pathway
>between our booths every year on the fair's opening night (after the
>fair had closed to the general public). It had always seemed like a
>private affair.
>
>Well this last year I had been standing nearby when one of the
>Blintzes (well, that's what we called the folks who worked in their
>booth), asked me to come sit with her as they had their yearly
>ceremony. As I sat there I listened and learned what their ceremony
>was about.
>
>The Blintzes were involved in the Country Fair it seemed, in a large
>part due to one woman, Melise, whom most of them considered to be
>pretty much the extended family's matriarch. She was the one who kept
>them going when adversity hit, did the things that reminded them of
>the joy of living and pretty much had instilled in them part of the
>common spark that they all seemed to share. I had seen her pictures
>on the wall of their booth where they had 20 some odd years of Country
>Fair pictures hanging.
>
>One year, just before the Country Fair, she died suddenly. The
>Blintzes almost didn't come to the Fair that year they were so
>heartbroken, but they somehow managed to do it anyway. That year
>someone made a special handblown bottle with many beautiful
>accoutrements and some special liquor (homemade?) and they all took a
>sip, said a remembrance to Melise. Every year since then they made a
>new bottle, and repeated the tradition. Before this night I had seen
>the slew of bottles hanging from the ceiling of their booth but I
>never knew the significance. Each bottle had the year it was from
>either painted or engraved on it and most of them looked not unlike a
>miniature version of some of the art cars we have seen out on the
>playa. Little glass curlicues stuck on here & there, colored ribbons
>strung through them, some years' bottle wilder than others.
>
>Well I sat there and listened as each of the Blintzes, young & old,
>took the bottle, told of a memory they had of Melise, took sip from
>the bottle, then passed the bottle on. Those who were too young to
>remember her related a way in that she had touched their lives.
>Brothers, Sisters, Cousins, Daughters, Friends. Each took their turn.
>
>Eventually the bottle came down to where I was sitting next to one of
>my Blintz friends. Feeling like somewhat of an intruder of sorts, I
>politely went to pass the bottle to her and she said no. She wanted
>me to partake. She said that I was part of their extended family and
>could say anything that I wanted to share whether it related to Melise
>or not. The entire group (all 25 or so of them) nodded in agreement.
>I, who am usually not at a loss for words, cannot adequately express
>how deeply moved I was by this.
>
>So I took the bottle. And I told, as best I could what sitting there
>with them at this gathering meant to me. I was honored that they
>invited me to sit & share with them. I told them how I had realized
>just a few minutes before, that Melise had died just a few weeks
>before I came to my first Country Fair. I had never met her in
>person, but I knew her, or at least a part of her through the
>reflection of her that shone off of the people that she had touched in
>her life. I now knew, from listening to the folks who had spoken
>before me, things about them that showed the reflection of Melise,
>like the fact that one of those Blintz kids that I had watched grow up
>- who's laugh that I loved so much - was Melise's same laugh... that
>much of the Blintzes spirit that I loved was a direct expression of
>Melise's spirit. And that a part of what I had experienced with them
>had been a part of Melise showing through.
>
>I told them that what it really came down to is that through them a
>part of Melise had become a part of me through them and that I would,
>and do cherish it.
>
>We do carry parts of each other's spirit on with us. Whether friend,
>family or stranger, the people who have an effect on our lives, no
>matter how small, become a part of our consciousness. It's not
>necessarily a mystical thing and you don't have to be a Shirley
>Maclaine / mysticism fan to be able see it, you just have to look. I
>know that my Daughter Sofia who met her Great Grandmother, "Nonny"
>only once when she was very young, carries a part of Nonny's spirit
>with her. It shows in her stubborn streak. :
>I know that I carry part of my Great Grandma Harriett's spirit with me
>- it was handed to me by my Father, who she raised when he was a boy
>in the Georgia Backwoods. She died 15 years before I was born, but the
>part of her that I carry with me will be here always -I will pass it
>on to my daughters Sofia & Isabel and they will pass on part of it to
>their friends & family.
>
>So even if it is just the small effect of an enthusiastic email or two
>that you read from someone far away, it makes a difference.
>
>Anyway, y'all probably know all this stuff, and I'm just goin' on & on
>to the point of being preachy...
>
>But just so's ya know, I care about you all in that strangely
>disjointed-but-still-connected way that we be what we are.....
>
>-Chef Juke
>
>ps. I found the lyrics to that song...
>
>The song is called Down To a River by Connie Kaldor:
>
>Down To a River
>
>There are dinners, there's music
>There is laughter there were tears
>There are memories that go back
>Over the years
>There are the marks made in a life
>Like only good friends do
>Now I must choose to make a mark
>For the things I loved in you
>
>CHORUS:
>I'll go down to a river
>And plant a tree
>Something strong, wild and living
>Those are my memories
>And I'll go up to a mountain
>And sing to the stars
>Can you hear me
>Where ever you are.
>
>And there's phone calls and there's crying
>And there's clutching to the chest
>And there's singing songs and throwing dirt
>And laying down to rest
>And there's carving words on stone
>And making church bells ring
>But the river when it freezes over
>Still thaws and runs each spring
>
>
>So I will go down to a river
>And plant a tree
>Something strong, wild and living
>Those are my memories
>And I'll go up to a mountain
>And sing to the stars
>Can you hear me
>Where ever you are.
>
>
>Do you hear the ones who loved you
>And who were glad they knew you well
>Do the hearts you left that miss you
>Ring like a bell
>
>I will go down to a river
>And plant a tree
>Strong, wild and living
>Those are my memories
>And I'll go up to a mountain
>And sing to the stars
>Can you hear me
>Where ever you are
>
>Can you hear me
>Can you hear me
>Can you hear me
>Where ever you are
>
>