Dear family and friends
Greetings from the Winn Family Farm in Umatilla County
Oregon!
Today we paid our respects to a man that I am proud to refer
to as my favorite uncle. My Uncle Bob and I had a special bond. He was my
mother’s younger brother and he outlived her by 18 years. He was a special
connection not only to my mom, but to my grandparents. My grandmother passed
when my mother was in her early teens, and my mother moved to California after
marrying my dad and finishing college (Oregon State if you are keeping score).
I had little connection to my grandfather, but it was Uncle Bob that made the
family connection to past generations come alive.
Bob, a.k.a. George Robert Winn, was famous in his youth for
painting on a wall, “Please call me Bob!” I think that he loved his name as a palindrome
because he made sure that the rest of us knew our name backwards. I am Tnarb
and all of my kids also know their backwards names – Nosyarg, Nitsua and
Nerual. Today if I ask Grayson what his name is backwards, he will say “Nosyarg
Deer”.
During my junior high school years I used to come up for
several weeks during the summer. During those summers, Uncle Bob gave me the
first opportunity to drive (an old pickup truck through the fields), taught me
to ride a motorcycle (at the age of 13), and shoot a 22 rifle – things that a
LA city kid just couldn’t do. I also got to move irrigation pipe in the field,
hoe weeds, work harvest – other things that a kid from LA could not imagine.
We worked hard and we played hard. Those summers made a
lasting memory and a lasting impression on my life. My cousin Jasper today
asked me how many summers I visited. When I replied 2, he was astounded. All of
the things that we did and all of the memories we made he was certain that I
came up for 4 summers or more. Isn’t it amazing how our impressions overwhelm
our senses to create bigger than life memories? I think that it is a wonderful testimony
to the number of things that we did together to fool our sense of logic and
allow the wave of family fun to crash over us and make our actual experiences
to become larger than life.
I am so grateful that Regina, Grayson and I made the effort
to attend Bob and Imogene’s 65th Wedding Anniversary Celebration
last June described here on Day
931. When we left that weekend I had no idea that I would be back here so
soon. In fact, if I had not been in Seattle on business travel this week it is
unlikely that I would have been able to make it as most of the flights were
already booked. I was fortunate to be able to reschedule my return flight and
take the beautiful drive from Seattle to Weston, Oregon on Friday.
The memorial service was held in the barn that was built by
my grandfather in 1916. No longer a functioning barn, it has been lovingly
converted to a banquet hall by my cousin Preston and his lovely wife Arlene. It
is the same location where we held the anniversary last June. After the service
we packed the living room of the old house and sang hymns and shared memories
of Bob. Bob was truly a wonderful man who touched the lives of many people. We
will miss him.
Tomorrow I drive back to Seattle and I fly home on Monday.
Pax!
Brant
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