Taps

Salutations at last, I'm down on my knees
I heard the bugle this morning, the last revellie
Woke from a dream, I was in a terrible realm
All my sins were ablaze, I was chained to the healm
Now I'm overwhelmed...I'm overwhelmed

-Mockingbirds; Grant Lee Buffalo


There are no words to accurately describe the swells of emotion and memory one goes through at any funeral, let alone the funeral of your grandfather. There is no right word to describe the feelings as people you've known all your life, people you share blood and DNA and the bonds of family wracked with sobs. Even days later it brings those swells up again just thinking about it.

To look at the the man's face for the last time as he lays 'sleeping' in the casket, flowers and photos and two reminders of service adorning is a kick in the chest. You know he is finally at peace with the body he's known is breaking down, but it's still hard.

When the Veterans of Foreign Wars come in and they say their prayers and place a wreath and a flag on the casket, forever anointing his position in the eternal Band of Brothers, it's very very hard.

The viewings you attend are hard. Long distant relatives, friends of the family you do not know because you haven't lived here since you were a tyke... you hang with your cousins and the in laws at the back of the room. But you see the number of lives he touched, people who admired the man and came to pay their last respects.

The funeral is a very low key affair. I was asked and honored to read the piece I wrote for Grandpap's 86th birthday. I wouldn't call it a eulogy per se, but I hope it left everyone with some impression of the man and it was taken as a celebration of his life.

We carried the casket to the grave - against the funeral directors wishes - and the honor guard did their business. I did not know that three shells were placed in the flag presented to the family, but I do now. Each volley of that salute cuts through the clear early afternoon like a rip in the fabric of life and the smell of gunfire... And then it's over.


One of the things - well, two things the Sheets' do well, we did all weekend long: laughing and eating. My uncle Darrell said later that "it's great to have a big family to lean on at times like this" and we exhibited that all weekend long. We retired to the wake and ate and laughed and told tales and took pictures and hugged and then back to the house for more of the same.

But it was at the house where I really missed the presence of the man. He was not holding court in his living room chair. He was not holding down his spot at the kitchen table. He was not hiding from all the noise and commotion in the bedroom in the chair with the TV up loud enough for him to hear it. He would not again receive our kisses on the dome, bald as long as I knew him [though there were photos of him with hair - and he was a handsome man]. He would not tell tales of himself or confirm what other tales were being told on him. He could laugh at himself, too. It takes a man at peace with himself to laugh at himself.

I will miss that easy chuckle. I will miss it like I miss the smell of the man and the sound of traffic on PA 68 and the smell of clover that when I think of them I am always reminded of the home that 116 Schoolhouse Road is and was and always will be. And when I think of him, I will remember my world is a slightly sadder place because he is gone from it.

In kind words from my friends the last week or so, I have come to feel that sometimes we takes the bonds and relationships of family for granted. Several of my friends lamented that they never had relationships with grandparents who passed before they were born or shortly after, to which I can relate as my Dad's father passed when he was a young man. Sometimes it is necessary to renew those bonds, to draw everyone together and celebrate lives and being together.

I prefer weddings as these occasions, but life is a cycle and occasionally some must get off this roller coaster ride. My grandfather's passing brought our family together again and reminded us that though separated by miles and sometimes lost in our own little worlds, that we are really one clan together, for better, for worse, in happiness and in sadness and that even though we sometimes forget it, we do have each other to fall back on, to laugh and cry and love each other. And in the case of the Sheets clan, we really do all get along and love each other.

So long, baby and Amen.

Joe Biden? Really?

I just want to know one thing - when, oh really when, did the VP / running mate ever tip and election? Well, I mean since Johnson had dead people voting down in the Rio Grande Valley back in 1960? Did Dick Cheney win Bush any supporters? Dan Quayle? How did Lieberman assist the Kerry ticket? Al Gore brought who onto the Clinton bandwagon?

It doesn't really cover up any of Obama's shortcomings - he's still a first term Senator with no foreign policy experience and little to zero governing experience. Biden is a long time Senate hanger on from a nowhere state who's been on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees and who also said Obama had no governing / leadership experience.

If Biden is the best the Dems can do, they may really be in trouble again this time around. I'm sure Hillary was blocked for all the negatives she brings to the ticket. John Edwards is now under the bus, too. Did you see the chick he was bagging? What is it with Dems and ugly women? I can see, Bill doing the fat girl because fat girls are very thankful when they get a little - so I hear. Al Gore's done being the second banana. Kerry? Ha ha.

As for the McCains having 6 or 7 houses - hey, he was smart and married a rich and good looking woman. Jealous?

Not that I am all 100% Red State Dude - the state Senator Kim Brimer here in Ft. Worth has been trying for months and three appeals to get the Democratic Candidate Wendy Davis thrown off the ballot 'because her replacement on the city council wasn't yet sworn in, although yes, she had resigned, when she filed for the Senatorial race.' Three courts now have said she has followed the election rules, but Brimer is making this the issue of the campaign. Not other important issues like gas companies condemning land for right of ways and using up all the city water to force that natural gas up out of the ground. So I may not canvass or anything for Davis, but I will sure be voting for her in November. 'Cause this dude is just being a dick.

Darrell J. Sheets 11/24/1919 - 8/22/2008


My Buddy [Donaldson - Kahn]

Nights are long since you went away
I think of you all through the lonely days
My buddy, oh buddy, nobody's quite so true

I miss your voice, miss the touch of your hand
I miss the way your eyes saw things upon the land
Oh buddy, oh buddy, your buddy's missin' you

They tell me life's a book to study with lessons to find
Well ours is written that we'd part you and I
But biddies through the good old days
And pals if things would fall
It's just the grey days I miss you most of all
Buddy, oh buddy, your buddy's sure missin' you

Yessir, they say it must be in His plan
So I'll be like a good boy and say I understand
But buddy, your buddy will always have the blues
Oh buddy, oh buddy, your buddy's missin' you

Waiting and Wondering

There is no change in my grandfather's condition other than his blood level is low [dehydrated? diabetes?] and they're not sure if he can survive off a respirator.

The hardest part is the helplessness. You can't help him anymore. The second hardest part is the waiting. In spite of what Tom Petty says. Now when the phone rings, you're dreading "The News." You don't think about things like that any other time. You don't think about getting calls in the middle of a Sunday afternoon telling you that friends have passed this mortal coil. It happens, but you don't think about it happening again once that shock wears off.

Add to the fact that we are so far away - we will not get to say our goodbyes and make our peace. My friend Scott sent me a line when Grandpap began having trouble earlier this year and said "you feel bad because you don't get to shake the man's hand again and say thanks." And he's right.

I've said it before, my family is very blessed with long life and we have not dealt with a lot of people passing away. Out of 24 cousins [not counting their spouses and their children], 21 aunts and uncles and 3 grandparents in my 41 years, we've only lost one cousin, one uncle and one grandparent, all on my Dad's side. I lost my two great grandmothers and one great grandfather, but that was all decades ago.

I guess it's inevitable when one considers mortality - yours and the mortality of your loved ones - one starts to think and remember. Why should I remember as one of the happiest times, a week one summer spent with Grandma Galupi in a little apartment in the middle of nowhere Ohio when she didn't even have a car. Grandma didn't have a whole lot of money, so we didn't go out or anything, but we had fun walking over to the little store in her town and we found ready made pizza crusts and bought some Ragu and some pepperoni and made our own pizzas and we'd have iced tea and whatever - we found fun just in being together.

Summers at the Sheets spread weren't high dollar affairs either, although there was always ice cream and pop in the fridge. We'd stay out of Grandma's way while she straightened up the house, run in and out through the garage, cellar shop, swing on the swings, practice croquet or hitting the whiffle ball out back. Sometimes after lunch or supper Grandma would play 500 Rummy. These are the things you remember. You remember sitting on the hammock smelling clover, catching lightning bugs, listening to the adults chatting and laughing in the kitchen. You remember hide and seek and freeze tag games with your cousins in the basement and in the fields.

You remember how your grandfather would stop the grandfather clock when you slept in the living room because the chiming had an evil chord and scared you and how each morning he would catch the time up, running through the quarter, half, three-quarter and hours again. You remember his laugh. You remember rough whiskers as you kissed him good morning before he shaved. You remember sneaking up on him and planting a kiss on the top of his bald head. You remember how he'd squeeze you and how he smelled of Old Spice. You remember the sadness you'd feel every summer, every time you had to leave the Eden that was your grandparents house to return to your home in West Virginia or Texas and knowing you wouldn't be there again for another year or two. You return and you're amazed at how they are aging... is is because you don't see them every week or month? You watch helplessly as they shrink and begin to fade away.

Somewhere about a decade ago, I began to know that my grandparents weren't going to be around forever. I began asking questions about them, their lives, the lives of all the people around them - my aunts and uncles and other relatives. I began to understand a little of the family history and I began to know them as real people, not just people who I pop in on for a week every couple of years. I'm glad I did. Now I do know some things that their kids or their grandkids don't know, just because they never asked. I began to make my peace so that when the inevitable came, I wouldn't be left saying "I never asked...."

I was watching Clerks this evening.It struck me funny because we used to make out that we were so cool working in a record store back then and we were just doing and easy job that a monkey could do. But we were "The Cool Kids Who Work in the Record Store." I think back to what were 'good times' before we really had a care in the world and we could do stupid stuff and still get away with 'being young.' You wonder what happened to some of those people. I was talking earlier this week about running into a song that reminded me of someone. I ran into a few others this week on one of my 80s flashback tapes. I used to make tapes for this girl, I used to write stories, thinly veiled autobiography that this one enjoyed and why didn't this work out and why didn't that ever...

Anyway... hug your families.

For My Grandfather

The old man is in ICU in an induced coma, dehydrated and pneumonia. His potassium is through the roof and they called the family in today... none of these are good.

I had a word with Mom before I left there this evening. We know he's going to pass sometime and we think it's going to be soon. But she said "Even though you know it, even though you know he's so frail and weak [she was there in PA last week], when someone says this could be it, it still [takes your breath away]."

This is from November 2006. Tell your loved ones you love them because you never know when it will be the last time you see them.

For Grandpap

My Grandfather will be 86 on Friday. My niece just did a paper on her hero for a school project and I was just thinking about real heroes, not the baseball players or whoever we admired as kids, but the real people who had an impact on our lives and were true role models. And Grandpap Sheets is one of those people.

He’s never lived nor had any desire to live beyond the borders of Beaver Country in southwestern Pennsylvania [or ‘Pennsyltucky’ as he used to say] other than when he was over in France and Germany in WWII. I asked him the nicest place he’d seen in traveling the US after he retired, but he said he loved Beaver County. I guess it puts into perspective that some people just feel so at ease with where they’re from they never leave.

He’s a retired carpenter and one of the stories I’ve heard a zillion times is when he retired and came home with his tool chest. I guess I would have been about five or six and I helped him take the box into the shop, me at one end, he at the other and I just quipped “Now this is what I call cooperation!”

He built his own house on the hill there in Beaver County, getting a lot from my Grandmother’s Dad, Joe Vorderbrueggen in 1947 [he also acquired two more lots over the years before Grandpap died in 1976], living in the basement for about two years while the upstairs was constructed with a wife and 5 small children. They added on in the early 60s and still had 8 kids [‘seven in school at one time,’ he reminded me] sharing one bathtub, though they added a half bath in the addition. They still get water from a well and it is the sweetest tasting water in the world and makes excellent iced tea.

I think part of my love of music comes from him. I know my grandfather was a guitar player. During the war, he and some guys from his company would go around to other units in the area and play country music. [Remember, this was when there was “both kinds, country and Western.”] They were loosely known as the Ozark Mountaineers, Ozark being their company. I just asked for the clarification, as I thought he played in a band in the States, but he said, “No, other than some guys that used to come around once in a while.” [I called him a “Hootenanny Hippie” for this]. He used to play for me, up to about 1995 or so before his hands shook so much. Somewhere around 1999 or 2000 my cousin’s Melissa’s fiancée Milo was up and he had learned a couple of the songs played them for Grandpap and he said it “nearly brought the old man to tears, not being able to play anymore.” I know he always liked music and was always humming or whistling something and there was usually a radio on in the shop or when we’d drive into town. He was also a big Hee Haw fan, and there was no better way to clear a room of a bunch of little kids in 1974 than to turn on Hee Haw. Now I kind of wish I had paid more attention to the Hee Haw, but oh well. I know he was a fan of Johnny Cash and I know there are some albums somewhere in the house, but I’ve never gone looking for them. A few years back he was tickled when I sent him a tape of an album of Johnny’s called Ragged Old Flag that was one he’s asked about when I was working at Forever Young. He also always liked the funnier songs of Ray Stevens, Tom T. Hall, Jerry Reed and Louden Wainwright’s Dead Skunk.

He was always quick with a joke or a stunt like betting me a dollar he could jump higher than a fence post [Warning: fence posts do not jump]. He was always interested in how things worked and building things. I have several little knick-knacks like a sling shot he whittled for me and a little ‘road runner’ made out of scrap metal and a box for holding playing cards he made for me ‘on spec.’ I have the rolling pin he gave to all my cousins as wedding presents because I think he’s given up waiting for me to [or more accurately fears he’ll be gone when I do] get married. He also never lets me forget about getting the wrong oil filter and pouring 4.5 quarts of Penzoil out on the grass because I wouldn’t listen to him. He’s impressed pride in my work on me. Once at Sound Warehouse I was building crates for display and I’d just keep telling myself to ‘Do it like the old man would have.’

The only time I recall him being upset was when I ran over one of his trees while mowing the field down in front of the house. OOPS! I had been trying to see how close I could get to them and got a little too close to one. OOOPS! I was banned from the tractor for a while for that one. As kids we all loved riding on or driving the little Cub Cadet tractor. I know I spent hours on it pretending it was some WWII airplane I was flying or an X Wing fighter of the Millennium Falcon after Star Wars came out. I can still recall mornings in the kitchen of the house he built, you’d come in and kiss a face full of stubble, or if you can sneak up on him, kiss his bald head, which is a lot easier now that I am 6’2”.

I know he is proud of the fact they he and my Grandma Rose were able to raise 8 kids through sometimes trying times. Once, he says they had dinner and there was one pork chop left and he reached for it and got eight forks in the back of his hand. But the Sheets clan is pretty tight and there isn’t any infighting or name calling [that I am aware of]. Grandma and Grandpap have been married for 63 years and there is a special place in heaven for her that. As he’s gotten older he’s a little shorter on patience than he used to be. His hand shakes more trying to raise a cup of coffee and he’s a lot slower than he used to be, but steadfastly yearning to be independent even though his body is telling him that he cannot be.

But I talked to him today and I know there is a peace there that he’s lived a wonderful life with few, if any regrets. I asked if there was anything that he has wanted to try but never had and he answered ‘no,’ even though I know he’s never tried pizza. I know I have learned in the last 10 years or so to appreciate that time I have with my grandparents and to take the time and ask the questions now that someday I will not be able to get answers to.

Happy Birthday and love Grandpap!

Oh Shit...

I was working on the conversion project [converting Lp to MP3] again after a long, long, long break, up to the Es now and I was taken by surprise by a song. The song I dedicated to her long before it was a hit. I confirmed it was 1990 on the Lp jacket. Seeing the Rave Ups at Tommy's [formerly The Venue, now Deep Ellum Live], Bowie at the "Coca Cola" Starplex [later Smirnoff Music Center, now the Superpages.com Center?], pregnant cat and kittens in your room and all the stupid shit I did.

I doubt she ever thinks about me and that summer anymore. It's just a song that took me by surprise.

Manly Man Stuff

I spent about 5 hours this last week in the 2nd to last bastion of true manly manliness [#1 is still the barber hop] - the tire store.

Never mind being pissed off that my tire wasn't fixed or replaced the first trip over there at an ungodly hour [for me] and that the store I went to didn't have my tire in stock and that I had to go across town and get back in line again for service.

While I was at the 2nd store I just took a quick look around - 10 men to one woman. All sizes and shapes. Four T-shirts promoting a favorite college, pro team or car. Sneaker ruled. Couple business casual guys, one in work coveralls for an airline that is cutting jobs [hope you're still employed come Labor Day!]. Pants ruled over shorts.

Are these men sent because their spouses know that this is 'their territory?' Can't stand the smell of rubber that just permeates the whole place? Can't stand the air wrenches? Or is this just the bone they throw their men because big box retail home repair places have become the unisex place for coupes now? How did we [men] lose the hardware store?

The Hot Hot Heat

I left work last night with a sense of malaise. Physically a little tired but just mentally worn down.Probably the fact that Saturday night is my Friday didn't help. Entering the heat certainly didn't. Will it ever cool off? Will it ever rain again? I watered the grass, don't MAKE me wash the truck!

I got out on the freeway and lowered the windows trying to catch some breeze and fresh air. Sometimes all that air conditioning just makes my sinus close up. I just want to drive and get out of the heat footprint of the city. Too much concrete, too much heat.

I take 114 west out of Grapevine towards the county instead of 121 south back towards the city. I don't expect any heat break as I travel though Grapevine or Southlake - face it, these suburbs just hold the heat, too. But as I pass the theater and the two story Barnes and Noble the road is suddenly lines with trees and I do expect the heat to drop a little... like it does coming down 820 from Hurst into Fort Worth, that stretch between highway 10 and I-30... but it doesn't.

It's 11:15 at night and there is quite a bit of traffic - are these folks really going somewhere or are they trying to escape just like me? We ride the freeway - 10 lanes to 8 to 4 back up to 6 then 4 again. I enter Denton County and we're on the access road. I take a 'wrong turn' at the split of 114 and 170.My plan was to just take 114 out to the Speedway and just take I-35 back through Alliance and back down into Fort Worth. But in the confusion in the dark I take 170. I have never been out this road but there is other traffic going with me, I have half a tank of gas and I can always turn around.

170 takes you from Westlake back into Fort Worth. This is technically Fort Worth, for mapping, taxing and city services only - there is really nothing out here. I recognize a couple of streets and red lights as I go out this road. 377 goes all the way back down into Fort Worth, Old Denton Road will get me at least back to north Loop 820. I am going southwest now instead of due west or slightly northwest and I get wind blowing into the car, but it's just warm dry wind. It's not what I was hoping for. Maybe I should just bust north towards Oklahoma, just ride up to Ardmore and clear the cobwebs. But I don't have a radio - all I have is the wind and the sound of the rubber meeting the road. I decide to just head back into town and have a beer.

I come up in I-35 at the south end of the Alliance Airport instead of the north end by the Speedway. As I cross over to get on the freeway, the left runway of Alliance is off to my immediate right, all lit up stretching out for what, 5000 feet? Almost a mile? I think how cool it would be to see someone landing, but it is unlikely at this hour.

I am back on the freeway heading south towards downtown and home. When was the last time I was on this stretch of road? Last time I took a ride up to Ardmore to clear my head? How long ago was that? When I took a load of stuff up to Recycled in Denton? That was over a year ago.

I am jealous now of my mother who is in Pennsylvania. She called and bragged how it's been in the mid 70s all week long. I'd love to be on a hammock there as the temperature drops through the 60s just smelling the clover and listening to the traffic. She says Grandpap is very bad, holding water and not able to move around much and always cold due to poor circulation. She feels he will be back in the hospital soon. I know what's coming - congestive heart failure. He will go into the hospital one of these times and not come home. Then I will be sad. Grandma, she says though is getting around well, still. Slow but mobile.

I'm back inside the loop and off to the right are the bars and action of northside and the stockyards. I wonder if I know one of the girls drinking over there with her buddy. They'd be in one of the cowboy bars, not the Hispanic clubs the line Main Street and 38th. As we come around the curve by Long Avenue, there's and accident on the other side - I see the flashing lights and I know something bad has happened. Two fire trucks and a couple cop cars and the traffic backed up, narrowed to one lane as the emergency crews work.

I take the ramp to I-30 East / Lancaster to head back into my neighborhood. I don't know if I've ever been up on this high, high ramp after dark. Over to the left the street lights and the houses look very calm and peaceful. You can't tell that those are some of the meanest streets of Fort Worth, some streets you just don't go down after dark. But as I say, from the height, the city looks pretty and peaceful.

I pull into the driveway, go in and grab an MGD. It's 11:57 and I flip on Weather on the 8s; it's 88 degrees at midnight! It's just too damn hot.

What's Up?

Well, it's been a long month. The major pain in my life was a real pain in my jaw. I had a bicuspid that was giving me on and off trouble for the last couple years finally give and I had to have root canal. The GOOD NEWS [if there is any associated with root canal] is that I was able to get away with just a couple of fillings for now. And the root canal was not as horrible as I thought it would be... not that I want to do it again anytime soon. But is there any pain worse than a bad tooth?

My truck got broken into 4th of July down in Deep Ellum. They jacked my radio, my CD wallet [99% stuff I burned] and my briefcase with my work headset and crappy Sony MP3 player I didn't like anyway. I went down to see the return of the American Fuse, who were grand but loud. I guess in 20 years of going to D.E. and this is the first trouble I've had I was due. It's just a pain in the ass to replace the window and the radio [which I haven't yet]. And the time doing so. Then my CD burning program goes on the fritz and I have to learn a new one.

My beloved grandfather continues to struggle with his health. There was an incident of heat exhaustion and he lost about ten pounds in the hospital. Mom is going north tomorrow for about a week, so I expect a pretty bad progress report.

My friend and guitarist extraordinare Nate Fowler was in a wreck and shattered his right wrist. I guess the Fuse will not be playing for a while.

It was the 5th anniversary of Heather and Henry's crash. We took some Shiners out to the cemetery and shared some thoughts and beers with the marker.

Henry's mom Andee took a hit in her fight against cancer - a treatment a few days after I saw her in mid July has left her unable to speak.

Other than that, life is a series of bad traffic tie ups and disappointments. The usual. I was going over an old notebook and it seems I was a confused, scared lad back in the 90s and not a whole lot has changed. Except the grey in my hair and all these lines on my face gettin' clearer...

I did find a most excellent band courtesy of the Fort Worth Startlegram: If you haven't checked out The Hold Steady, do so immediately. The comparison is to Springsteen and the E Street band, but it's a modern sound and it's not all about girls, cars and Jersey, eh?

SALEH!