Today would have been my grandfather's 90th birthday. I almost said it should have been, but who really knows when you start talking about ages after 80.

It's been a year and 3 months since he passed away. To think about "well I haven't seen so-and-so for a year" and you know it happens all the time, right? Of course there have been times I have not seen my grandparents for two or three years. But to know you won't be able to speak to them or write letters or anything...

To my nieces and my baby sister a year seems like a long long long time - I know it did when I was a teenager too! But as I've gotten older days and weeks and years just seem to all melt together and I really have to think about a year and try to remember who I was with or who I hung with or who lived where and try and tie all my memories together. And some things I just gave up on.

It is getting a little easier to deal with. There are still times I long to hear the old man's voice and laugh. I get a little quiver sometimes when I look at pictures. I think about lessons, like the oil filter lesson. To poke myself, I grabbed a wrong oil filter off the shelf one day and Grandpap pointed out that the one I was about to put on didn't look anything like the one I took off. But being a smart ass 17 year old I snapped off "Oh it's a GM product, it will work" and started the engine, dumping 5 quarts of new motor oil onto the driveway. So I learned "Get the right part the first time!"

Once we were out on the yard and Grandpap bet me a quarter or a dollar that he could jump higher than a fence post. Now we had barbed wire [then] around the field and those posts were a good 4 and a half feet high, so I thought this was an easy one. He jumped about four inches off the ground and said "Now let's see the fence post jump." And I paid. And I learned "Don't trust Grandpap!"

He always had wit and liked a good clean joke. He always liked music [not the "noise" his kids and grand-kids listened to - once when I was up in Pennsylvania for two weeks with no rock and roll! My aunt Becky loaned me a couple of eight tracks and I got to listen to them down on the radio in Grandpap's workshop - but not too loud.] and could often be heard whistling or humming around the house.

In later years - after I turned 30 - I just liked talking with him. I learned a lot about the family history and some stuff about the war because I asked. Sometimes he would just talk about how life was when he was young. Sometimes we'd just sit and smell the fresh air and enjoy the sunshine and just chat about nothing, too.

He was always proud of his family - eight kids, sons and daughters in law, grandchildren, great grandchildren... as he got older his tolerance for noise and tom foolery went down, but he could usually find a few good minutes for the even the youngest.

I've often said I felt the old man was at peace with fate. We all know we're going to go sometime sooner or later and my grandfather was no exception. Probably every winter since 1990 was going to be his last. Going through periods of a year or three not seeing my grandfather [a lot of my family actually] the changes that occur gradually would shock when I did get 'home.' The shaking of the hands while raising a cup of coffee. The gradual stoop of an old man as gravity pulls at in invisible millstone around his neck called "age." I'd say graying and balding, but he's been gray and bald as long as I can remember! The frustration of not being able to do what he wanted! His body was failing, breaking down, but in his mind he could still do what he could do what he could do a decade ago. I'm sure that betrayal drove him mad, though in the last couple years I think he sort of resigned himself to and accepted it.

I know in my mind's eye I will see sometimes remember him stooped and using a walker, but I will want to remember him as the "Grandpap" of my teens, when he could still hit the road and do most of what he wanted to do.

I miss you a lot, sometimes, Grandpap. I miss kissing you on the top of your bald head the way I'd sometimes miss your scratchy beard on my face and the smell of Old Spice when I was a kid. I miss your wit and loving advice and your laugh and the twinkle in your eye. I miss your enjoyment of life!

My NASCAR Day

My long time friend, Lt. Col Scott A. Downey [USA - Ret] was unable to attent the Friday and Saturday events at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend and entrusted me with his tickets. I was able to give the Friday truck race tickets to one of my co-workers and Jennifer and I set out for the Saturday Nationwide Series Race.

The first problem, of course, is that the race is set to start at 1130 a.m. - about half an hour after I usually get up for the day. But I was excited about the adventure of my first trip out to the Speedway and hopped up at 730 and we were on the road at 830. We opted to take the Fort Worth T Park and Ride so the driving would be someone else's headache. I think it was a good call because after the race I was so tired and sore from walking that I could not really handle some nice post event road rage. By the time we got back to the parking lot I was mostly calmed, although a headache had popped up. And since I KNEW I didn't want to try getting back on I 35, we scooted back to Casa de Chaz by taking Jacksboro Highway / Henderson St. back into downtown. A Heineken at the casa and I was O-U-T out for a long nap.

So we got to the Speedway about 930 and we walked what I guess I would call the midway for about 45 minutes. This is the rows of sunglasses huts, scanner renters, sponsor booths and the driver merchandise trailers. Lots and lots of NASCAR folks here - lots of Junior lovers, Jeff Gordon folks and a few Smoke fans. Jenn and I each got a Tony Stewart cap and I got the program package. We could hear the Sprint Cup practice going on, so we headed for our seats.

Scott's suite - and just what the heck are we paying Army officers these days, cause this place was sweet - was as far from the parking lot as you could get and still be on TMS property. I mean we were way down at turn number four with the start/finish off to our right. Scott's seats are front row in the suite though. Suites are a cool deal too - they had barbeque and fried chicken and sodas and water and cookies - all gratis! There are TVs and the broadcast is piped in so you can see replays and pit stops and stuff. We watched about half an hour of practice - the color scheme for Montoya's 42 sucks eggs. The introductions and everything are piped in... we could see the portable grandstand but not really anything going on over there. The colrs and a moment of silence for our fallen at Fort Hood, the National Anthem and it's "Let's go racin'" time!

The race - well it was a foregone conclusion by about lap 50. It wasn't EVEN close. I berated Lt. Col. Downey for leaving early the year Carl Edwards just smoked everybody from the get go, but I see why he would. Kyle Busch was driving this race like he had a date with Jessica Simpson in Dallas at 230 - he was just driving the wheels off! He was lapping people 20 laps in. It was like everyone else was driving '75 Monte Carlos out there and he had a 2009 Mustang. The analogy I came up with is this: Imagine you're a fighter pilot over Germany in 1944, a fighter ace in your P-51 Mustang and you are the hot shit in the skies - then an ME-262 jet goes screaming through your formation and you go "WHATTHEFUCKWAZAT?!?!?"

Still, I had a good time watching the race. But this was the Nationwide race. There were a lot of empty seats in grandstands and suites and in the parking lot and it was still a LOT of people. I looked at the crowd as we were booking back across the midway to the buses and said "Imagine tomorrow when there's three times as many people!"

Thanks Scott - I though I owed you a dinner when I got the tickets, but I'm not sure what I owe you now. Although you got me into this cockamamie NASCAR thing doing the fantasy league - we'll not talk about this year's standing, right? A thousand GRACIAS, senor, hope to see you very very soon!