Francis "Monk" LaValley

My grandfather, Francis "Monk" LaValley, passed away peacefully on March 13, a few weeks shy of his 91st birthday. My grandfather was a quiet man. For a long time, I assumed that his nickname was a reference to his quiet demeanor. When I finally asked him about it a few years ago, I learned that it was actually a reference to a football star of his childhood, Stanford All-American Jim "Monk" Moscrip. He earned the nickname playing backyard football as a boy and it stuck with him for the rest of his life.

In many ways, his life was the story of America in the 20th century. His parents immigrated to the US from Quebec, and if I remember correctly, his mother never really learned much English. While he wasn't bilingual, he did retain a little bit of French, which he would occasionally interject into conversation. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II. I don't know much about his war experience because I never really asked him about it and he never really talked about it. I know that he went over to Europe aboard the Queen Mary, served as a mechanic, and spent most of his time in England. After coming home, he settled into a solid blue-collar career as a tool & die maker and raised a family. He was a sports fan, a league bowler, an avid fisherman, and a lifelong Ohioan.

My favorite memories of my grandfather are from summertime visits when my parents would send my brother and me down to Columbus for a few days with Grandma and Grandpa. Their house was a wonderful place full of toys and games that we didn't have at home and the special kind of love and attention that only grandparents can provide. It was during those visits that my grandfather really shared his interests with us. He'd take us fishing and take us to the bowling alley. While I never developed into much of a fisherman and only spent a couple of years in organized bowling, I always enjoyed our trips to the lake and the lanes.

One interest that my younger self did have in common with him was an interest in drawing. He had an artistic side that he didn't often show, but he could make a pretty mean freehand sketch. He always enjoyed looking at my doodlings and would occasionally pull out his pencil and join in.

I didn't see him as often in his later years and his declining health made it impossible for him to enjoy most of his old pastimes, but he was always up for a game of cards right to the very end. I'm thankful for all of the time that we got to spend together. He never gave me much in the way of advice or guidance, but he didn't really have to, he just did what needed to be done and let his actions speak for themselves.

Hub Cap

The great jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard passed away yesterday. He hadn't been very active recently and I haven't listened to his music in a while, but he was one of my favorites back when I was first getting into jazz. I don't have any of his recordings as a leader and I thought that Out to Lunch was the only recording of Hubbard that I owned until the LAT obit reminded me that he played on Coltrane's Ascension sessions, but my old college radio station had a lot of Hubbard's recondings on vinyl and I spun them regularly. One my favorites was Live at the Northsea Jazz Festival 1980, which is the only post-Blue Note Hubbard album that I've listened to extensively. He was truly one of the last of the great hard bop players.

Working Studs

I'll always remember my introduction to the works of the late Studs Terkel, who passed away yesterday at the age of 96. I was in sixth grade and browsing the stacks at my middle school library when I noticed a book called "Working Studs". Needless to say, I was surprised to see such a subversive work of non-fiction at a middle school library until I took a second look and discovered that it was the classic "Working" by Studs Terkel. This remembrance of Terkel, which aired on NPR yesterday, includes Terkel recounting a time that one of Jerry Falwell's minions called a library in Georgia to complain about a pornographic book called "Working Studs" by someone named Terkel. I guess I had the potential to be a great moralizing ignoramus from a young age. If only someone would have recognized that and nurtured me down that path.

I've never read "Working" (or "Working Studs", for that matter), though I did read this book during a lapse in employment several years ago. It's written in the same style as Working and bills itself as something of a modern day remake of the classic. I gave Michelle a copy of "Working" for Christmas last year, so I'm sure I'll get around to reading it once the statute of limitations on reclaiming a gift that you gave someone else expires and/or I ever finish "Infinite Jest".

George Carlin

I knew this morning when I heard that George Carlin had passed away that I would read many tributes in the blogosphere today. Certain deaths really resonate in blogging world. Generally, they feature men who did great or at least interesting things while living by their own credo and not worrying too much about what the rest of the world thought of them. I suspect that deep down, this is how most of us bloggers would like to see ourselves remembered and therefore, it should come as no surprise that we feel the need to mourn the passing of the great elders of the tribe to which we aspire.

I'm not going to eulogize Carlin because I'm not that familiar with his body of work. I liked the pieces of it that I managed to catch, but I never really sought it out. I will mention that I was just thinking about what he was up to and how old he was after his name came up in a conversation I had with some friends about Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (in which Carlin plays Rufus, of course) on Saturday. I'm not suggesting that the act of me thinking about George Carlin for the first time in a few years led to his passing 24 hours later, but it is strange how things like that happen sometime. Perhaps Carlin once did a bit about this phenomenon.

Top of the World

As you have probably heard, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to successfully summit Mt. Everest, had passed away. Anyone care to make a wager on who the subject of next week's Economist obituary is going to be? You can read some remembrances of the man here and here,. I never really gave Hillary or Everest much thought until a couple months ago, when I read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. The book is a first person account of a 1996 Mt. Everest expedition that went horribly wrong and resulted in the deaths of eight of the climbers. The story really got to me in a way that few stories ever have. I'm still not really sure why. It's easy to get drawn into any well-written story, but there's more to it than just that. It also changed my perception of Mt. Everest. Before reading the book, I was of the opinion that while Hillary's ascent of the mountain was an incredible feat, nowadays, anyone with enough money and time on their hands could hire enough Sherpas and guides to get them to the top and back down again. While it's true that people who probably have no business climbing Everest are able to reach the top with the help of the guides and outfitters who lead expeditions to the top each year, they are still putting their lives at risk with every step they take at high altitude and as the book clearly illustrates, only a few things have to go wrong before a "leisurely" hike to the summit becomes a disaster. I'd say that the book has convinced me that climbing Mt. Everest isn't worth the risk, but I never really had any desire to climb it or any other stupendously tall mountain before reading it. Still, I can't help but admire the people like Hillary who threw caution to the wind and climbed to the top of the world.

Good Old Smithy

I can't believe I missed this while writing my ode to Economist obituaries a couple days ago. Ian Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), passed away at the end of November. In case you've never heard of him, he was most famous (or infamous) for declaring independence from the crown in 1965 and turning his nation into a pariah state in an attempt to maintain white minority rule. I knew that Smith was getting up there in years and I was positive that he'd be memorialized in Economist upon his passing. I was correct, and his obituary is a masterpiece. Smith was one of the last remaining vestiges of the old British Empire, and his obituary pays homage to that while still condemning his misrule.

The obituary does not delve into speculation, nor should it, but it is interesting to think about how Zimbabwe would be today had it dismantled its de facto apartheid regime in 1965 as Britain wanted instead of waging a disastrous war in defense of a lost cause. Would it be like today's South Africa but with a one generation head start on democracy and racial and tribal reconciliation? Would it still be the basket case that it is today? The history of governance in post-colonial Africa is bleak enough that it's foolish to assume that Zimbabwe would definitely be in better shape today had Smith been willing to dismantle minority rule, but at the same time, it's hard to imagine how Zimbabwe could be in worse shape than it is today.

Economist Obit Interview

Sorry to keep talking about the Economist, but I heard this piece on the radio yesterday morning and couldn't resist passing it along. It's an interview with Ann Wroe, the Economist's current obituary writer. It can be a real challenge to read an entire issue of the Economist cover-to-cover each week, but I always make sure I at least flip to the back and read the obituary. I find the form and subjects of the Economist's obits much more compelling than obituaries in other publications. They are long, at least by obituary standards, and they always manage to profile people who lived profoundly interesting lives. This week's subject is obviously Benazir Bhutto, but in weeks where no one's death is at the top of international headlines, they usually manage to find people who, to reuse a compliment from the world of art, were much more influential than well-known. Often times, I've either never heard of the person they are remembering or I have heard of the person but had no idea that he or she had passed away. Aviation pioneer Freddie Laker and avant garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen are two relatively recent examples of the latter. The Economist's obituary page is neither afraid to talk about the flaws of those who have passed away, nor is it afraid to eulogize people whose passing has probably made the world a better place. Non-subscribers can read the past year's worth of obits for free online. Check it out sometime.