My family lost one of its legendary figures today. My great uncle C. died after an extend illness. One of the reasons Uncle C. was legendary in my family was because he had been a professor at Church College of Hawaii (long before it became BYU-Hawaii), and had been an active participant in getting my mom and dad together and married when they were students there. So we heard lots of stories about those days from my parents.
One of the amazing thing about Uncle C. was that for his entire adult life he was a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair after a fall from a second story window during his rowdy days in the military. What made uncle C. amazing is that there are few people on earth who were a genuinely friendly and funny and loving as he was and enjoyed life as he did. He just loved people and he made you feel good to be around him. I remember going to a lot of family parties where there would be all the old folks (now I laugh at this, since they were probably not that much older than I am now, but they seemed awfully old then.) and I would really feel uncomfortable as a kid until I saw Uncle C. and then I thought, okay, I can survive this party if he is here. My grandfather had a lot of brothers, many who were good story tellers, but none was better at making people laugh and enjoy themselves as Uncle C.
I have a lot of memories of going over to Uncle C. and Aunt K's home near Payson after my family had moved to Utah from Hawaii. They lived kind of up in the foothills and they had some farm animals and a well and stuff. Which for a kid coming from Hawaii, seemed like the coolest thing. I think the only time I have ever attempted to milk a cow in my entire life was at their home. (Didn't do very well at this.) While my uncle R. had horses, I was always scared of him (and the horses as well it turns out.) My uncle C. and aunt K. had this enormous family room, which I remember having a foosball table and other cool games and stuff. We had a lot of family gatherings there on holidays and such. I remember the scary Halloween haunted woods thing their kids put on one year when I was a teenager. Ken and David set it up in the woods behind the house, and I think Uncle C. delivered the big set up scare with the legend of some Indian who died in the early warfare in the early days of the Mormon settlement period and came back to haunt the nearby area. I also remember a big family party with a magician and that I was so frustrated at not being able to figure out how he was doing the tricks.
I guess this is to just say thanks to Uncle C. for a lot of wonderful memories.
