Wistful Wednesday: Marvin

My Father in Law would have been 100 years old today.   He died from complications after a procedure to drain fluid from the pleura around his lungs.  The procedure went just fine, but shortly afterwards his kidneys and liver failed. They called it Multi System failure. He died early on a Sunday morning August 28, 1994.  He was eighty years and fifteen days old at the time of his death….twenty years ago this month. He was only in the hospital for 7 days. Someone sat with him the entire time he was in the Intensive Care Unit.

Photo from the 1930’s.

Coffee so thick it barely pours, braunsweiger sandwiches, Tiparillos, Meerschaum Pipes, Cross pens, flannel shirts, deer hunting, fishing for the “big one”, big fancy cars, the color red, cameras, fried potatoes, peanut butter that had to be stirred because the oil separated in the jar, ginger snaps, solitaire card game ( always marking the aces with his thumb nail), newspapers on the floor and Atlas Maps at the ready next to his chair, Angie Dickinson from the old series Police Woman, never retiring for the night until Johnny Carson was over… so many memories.

He was a good listener, and didn’t give advice unless asked.  He loved to talk on the phone, we often encouraged our talky/argumentative oldest daughter to “Call your Grandpa and argue with him.”

He was a good Grandfather.  He was thrilled with both of our girls and with his other granddaughter too.  He spoiled them and was the creator of the “bees” that buzzed them and made them collapse in giggles.