The Big Guy

It was December 2004.  We had arrived early, very early to the Mall in order to beat the lines.  The kind of planning that new parents do when trying to coordinate seasonal iconic activities with the time of day the kids are most likely to behave.  The strategy had seemingly worked and we were fourth or fifth in line to see Santa. We had arrived so early that guest of honor hadn’t yet made it to his throne.  He was still over at the styling salon where the ladies paid elf like attention to grooming his snow white whiskers.

The wait for Santa was starting to take it's toll on the girls attention span, especially Sarah our 18 month old.  Remember this was the pre elf-on-the-shelf era so there were only so many, ‘you don’t want to be on the bad list’ threats that could be used at the 11^th hour.  Well along came Santa and to my surprise Santa ‘worked the crowd’ coming down the line saying hi on his way to his place of honor. 

This giant man, with coal black boots, velvet red pants and broad suspenders over his Santa casualwear playful shirt.  Sarah stood silent, not understanding exactly what was going on.  After Santa passed on down the line Alex leaned in coaching Sarah, ‘Don’t you get it, that’s the guy you have to be nice to!?!

Like many families in this area, we followed this Santa to the various locals that he would visit each season.  Such a wonderful gentle man.  Year after year we added to our collection of pictures with Santa, never missing a year.   One year we did call it close and squeaked in a visit around 3pm on the 24th.  Fifteen years of collecting pictures and saying hi to the nicest man on the planet.  We were sure to make our reservation this year, since Santa was now taking full advantage of technology of the internet and text based scheduling. 

Then we received the notice this week that that Santa had to travel back to the North Pole due to a medical condition.  Days later the note came out that the Big Guy had passed on.   For a person we spent on a few minutes with each year, it was like some pure happiness had been taken away.  Happiness in big, broad suspenders and white whiskers.  Throughout north Texas posts of "RIP Santa" flooded social media.  I'm not sure why, but that didn't sit well with me.  I prefer to think of it as our city has been transformed into Sombertown and Kris Kringle has been temporally delayed by the Winter Warlock.

These are just few of the yearly Christmas pictures we collected over the decade and a half of visiting The Big Guy.  Pictures covering circa 2004 to 2016.

Calypso

It was the only piece of mail this past Saturday.  An unassuming 3 by 4 inch envelope addressed to Jill.  I didn’t recognize the name on the return address, I just figured it was part of the 2017 graduate thank you card parade that has been marching through our mailbox the past couple of months.  Turns out it wasn’t a graduation card, but rather a note stitching together the past and present.  I put the card on the kitchen counter where Jill could easily find it when she returned.

Later in the day I noticed the petite letter had been opened.  The card containing a kind note, thanking Jill for her donation and a picture of a young woman, who I didn’t recognize, in a cyclist outfit.  Jill then provided the back story. 

A few weeks back, Jill had been reading alumni news from her high school and noticed there was a story about a former Bishop Lynch student who was also a Texas Longhorn, both of Jill’s educational roots.  With that kind of fabric commonality she clicked on the link to the article thinking the young woman’s last name seemed familiar.  

She read the article about the woman joining the group of UT cyclists biking from Austin to Anchorage, the ‘Texas 4000, fighting cancer every mile’.  (http://www.texas4000.org/)  Then it hit Jill, the tie to this young woman.  The kind of realization that jolts your memories, feelings and emotions swirling together and heightening the attention, making you lean in to read the article closer.  She read further, the bio went on to explain that Madeline, the young woman, rides for her older sister Calypso, who she didn’t have chance to know.  She was a year old when Calypso passed away at the age of six. 

Jill said to me, “You remember the little…..” and before she could complete the sentence I responded, “I do”.  I had pieced things together and knew exactly where she was going with the story.

Jill was one of the many team members at Children’s Medical Center caring for Calypso and the family. 

The deeper tie to Jill and I is that it was in service for Calypso, while she was in the midst of her battle, that had Jill on the phone with Judith.  Judith, a Make-a-Wish director, and mother of an old friend of mine from high school.  Judith had just recently moved from Pittsburgh to Dallas.  They were patching together activities around Calypso’s wish.  During the call Jill liked Judith so much that she asked if she had a son she could marry.  Judith’s response was, her sons were married, but his son’s friend needs a wife and he lives in Dallas.  To which Jill replied, ‘If he is tall, nice and Catholic give him my number.’  Fortunately for me, Jill was a little older by this time and had excluded other criteria for a mate that would have eliminated me from further consideration. 

It was Calypso who was the initial stitch that led to Jill and I being tied together.  All these years later, on an otherwise standard Saturday afternoon a card arrived in our mailbox from her grown sister keeping her memory alive. 

You just never know how things will unfold and the impact one person, even a six year old, has on those that she may not even know, but are fortunate enough to be within her ecosystem.  I keenly remember the day that Calypso passed away.  I had just reached my desk at work when the phone rang.  It was Jill and it was terribly difficult to understand her.  I just listened.  I had no other concept of how to deal with such overwhelming raw emotions or how to provide support over the phone.  Jill ended the call with, “I want to bake cookies for a living, no one dies baking cookies.”

Please consider expanding your ecosystem by supporting Madeline in her efforts to honor her big sister.   http://www.texas4000.org/rider/2018/unassigned/madeline-schill/

Wake Up Call - 2017 Picture Review

Throughout any given year I take quite a few photographs.  Really I take a lot of pictures.  The number of pics grows exponentially when we go to national parks.  So you can imagine the number of pictures that I snapped last summer as we celebrated the 100 Anniversary of the National Park Services with a blow out trip to 5 National Parks and three National Monuments.  Through this Friday's Note entry I offer two avenues of sharing photographs I've taken.  The first is a link to a video I assembled of our family visits to many national parks over the past decade.  I fully admit it's a little like a home movie, though it is a nice chronology of my girls growing while visiting some pretty incredible landscapes.

National Park Service 100 Anniversary Family Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6teLUurM1U

The second avenue of sharing the photographs are the following top 10 pictures from that trip.   These are some of my favorite landscape pictures from the trip.  The first picture is of the Tetons from Schwabacher landing, not Swashbuckler landing as I had said for a day or so.  The back story for getting this picture is convincing the family to get up at 4:45am in order to drive to this location to get the 5:20am rays of sunshine against the mountains.  As we pulled into the parking area, already populated by a dozen cars and a mini tour bus, I managed the, "see I'm not the only crazy person!"

The second photo is from the same general area, but a little further down the river.   The water at this location was clear and calm making the reflection nearly as sharp as the mountains themselves. 

 The next picture was the following morning, yes another 4:45am wake up call and 40 min drive to get to the location of the Mormon barns at the southern end of the national park.  The early morning light against the barn framed by the mountains is one of the best 15 minutes of picture taking that is possible.

 This picture is inside of the chapel of the Transfiguration.  The picture shows the panoramic view behind the alter.  I would find paying attention to a homily a little difficult with this being the view.

 The lower falls of the Yellowstone river are twice the height of the Niagara falls.  The falls are the entry point to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  The power of the water pouring over the falls is impressive.  The view from Artist Point absolutely never gets old.

 In the southern half of Yellowstone is the Grand Prismatic Spring.  I was thwarted in my attempt to scale the hill on the far side of this oversized hot spring since the park had that road closed for work.  So this picture is from the boardwalk that takes you out onto the bacteria fields that surround the hot spring.  The different colors are the various types of bacteria that grow at different temperatures.

 In the northern end of Yellowstone is the Mammoth hot spring. This snapshot is just a snippet of the overall hot spring mountain which is constantly changing as various paths get clogged and flows redirect.  These changes were very evident in comparing the views from multiple years apart.

 At the top of Montana is a stunning park title Glacier National Park.  While the park is down to approximately 25 glaciers, down from 150 glaciers a century ago.  This picture (yes getting up early yet again) is of Goose Island on Lake St Mary as the first rays of sun light up the clouds and far mountain tops.

 Glacier National Park has a single road that bisects the park (east to west) with there being a size limit on the vehicles allowed to navigate the road due to the narrow lanes and sharp turns next to sheer rock walls.  While parking at one of the pull outs to take in the scene I notice one of the iconic red tour buses pass us going up the mountain.   Luckily I was able to take this picture as the bus crosses over the falls.

 On the west side of the mountain range is Avalanche Creek.  This is the a classic view of the crystal blue milky stream that cuts through the moss covered boulders.  I have basically the same picture from back in 1996, but that picture was taken in August and the water was a lot lower and less striking.

One of my final favorite pictures is from Mount Rushmore.   I played around with some manual focus in order to get a little different view of old Abe.  I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.  It's nice having a portrait figure stay so still for his picture. 

Well, that is it for my retrospective of favorite 2016 vacation pictures.  Look at it this way, you didn't have get up early to enjoy these views.