Monday, another damn beautiful day!

It's a great day for a motorcycle ride. Alas, it is also a day during which I am obligated to work, or at least to put my face in the place.

It's also a sad day. I learned this morning that my father's only brother died late yesterday, the last of his generation within our family. He was 90, and a World War II Stalag survivor, and I wish that I had been able to be there when at last he felt like talking about his experiences there. I had hoped to visit him again one more time, but have had no excuse to travel to the west coast in quite some time - and before I could organize a trip, one of the prime reasons for the trip left us.

This has been a hard year for older folks among us. My brother's mother-in-law and my father's brother died within weeks of each other, and with them died some very interesting recordings of personal history.

Uncle Bob was 90 - an age that he never expected to reach, as his health had been impaired since his return from Europe and the war. Upon return, he joined his wife in California, and we were to see each other only seldom throughout the years, although it seemed when we were together that the conversation picked up from yesterday, and that we knew each other well.

We have only one relative left from the generation of our parents - both my wife and I have lost just about everyone from that generation, and we now have no place to go to learn of events from that generation's time except for books (and of course Google....) We have never known, and hopefully our children will never know the adversities which this now nearly departed generation faced over its lifetime - indeed we are not equipped even to imagine some of the hardships that particularly the veterans faced and overcame. We are aware that the world is a better place for their efforts, their bravery, and their unwillingness to settle for second best.

I fear I wax philosophical. At any rate, Uncle Bob has left the earth, and in leaving has left a hole in our lives that cannot be filled. Over time the edges of that hole will get chamfered and be less severe, but the hole itself will remain. Hopefully the next world has the rewards he earned and that he can enjoy them.