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Milo and Sarah’s obituaries and weather postponement notice (if necessary)
Just thought I should put this here because the Memorial Service info is not a regular blog post and I wanted people to be able to get to it.
The blog was down for a few days due to technical issues. I am kind of glad for that because so much has been going that if I would have written about it in real time I would certainly have just confused everyone and probably even myself. The good part is the plan for the memorial service for Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah is coming together nicely. Lots of people plan to travel to Oregon and there are lots of people within driving distance. The venue (Milwaukie High School Auditorium in Milwaukie, Oregon–yes I spelled Milwaukie correctly, it is the people in Wisconsin who spell it wrong!) has enough room for 600 people. I am sure there will not be remotely that many people there, but we have plenty of room for everyone to attend who so desires and a great place for a potluck afterward.
The complications have to do with just about everything else: work, houses, travel, etc., etc., but more about that later. I am glad to have my blog back. Those technical difficulties happened at the absolutely least convenient time ever. For the first time in history it was actually being used to get some useful information to people and then it goes down.
There is a very interesting post on the state of war and violence in the world over at the Strategy Page site (h.t. Bayou Renaissance Man). The whole post was very educational for me because it describes the source of violence in a lot countries around the world with ancillary information you can view by clicking the country name. I cannot speak to what is happening in most of those countries, but the site built a lot of credibility because of their spot-on take on what is going on in Mexico. The drug cartels are a thing, but few understand the interplay between the cartels, a corrupt government culture and local militia that has formed to protect citizenry from the horrible violence. When the Mexican government legitimized those militia due to their success, a very important byproduct was the spotlight that got thrown on the culture of corruption that is winked at and/or perpetrated by the government itself. That section on Mexico is worth the price of admission (free), but the whole article is just stellar.
Last night was the last scheduled Wednesday night Bible study we will have at our little apartment here in Lewisville. We had it there biweekly, but because we are moving at the end of the month and have the funeral to attend later in the month, it will move to another home for the next time when it would have been with us. It was a great privilege to meet with this little group, we enjoyed it immensely and will miss it very much. The beautiful flowers by the window were kindly sent by the other members of the meeting in condolences for Grandpa Milo and were very much appreciated.
Note to the person who sent the very unhelpful and graceless comment to this blog after Grandpa Milo’s death: Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah and all our little family believe now and have always believed that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone and not by works. That is the common belief in our fellowship and what has always been preached in our hearing.
Grandpa Milo died January 1. Dad was one of those bigger than life guys who started his life in a migrant farm worker family picking hops, beans and strawberries around the state of Oregon as soon as he was old enough to contribute as a small child, but who went on to all kinds of unique success in business, the military and even in school. He worked physically hard his entire life, even when he no longer needed to. He, like Grandma Sarah, was always a champion of the underdog loving much and doing more than his part in every setting. I do not want to turn this into a eulogy, there will be time for that later, but I wanted to mark his passing with just a few memories and thoughts.
In spite of the fact that I have appeared to be more like my father both in appearance and personality than my other siblings, we were very different from each other in character. It was of great joy to all of us that Aunt Julia is the one who was most like Dad in character and she had a special bond with him because of it. She was the one who had Grandpa Milo’s blond hair and blue eyes, too. Still, each of us kids had a very special and unique bond with Dad. My relationship with him was very, very close. We spoke in person or on the phone several times per week for my entire life–lessening some once I got married and had kids, but never disappearing.
It was one of the great joys of my life to discover that it did not matter that I did not have the same entrepreneurial drive as Grandpa Milo nor great joy in physical labor although I learned to tolerate it a lot more for having been his son. A lot of superficial stuff got in the way of my discovery of that fact. I assumed my success in business, sports, finances and, to a lesser degree, education were important to Dad. My epiphany was that Dad was more interested in my relationship with Jesus, the fulfillment of my responsibilities as a husband, father and member of society and my happiness than any success in following his footsteps with respect to this temporal life–probably in that order.
The picture with this post is of Dad in his mid-70’s. Alzheimer’s disease must have already been working on Dad when this was taken, but no one could tell yet. We like to think it was because of his ever ebullient spirit. He and one of our ministers who had labored in Ecuador for many years stopped on a several mile hike at over 10,000 feet of altitude to eat some oranges that grow there ubiquitously. He did not talk at all about how onerous it must have been–it is hard to breath at 10,000 feet when you live close to sea level, especially when you are over 70 and on an uphill hike. Rather, he reveled in the amazing amount of juice in the oranges and the beauty of the scenery. That was so typical of him. He was not there because he wanted an adventure although he reveled in that, too. He was there to take a friend who could not have made the trip on his own to see his twin brother, one of our ministers who works in the Philippines and was on a trip to preach in South America.
There funeral for Milo and Sarah Chapman is on January 16 at 10:30 AM at the Milwaukie High School Auditorium. Here are the details:
| Date: | MLK Day, Monday, January 16, 2017 |
| Time: | 10:30 AM |
| Location: | Milwaukie High School Auditorium, Milwaukie, Oregon |
| Notes: | Potluck to follow on location |
| No graveside service |
We would be grateful to any who would be willing to share a story or picture with us about/of Milo and/or Sarah. If you would, please send it in any format you would like via email to chapman55k@gmail.com. It can be just part of the email, a photograph, a PDF, Word document or anything you would like. Our plan is to put them all into folders people can read at the funeral with blank pages where people might like to add additional stories or pictures. After the funeral, we plan to accumulate the new material into a final version, then send it out to whomever might like a copy via email.
Just a brief note to let everyone know that Grandpa Milo died peacefully tonight. The funeral is currently scheduled for both he and Grandma Sarah on January 16 in the Milwaukie, Oregon. I will post the exact timing and location here as soon as I have it.
As Kelly saw in the New Year getting squired about town with her hoity-toity California posse, all of the rest of us, Christian included, were too sick even to go to church this morning. Shame on her for having fun while we are all suffering so. It did though, give me time to think about what we are doing and where we are going. I could not have done that if I had been being squired around by my hoity-toity California posse, if I had one.
It dawned on me awhile back that the point of all the big changes happening in our little family is a desire to avoid such big changes for awhile. We plan to move across the country later in the month for the third time in less than two years. The hope is to move into a place where we can stay until we are not able, health-wise, to stay any longer. That might be too ambitious, life being life, but that is our intent. I have a job where I can work from home, am late enough in my career that I have the experience to get consulting work so we at least have a shot, God willing, of making that happen.
Hand in hand with that, I am making that normal, beginning of the year, get healthy resolution. I have weight to lose, weights to lift, and miles to walk (I cannot believe I turned into a walker, but it is a legacy–my Grandpa Chapman was a walker). I am brushing off my fitbit and putting on my walking shoes. I walk a mile each direction to lunch and back from my job in Texas, but when we lived in Wilsonville, I walked 5-7 miles per day with my weight dropping and my energy increasing. I think part of the weight drop has to do with the fact that if one walks that much, they do not have as much time to stuff their face.
This is not to suggest I have not gotten some good work done this year. Beside my day job where we are literally saving lives (if keeping sick people from falling out of bed and hurting themselves in hospitals counts in that regard), I am working on a project with a large mid-Western University of renown on the sickle cell anemia problem. I cannot say too much about it because it is a proprietary side project, but if we get this thing done, it will be a huge win in the fight against that horrible disease in Africa.
So, other than those few things life is in upheaval until we get move back out west, but in the meantime I have my health and the health of others as work and side projects. It does not get much better than that.
Going to bed at 11:30.
2016 was a strange and wondrous year for Lorena and I. A semi-chronological list of what happened does not do justice to a year fraught with emotion and challenges, but that is all I have in me today (forgive the selfies, I am indulging myself today):
- After returning to Oregon from North Carolina in 2015 to spend a year in a beautiful fourth floor studio apartment within walking distance of two grocery stores, my work, a plethora of restaurants, Lorena’s beloved Anytime Fitness and two grocery stores so we could be closer to my aging parents (Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah), we felt we needed to move to Texas to be closer to Grandma Conchita across the border in Monterrey, Mexico.
- I was offered a position with a company in Lewisville, Texas that has a wonderful product that literally saves lives in hospitals. I had worked with them previously and liked the people, so I took the job and we moved into a small, one bedroom house close to my work. Since we now had only one car, Lorena drove me to work and picked me up every day. It turns out we loved doing it that way.
- Lorena was able to visit her mother (Grandma Conchita) more and Grandma Conchita was able to come to Texas, too.
- By happenstance, our apartment was within walking distance of an excellent Anytime Fitness facility and Lorena, with a little more free time on her hands, was able to up her game to the point where she is on the verge of passing the 12K meters mark for an hour on a Concept II rowing machine–an amazing feat. She is hoping to hit that goal early next year.
- Lorena visited Kelly several times, but only once since we moved to Texas and that was for a house buying trip in Washington (more about that later).
- I (Dad) went to visit Kelly in Seattle once since we moved to Texas, too. The trip was for a job interview in Seattle because we realized Grandma Conchita was in good hands and in good shape, but my parents were heading down hill. Two very good things happened on that trip:
- It turned out to be the last time I would see my mother (Grandma Sarah) alive. Kelly and I had a wonderful long visit with her where, even though she could only say a word or two, we talked, held her hand an stroked her forehead, read her the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7, Psalm 23 and the epistles of John all in her beloved King James Version bible, sang hymns with the help of Grandpa Milo and prayed together. We cried quite a lot, but it was all good and a fond, fond memory I will always cherish.
- I interviewed with a start-up company in Seattle made up of Microsoft, Amazon and Google people. I learned, definitively, that I want to do something else with the rest of my career than work at a start-up company in Seattle.
- Grandma Sarah died in November. For a number of reasons, we postponed her funeral until January, but have now put that on hold due to Grandpa Milo’s current condition and will wait to see how he responds in his current condition (he suffered a stroke and caught a bad infection, but is out of immediate danger, though very weak and in rehab for now) before we plan to reschedule it so he can attend or not based on his capabilities.
- I received a great job offer from a company in Vancouver, British Columbia who would allow me to work from my home anywhere on the west coast, but I would have to fly to China and Europe on a regular basis. Fortunately, my current company here in Texas offered me the same flexibility, so it has put us in the position where we can move back out west and still have cause to fly to Texas regularly. I will do it regularly for my work and Lorena will mostly fly through Texas on her way to visit Grandma Conchita in Mexico.
- We wanted to buy a fixer-upper house somewhere in Washington (more tax friendly than Oregon for the likes of us) so we could be close to both Kelly, Grandpa Milo and a decent sized airport. We settled on Centralia where Lorena went to look for houses, but found one with a great view of Mt. Rainier so we decided to do that instead. We made an offer, it was accepted and now we have found a bunch of stuff that needs to be fixed before we can buy the house. If we can get that worked out we will have a new (to us) house sometime in February. If not we are back to apartment living until we can find something.
That brings up to where we are now. Life is still in upheaval, there are lots of challenges and opportunities ahead, all of course, depending on the will of God.
Yesterday, I saw Lorena giggling as she looked at her phone as I walked to the car where she waited to take me home from work. When I asked her what that was all about. She showed me a joke sent to her by Tío Jorge. It was of the same “high quality” of humor we have come to expect from Grandpa Milo, Grandpa Lauro and Uncle Merle. Here it is:
Un hombre fue al doctor muy preocupado y le dijo al doctor, “no puedo dormir porque cada vez que cierro mis ojos un sueño me viene de ‘uno mas dos, uno mas dos, uno mas dos.’ No me deja dormir bien. Semanas me han pasado sin poder dormir hasta me tiene preocupado durante el día también. Me pasa tanto ese sueño ‘uno mas dos, uno mas dos, uno mas dos’ que estoy perdiendo mi salud hasta el punto que tiemblo todo el tiempo. Que puede ser?”
El doctor le respondió, “Es tres.”
It was nice to have Christian back in the house for a few days doing his guitar exercises. He says this is not music–just exercises, but we like to listen to it anyway. Click here to see another one we captured.
We missed Kelly dearly during her first Christmas ever away from family. It is all good, though. The Hormans were very kind to invite her to spend the holiday with them in beautiful Leavenworth, Washington. It looks like she cross-country skied and did something with horses. That is the best we can tell that went on because we saw some pictures on Instagram. She was obviously having to good a time to communicate much so we are grateful for that.
As for us, we felt pretty adventurous for choosing something other than our go-to (turkey) for Christmas dinner. Lorena cooked up prime rib with lots of fixin’s an then added (from scratch) Lemon Creme Puffs for dessert. We are never going back. I cannot believe how good it came out and I have to admit that prime rib left-over sandwiches are at least equal to turkey left-over sandwiches. The only thing we did wrong was not make enough.
The very best part of this holiday season is that Christian came in for a few day so we would not be alone. That would have been more than we could handle. Lorena and I were ecstatic to have him here. He is working on the next phase of his dissertation work, playing his guitar (one of the strings was broken so we had to wait a day and a half until a store was open so we could buy some new ones), eating good food and discussing life with us. This is the thing for which we live. He got a new Fuji camera and has been taking pictures, all of which are shown here. The one at the bottom of this post if of Christian stringing his guitar with Kiwi the remaining twin cat sister giving very pointed advice.
Today, we were able to take Christian to The One True Taco Shop here in Lewisville. He concurred that the tacos were great. That was the only possible right response to eating there.
We just got back from picking up Christian up at the airport. This is our first year when we were not able to all be together for the holidays. Christian will fly back to go to a get-together in Phoenix for the New Year. Kelly is spending Christmas in Leavenworth, Washington (stunningly beautiful place) with friends and then heading back to Seattle to see the New Year in with a small group of friends flying in from California. I am glad to see that Christian can pull off an ugly Christmas sweater. Now Lorena needs to get in on the action.
In the great “who makes the best tacos and tamales in the world” religious war, Lorena and I are decidedly on the side of those whose culinary skills emanate from Monterrey, Mexico. We had been very disappointed with what passed for Mexican food in the restaurants in the suburbs of Dallas where we currently reside. We got advice from all kinds of people including our Mexican family who lives in the area (originally from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon), people from work, people from church, people on the street we begged to help us–but we came to the very sad conclusion that no good Mexican food was available within driving distance of our house. There is lots of Tex-Mex, but we really do not count that is Mexican food anymore than the stuff that was available from Louie’s Chinese Restaurant (the early 1960’s Cottage Grove, Oregon restaurant of my youth) counted as something that had anything more than a passing resemblance to real Chinese food. That does not mean we do not like it. We like both Tex-Mex and Americanized Chinese food. But no one would mistake what we thought was the only Mexican food available in our area with the “one true Mexican food.”
WE WERE WRONG! So wrong. We found a place in Lewisville, TX that we believe is the very best Mexican food we have ever eaten in America. Here it is:
Tacos Regio Monterrey
502 S Old Orchard Ln
Lewisville, TX 75067
The reality is the only thing we have had there are the tacos de carne asada with a side of sautéed onions and the pork tamales. They probably make some other good stuff, but I doubt we will ever find out because we really, really love the way they make their tacos and their tamales. We have ordered up a couple of dozen tamales (18 pork and 6 chicken–to try them out) for Christian’s upcoming visit for Christmas. We need to see if we can get some of their salsa, too. Make that both of their salsas, red and green. They serve their tacos with two tortillas, carne asada, chopped onion and cilantro. They are those small corn tortillas that they coat with cooking oil and heat on the grill before they put the meat in them. Just wow.
We promise to never denigrate the tacos in Texas ever again although it should be noted the owners and cooks at Tacos Regio Monterrey are all proud Regiomontanos.
Update: I should note that the best (and possibly most gracious) way to describe this place is as a “hole in the wall” restaurant. That being said it is quite clean and the people are, as expected of people from Monterrey, gracious and welcoming.
Update II: I would be negligent to not note that this place is downright cheap inexpensive. We were stunned and felt a little guilty the first time we were there when we got such a reasonable bill. Maybe it was what we ordered.
Update III: Amazing. I got on to google maps and found an image of what used to be the Louie’s I was talking about from the 1960’s. I used to go to elementary school with the Louie twins who were just my age. The last I heard of them was a long time ago when I went to my cousin Karin’s high school graduation and the Louie twins both got the award for never missing a day of high school. Kind of impressive actually. Here is the picture from google maps in Cottage Grove Oregon–ovbviously under new management:
CONGRATULATIONS LYNN!!!! We are all very proud of Tio Lynn, child number three (Lorena is four) of Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita. He earned his law degree and we all now have to call him Licenciado Lynn Neri. He is only a few months away now from meeting all the regulatory requirements to practice law in Mexico. He went through a lot of hard work to get to this worthy goal. That brings the family degree count up to three engineering degrees (Tios Lauro, Jorge and Rigoberto) and Lynn’s law degree. Lorena is still at work on her degree and I expect she will finish it before to long, if we ever quit uprooting her so she actually has the time to finish.
Just a short note to our friends–Grandpa Milo had a stroke on Sunday. Currently, he is confused a lot of the time and does not have the use of his left hand and arm. He was in the hospital for a couple of nights and will be moved to rehab today. After performing diagnostics, the doctors say we will not know if and how much function will return for a few days or weeks. Uncles Rich and Jerry were with him at the hospital as Aunts Julia and Jean were in San Diego and could not get back until yesterday. We really appreciated their stepping in and helping out. Of course, Gary and Drew continue to be true champions for Dad, but also for a lot of other people. We are thankful for all of them.
On changes as big as we are about to make, it is hard not to recriminate a little bit. That being said, the move we are making to Western Washington feels pretty good. It appears to be an Ok move financially, we are not to far from Grandpa Milo and Oregon, we can get to a major airport going two directions in less than a couple of hours. We are just a little over 30 minutes to a Costco and a Trader Joe’s (Lorena’s prime criteria is less than 20 minutes, but that is not so far off–about the same as when we were in North Carolina), we have a house with a great view from most of the rooms, there is room to entertain a good number of overnight guests, etc., etc.
Only God knows what he has planned for us in the future, but we are hoping this is our last house. It certainly seems to have a good combination of the things listed above along with an entry with now steps to go up or down, a first floor master, a big open room for gatherings and a plethora of other features we have always wanted and that make it convenient. We are finally getting to the point where we have internalized that the kids are now gone on to their own lives (the knew that sooner than us) and that we need to establish our own base and get on with life. That is a very, very good thing.
After a few rather typical posturings and gyrations, our offer for this house was accepted by the seller. Now, if we can navigate our way to a close, we will be moving into this thing sometime in late January or early February. It is just what we wanted. There is a beautiful view from the deck (see here), we are a short distance to a decent grocery store and an Anytime Fitness, we can get to Portland to take Grandpa Milo to church maybe a couple of times per month and I can get to my work up in Canada once every six weeks or so or to catch an airplane from Portland or Seattle to see customers. The only down side is that we broke Lorena’s “I can be happy if I am within twenty minutes of a Costco and a Trader Joe’s” rule. We are just a smidgen over thirty minutes to both of them.
There are a good number of other things we like about the location. We are only a few minutes drive from an Amtrak station where we can catch a single train to anywhere from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles, CA. There is a McMenamin’s in town where Lorena, Gladys and I have been known to have supper on a Friday night. There is a big outlet mall–good for Lorena and Glad, not so good for me. There are still lots of things to navigate. The main thing but certainly not the only thing being the close date. We really do not want to have to move twice even thought it might be unavoidable. And, we are just off I-5, so people can easily stop in for a visit!
Lorena finished her house search yesterday and found one she liked so we made an offer. We are not sure yet whether we will be able to get it, but we have our fingers crossed. This is the view of Mt. Rainier from the balcony. The view is only slightly different from the daylight basement looking out the same side of the house.