| Family Album
Last photo taken of our father before he died... he requested that we take his body to a taxidermist and have it stuffed, take it home and put in a chair with wheels so we could wheel it around from room to room and always have it present at family functions—not for sentimental reasons! Oh no, not that! He wanted to do what he always did at family functions: if he couldn’t pull a practical joke, then he would BE the practical joke! Gale and April visiting for the weekend--notice the bachelor's apt. with the diving tanks against the wall, and the hippy vest April is wearing--he kept clothes for our visits that we changed into as soon as we arrived. The main rule was there were no rules--and he strictly enforced it! All dressed up for church on Sunday--which church we attended was variable: through out the years we visited Hari Krishna temples, Unity, Episcopal churches, Spritualist churches (and seances), Universalist churches, churches that worshipped UFOs and awaited the aliens' return to rule the earth, churches that practiced "Egyptian arts" (like wearing little pyramids on your head, and keeping razors and other blades under handmade pyramids to keep them sharp), and many more. Daddy believed, simply, that more was better. Diving with Daddy. He bought a little wet suit, and each of us got our turn as we grew into it. Here we are visiting for the summer--this is a picture of all 4 of us--the finger at the top is April's. Notice the casual dress (not a good look for Gale who was going through a chubby phase). Everything was casual at Daddy's house--no rules meant no bathing (unless we wanted to), eat when you want and what you want, no bedtime, and messy (explosive) scientific experiments encouraged. On this particular 40 acre farm he rented for the summer, we played poker at the kitchen table in our underwear late into the night, and made bisquits that turned out so hard we later used them as weapons. |