Long time no talk

When you don't talk to people for awhile, there's a lot that you have to catch up on. Sometimes it's amazing what can happen in a short amount of time! Both J and I are terrible about making phone calls. We think of our families all the time, but usually, we wait for them to call us. We heard from both his folks and my dad and step-mom this week. It's been a few weeks since we've talked with those sets of parents. (I usually talk to my mom and step-dad weekly.) Here's the information we got:

1. My dad's cousin died last week. He fought a long and hard battle with cancer. He's not much older than my dad. That thought is sobering. I feel bad for my cousins. It would be hard to lose a parent at this stage in life.

2. The new garage at my dad's is almost done. It's water tight, and they're going to finish it within a week or two.

3. M got my dad to take stuff to the Goodwill!!! This in and of itself is an impressive feat! My dad is of the "waste not, want not" mindset. I don't think he has paid for nails, screws, etc. even once in his entire life. He will pick a nail up off the ground, straighten it out and use it. He only recently began listening to cd's. And that was only because he was forced to. His cassette player broke, and when he took it to the store to see if they could repair it, he nearly got laughed out the front door. When his mom passed away, he and his sisters cleaned out close to 100 years of junk from her house. (She lived in the same house her entire life. She moved out when she got married, but she and my grandfather moved back in less than three years later when my great-grandfather got sick.) What they didn't haul to the dump was taken to Dad's house to be sorted through. It took about three years to parcel stuff out to family, but it's finally done. And M got him to take a bunch of what was left to the Goodwill!

4. Dad and M have moved in together finally! They've been married for almost a year (after dating for nearly 18 and 1/2 years), and they are finally living under one roof! They are in her house, as the remodeling work begins on Dad's house this week. When the house is done, they'll move back in there, as Dad's house is bigger than M's.

5. The Saint Nicholas sank. When my grandpa got to America in 1921, he started to fish. By 1927 he had saved enough money to buy his own boat - the St. Nick. My dad started fishing with the crew when he was a kid. By the time he was 11 he was a full-share member of the crew. For a long time fishing was a good way to support a family. Then, it started to slow down. For the past several years it has been harder and harder to make any money. About two years ago Dad decided he needed to sell the boat. It was becoming more expensive to keep up the boat. It's one of few all wood, working boats left. It took him a year to find "the right kind of buyer" but he finally did, and he sold it. He sold it to a man on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. About two weeks ago, he heard from a friend that the boat sank off the dock. That's all I know. I don't know if the boat is salvageable or if it's lost for good. Either way, it's sad. My dad spent his whole life on that boat, and now it's gone.

6. From J's folks we found out that one of C's roommates has exposed the house to meningitis. So far no one else is sick, including C. Let's hope it stays that way.

7. Mom and Dad H. have finally completed the barn. It's been a LONG project...and the deadline kept getting pushed further and further back. But now the barn has a roof, Mom has a completed art studio, and there are just finishing / decorating details on the workshop and game room. Yay!! Game night in the barn next time we go visit!

8. Mom found a dead body when she was on a walk.

Wait, what?!?

Apparently, Mom was on a walk last week, when she passed a ditch near her friend's house, she thought she saw something. Upon closer inspection she realized it was a body. She flagged down a passing car, and they called the cops. The story from the local paper is below.


Man dies after apparently throwing himself from car

Thursday, October 04, 2007By JOHN BRANTON, Columbian Staff Writer

A 30-year-old Clark County man died at Southwest Washington Medical Center on Thursday, two days after he reportedly jumped out of a moving car and suffered a severe head injury. Tud Sio Seachao died Thursday afternoon, said an investigator for the Clark County medical examiner. An autopsy is scheduled for today. Tuesday morning, medics and sheriff's deputies were called to Northwest 324th Street and 41st Avenue, west of Interstate 5 near La Center. Someone walking in the area had seen a man lying in a ditch and called 911, said Sgt. Tim Bieber with the Clark County Sheriff's Office. The man was taken by ambulance to the hospital. At first, it appeared that Seachao might have been stabbed or shot, or that he'd been struck by a hit-run driver, Bieber said. Deputies later determined what is believed to have happened: Seachao's girlfriend told officials she'd been driving about 40 mph when he jumped from the moving car. She said she went back and looked for him, but didn't see him, so she figured he'd left the scene on foot, Bieber said. Bieber said the woman went home, thinking Seachao would return there later. Deputies don't believe any criminal activity was involved in the death, Bieber said.



Wow, I guess we shouldn't let so much time pass between phone calls from now on! It's amazing what can happen in a short few weeks!