Grandpa

Twelve years have passed since the death of my grandfather Leroy F. Ward. His birthday was this past weekend. He would of be 91. He was born in the 1920 in Thermal California. He moved to the Siskiyou country which is in the northern part of California. He was a logger, teacher's aid and a bus driver for the local high school called Happy Camp where my grandmother still lives currently.

He served in World War II from 1942 to 1946. I remember him telling me stories about shoot the japanese and other horror stories about war. He was a charter and life member of the VFW Post in Happy Camp. He enjoyed fishing and hunting. Watching his grandchildren grown.

My best memory I have of my grandfather was when I was a child. Each summer our parents would sent two or three of us kids to spent time with our grandparents. Well my grandfather would take us to the local dump with him to unload the trash or other junk we no longer needed. I remember there was brown bears there. It was the first time I ever saw a bear in my life. My grandfather brought some sandwiches with us. After we unloaded the brown truck, we sat there eating our sandwiches and tossing a few chunks to them. The time I spent with him bonding over nature and bears made me love him even more. Taking the time to talk to me about the things in nature and about the life he was lived and not to talk things lightly. To fight for what I believe in and that I can become whatever I wanted.

I miss him deeply. There are times I want to call him up and ask for advice or for one more bear hugs. One last kung fu kick from him, or a lift up. My grandfather was 6'6'.

I alway think about you Grandpa Leroy.

Easter...

Easter for me wasn't about finding plastic egg filled with candy. It was a religion things for my family. Getting new clothes for church. Whether it be a shirt, sweater, dress, shoes or a new suit. I loved wearing a suit to church. It made me feel special. Other children would hate them but I was a ham in that suit of mine. Girls in my sunday school wanted to talk with me, other parents telling me how adorable I am and my mother proud that I am not going to dirty suit. Last that evening we would have all our family over for dinner. Mom would make a ham or some type of pork. While everyone pitched in with getting everything set up. We ate our dinner together as a family. It was a happy time in my life. My grandparents would give each of us kids 5 or so dollars. Our Aunt would bring some toy or something to give to us.

Other memory I have is when my mother was a RN at a nursing home. They would put on an easter egg hunt for the children or the workers and patients families. I remember that my sister and I got new outfits. I got a new argyle sweater with the colors of baby blue, spring green and easter pink. My sister dressed in a spring mint green dress with a matching hat. It was a sunny easter day and I remember all the staff member setting the patients outside with plastic eggs to hand out the the children. I now find it odd that in order for these patients to have any social interaction with the outside whole they had to give them something to give out. But even as I child i was told not to talk to strangers and yet these people I have never meet or known are giving me free things. Anyways I was scared and when it was time to gather eggs I cried and ran to my mother for comfort. My sister at a fearless age gather eggs from all the patients and happy like a clam. I didn't receive any eggs that year.

So in closing my feelings for easter are mixed. I enjoy due to family gatherings and good memories and yet dislike it do to the fact that candy, eggs and the idea of a bunny hiding egg for children to find... Oh well,

Happy Easter!

Derek

World Premiere

Of the Glee Flash Mob I was in

Movement....

I live for dance movement. Yesterday was my one year anniversary for doing a flash mob for my first time. I was on the A-team. The main dancers. In these pictures is the other dancers I was dancing with. So many great dancers and energies everyone bought with them. I can't believe how many people were here for this one. So many glee lovers! I was again on A-team. Turning and leaping into the air, twisting my body into different shapes and dance lines. Becoming very staccato. Hitting high and getting low. Using quick and slow movements. It was an experience. A video will be out of this mob that I was just in. Movement is all around us. You just need to know how to control it!

A tale of But and Butt.....

As I was growing up I had two different cultures to learn about. Well really three. My Latin roots, American, and Native American was well. But the main one was Latin. From summer visits to mexico. To grandparents and relatives visiting in the states, I was surrounded by my culture. When I was spoken to I was lost in translation unless it was easy words like comer, bano, or haces colour. Other than that, I was lost and knew nothing of what they were trying to tell me. For all I knew the house could of been on fire and I would not know. Well my father did not know english too well and relied on us kids to help him pick it up. His common words that he used were "no, yes, estop, bathroom, beer, and food." I was 10 and I knew more words in english than him.

He was studying the citizenship test to become a full American citizen. I remember that my mother told my sister and I to tell the difference between words to our father. Words like they, their, are, ours, but, and butt. I started with the words but and butt. My sister and I started to giggle about the word butt. I played a mean trick on my father. I told him the word butt was "except for the fact" instead of it being his rear-end. The sentence I used, "He would of went to the store, butt he left his money at home." I giggled so hard to hear my father repeat the words that just came out of my mouth. Butt, Butt, Butt. I laughed and laughed. My father started to laugh as well. Than our mother walked in to hear the sentence. Again our father repeated the words. We both looked at our mother, she shook her head knowing what we have told our father the word meaning of the word.... We both got sent to our room and spanked later that evening by our father. The sentence I remember his telling me was "I'm going to beat your butt!!"