Photo: Space Shuttle Atlantis climbs to the heavens

Cool shot by my sister Mary Powell of today's Shuttle launch

Stuck outside of Hogtown with those Shuttle Launch Blues again

Insignia for the first shuttle launch

We were just outside of Hogtown when the first Shuttle went up. Other cars joined us along the side of I-75 to view history. We were disappointed, not with the launch, but with the fact that we weren't on the beach at Daytona. That was our goal when my wife Chris, my brother Dan and I left Denver two days before.

Stuff happens. A batch of bad gas in Mississippi, or maybe just an aging vehicle. We were stalled for several hours at a truck stop on the Florida panhandle. The car still wasn't running right when we pulled off the highway for the launch.

An impressive sight. Heard and felt it, too. After it climbed out of sight, leaving its contrail drifting in the clear Florida sky, we looked at each other and said, "Let's go to the beach."

All three of us had viewed many launches over the years, some from the beach and some from our backyard. My father worked for the space program out of Daytona, for NASA and G.E. Chris's father used to take her and her sister down to the beach to watch the spectacles. I heard "The Eagle has landed" via the car radio as my high school girlfriend and I were parked on the beach during a July thunderstorm (yes, I was paying more attention to the moon landing than to the business at hand).

I'd like to be on the beach today. To watch the launch and to be on the beach, my old haunt. Chris is in Daytona for her high school reunion. She'll see the launch with her sister and old Seabreeze High School "Fighting Sandcrabs" pals. I don't care much for reunions. But I'm miffed that I'm missing the last Shuttle launch.

Some of my progressive colleagues don't see the value of the space program. They contend that it's too expensive. They don't see the value in the scientific research. They don't understand why we have to send actual humans into space when robots can do the work cheaper and with less risk.

But "manned flight" (lots of women in space, too) is important precisely because it's in our genes to explore. One major benefit from the Space Shuttle are the fantastic images captured by the Hubble. They have opened up the wonders and terrors of our universe like nothing else. Colliding galaxies and collapsing stars and black holes and artistically-shaped nebulae and all of that space (what's with that dark matter?). We must go there to see these wonders and to figure out what they are and what they mean.

I grew up reading Tom Swift and then Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. Sci-fi fed my imagination. And then came the space program. I had the great good fortune to live at the epicenter of Mercury and Gemini and Apollo.

One closing note: that first shuttle launch happened 20 years to the day after the first manned space flight by the Soviet Union. In 1981, we were still going toe-to-toe with the Reds in space and on the ground (Reagan was newly elected). Now that the U.S is Shuttle-less, guess who we will depend on to get groceries and extra batteries to the space station?

Those darn Russkis. History is a funny thing.

Advice to seniors: Turn off the TV and go to school

According to MSN Money:

How Americans age 65 to 74 spend their day in hours(Results for the total population age 15 and older are in parenthesis.)

• Personal care activities (including sleep): 9.67 (9.47).

• Watching TV: 3.77 (2.52).

• Household activities: 2.41 (1.79).

• Eating and drinking: 1.42 (1.25).

• Working: 1.15 (3.50).

• Purchasing goods and services: 0.94 (0.75).

• Reading: 0.62 (0.29).

• Socializing: 0.59 (0.55).

• Relaxing and thinking: 0.55 (0.28).

• Organizational, civic and religious activities: 0.52 (0.35).

• Leisure computer use: 0.38 (0.39).

• Exercise: 0.31 (0.29).

• Caring for non-household members: 0.31 (0.21).

• Telephone calls, mail, and email: 0.23 (0.18).

• Caring for household members: 0.11 (0.51).

• Education activities: 0 (0.47)

Education activities zero? That seems wrong. Every spring, I teach LIFE classes through Laramie County Community College and the classes are packed. I am 60 and my students are 65-and-up. I've also taught at Elderhostel. Zero education activities? Many colleges and universities have adjacent retirement communities. Some of these look a bit scary, such as the one at my alma mater, University of Florida. Eighteen-hole golf course? No thanks. Free paleontology and literature and ag courses at UF? And tix to b-ball? Count me in. 

Turn off the TV, people, especially if you're watching FOX. It's melting your brains. 

Go to school.


P.S.: Retirement village at UF is Oak Hammock. Here are some of the classes offered in the fall:

CLASSES
▪ Alternative Energy Sources 
▪ Native American Art 
▪ The Many Aspects of Forensics 
▪ Law and the Movies
▪ Bees
▪ Jazz III - Gary Langford 
▪ The Profound Art of Cormac McCarthy: An 
Introduction– Robert Gentry
SPECIAL PROGRAMS/LECTURES
▪One day seminar on a Shakespeare play 
 Estelle Aden 
▪Lecture by David Colburn 
▪ Cutting Edge Lectures 
CONTINUING PROGRAMS
▪Understanding and Enjoying Opera 
▪Roundtable Discussion in the Algonquin      
Genre 
▪ Conversational Spanish


Nice line-up. I especially like the Cormac McCarthy course.

Happy birthday to a writing mentor

Happy birthday to Harry Crews. He was one of my writing mentors during my time in Hogtown. He helped me look at fiction in new ways, and introduced me to many of the Southern writers I had overlooked in my youth (or those that the nuns in high school overlooked for me). Harry said that he learned to write by copying those stories and novel passages that he especially liked. Not sure how many of those he did. I tried it and it helped me get to the bottom of phraseology and rhythms. Also a great way to grok a story's dialogue. He wrote, as he tells it, a "roomful of stories," but most weren't published at the time. He did publish a slew of books.

Harry's novels (Feast of Snakes, Car, Karate is a Thing of the Spirit) explore the wild side of life in the South. He also wrote fine pieces for big mags such as Playboy and Esquire. His Esquire column, Grits, was a must-read for me every month. He wrote about encountering some rough customers while hiking the Appalachian Trail, a part of the trail that passes through the place where they hanged the circus elephant. I guess you can "see the elephant" down South, too. His most chilling piece (for Playboy, if I remember correctly) was "The Button-Down Terror of David Duke." It was a chilling piece because KKK Grand Wizard David Duke had learned what his forebears had not, that late-20th-century marketing required a smile, a suit and speaking in complete sentences. The message was the same but the messenger had grown slicker and more menacing.

Crews could talk to people like Duke because he grew up in southern Georgia swamp country. He knew these people. They were family. He imagined people like them and put them in his books. They were sometimes large and startling figures. No surprise that Harry has this quote from another Georgia native on his web site:

"When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock—to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures." — Flannery O'Connor, "The Fiction Writer & His Country" 

Happy birthday, Harry. Thanks for everything.

Tea Party Slim limits vacations to red states

Tea Party Slim was packing his RV. I stopped to chat.

“I thought you’d be headed south before now,” I said.

Slim smiled. “There was a Wyoming election to win in November, and then with Christmas and all… Well, we got a late start.”

“Headed to Arizona again?”

Slim smiled. “Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and maybe a few of the southern states.”

“They’ve been having some troubles down in Arizona.”

“In Tucson,” Slim said, “but we never go to Tucson. Mesa and Phoenix, mostly. We have friends in Lake Havasu City.” Slim paused as he hauled bags into the RV. “We like the red parts of the red states.”

“Tucson too blue, I suppose,” I said. “But it was pretty red a few weeks ago.”

Slim looked at me. “Now don’t go blaming the actions of a lone nut on any of us.”

“Any of whom?”

“Conservatives. Republicans.”

“Tea Party members?”

“You liberals like to blame us, don’t you? Hate speech is what it is, hatred toward white Christian conservatives. I see it every day. But are we a protected minority? ” He looked thoughtful as he plucked boxes and bags from the sidewalk and hauled them into the RV.

“New Mexico is a blue state, at least it was in the 2008 election. Went for Obama.”

He stopped and stared. “They have a new Republican governor. And the majority of the Congressional delegation is Republican.”

“Look at your map, Slim. New Mexico is blue. How are you going to get from Arizona to Texas without going through New Mexico.”

Slim looked thoughtful.  “We’ll loop up through Colorado.”

“Colorado’s blue.”

Slim again looked thoughtful.  I hoped this wasn’t becoming a habit.

“You could always take a shortcut through Mexico.”

“And get my head cut off by drug gangs? No thanks. We’ll just take the long way around. We have plenty of time, and plenty of money for gas. We’ll burn lots and lots of carbon products.” He grinned. “Hundreds of gallons, maybe thousands. Greenhouse gases by the tons.”

He was trying to get my goat. But I wasn’t going to fall for it.

“Hope you’re not going to Florida.”

“Blue state?”

I nodded.

“Even with its new Tea Party governor who wants to get rid of all those free-loading state employees?”

“There are so many Democrats in the southern part of the state," I said. "Retired Yankees, and lots of swarthy immigrants from the Caribbean and South America.”

“There’s always Alabama.”

“Too humid. Even in the winter."

Slim disappeared into the RV. He came back with a map of the western U.S. He unfolded it against the side of the RV. We both stared at it.

"You have to go through Utah to get to Arizona," I said. "Utah's reliably red."

Slim nodded. "Good solid conservatives in Utah."

"But you see the problem about getting to Texas from Arizona." I pointed to the big blue block that's New Mexico. "Lots of Hispanics. They were there first."

"You're forgetting about the Native Americans?"

"Don't get all politically correct on me now, Slim."

"But they were there first. Not the Mexicans. Besides, we like the casinos."

"You'll have to skip all those New Mexico casinos, Slim. The winnings all go to Democrats."

Slim stared. "The hell you say."

"It's the truth. Most Indians -- Native Americans -- vote for Democrats."

"I'll just go to Vegas."

"Nevada went blue in 2008."

Slim folded his map. "Time to get moving," he said.

"Enjoy your trip," I said. "If you change your mind about Arizona, I hear northern Idaho is very nice this time of year. And red? It's almost as red as Wyoming."

Reports from the Cul-De-Sac Preservation Society

Are Liberal city dwellers trying to take away Conservative suburbanites’ God-given right to a cul-de-sac?

In November,  I wrote about the Tea Party’s latest bugaboo – "sustainable development." Tea Partiers, most of whom live in suburbs, are afraid that Liberal city dwellers are going to roust them from their cul-de-sac neighborhoods and stuff them into tiny Hobbit homes surrounded by light rail stations and Starbucks and pushy minorities. Sustainable development is the catch-all term for this alarming trend.

One of the scarifiers is Ed Braddy in Gainesville, Florida. He leads the American Dream Coalition. 

Another is Virginia activist Donna Holt (from Mother Jones):.

In Virginia, Holt is trying to whip up tea party opposition to a comprehensive development plan being drafted in Chesterfield County, where she lives near Richmond. She believes such plans will, among other things, ban cul de sacs, and she happens to live on one. So far, though, she hasn't made much progress with the county. "They don't want to hear from us," she says. "They think we are wackos with tinfoil hats."

After a recent trip to Florida, I have a bit more empathy for their cause.

Imagine that you are one of the millions of Americans who have worked very hard for a house in the suburbs. It’s a big house, bigger than you need for your two kids, but it’s an investment, right?  Americans want big houses with many bathrooms along tree-lined streets in family-friendly, low-density neighborhoods.  

Commercial development should be located far away, as convenience stores and big box stores bring in the riff-raff. You can walk the neighborhood but you can’t walk to work or school or the store.  That’s part of the charm. It’s what Americans want in their lifestyles.

That was the zeitgeist from the 1950s until now. That’s changing. Younger people (older types, too) want to live in the city surrounded by light rail and Starbucks and farmers' markets. They think that minorities make for a lively cityscape, as long as those minorities aren’t crackheads. New Urbanism has taken hold, even in the burbs. Developers want multi-use zoning that allows for more compact neighborhoods and local shopping and walkable schools and alternative energy. Public transportation is a sought-after commodity, not one to be feared.  

Meanwhile, housing prices have dropped precipitously. So much for that two-story, many-bathroomed mini-manse. Several foreclosures have cropped up in the neighborhood. Jobs are threatened. Surefire Wall Street investments don’t look so hot. Pensions are not a sure thing. People with foreign-sounding names are in the White House.

Some of the fears are real. They are stoked by the Tea Party and Fox News. Pretty soon you believe that government types are out to remove your cul-de-sac and put you in a hobbit home.

After spending a week in suburbs in north and central Florida, I understand that fear a bit better.  Without a GPS, I’d be challenged to find the homes of my sisters’ families in Tallahassee. In fact, GPS may have been invented for suburban sprawl. In olden times, streets were laid out in grids using numbers and letters. Almost every city has at last a remnant of that design.

Suburbs, especially in hilly Tallahassee, follow the terrain. Names are confusing, too. Winding Hills Street leads to Winding Hills Lane leads to Winding Hills Court which, of course, is a cul-de-sac. When you reach this dead end, you have to backtrack through the Winding Hills names to get to Forest Vista Street to Forest Vista Lane to Forest Vista Court and – you guessed it – another cul-de-sac. I imagine cars circling like the Flying Dutchman, searching for a way out of this confusion. Before GPS, of course. Now it’s a snap.

We drove long distances through Tallahassee neighborhoods without seeing a store, not even a convenience store, which are ubiquitous. Zoning and neighborhood groups hold stores at bay. The price you pay is that everyone in the family needs a car. The price we all pay is that all those cars pollute and lead to global warming.

As long as I’ve been alive – 60 years – the move has been to this sort of development and not the clustered, walkable, open-zoned, public transportation and locavore-friendly type being promoted  now. If these crazy ideas catch hold, how am I going to sell my house in 10 or 20 years? Could my neighborhood become a dead zone, with foreclosed falling-down houses and bad roads and crime and squatters? That old phrase of location location location would turn out to be a curse rather than a bonus.

Many of my friends around the U.S. live in old-style suburban developments. Many people I know in Cheyenne live out north and east so they can have peace and quiet and property and horses. They are unfettered by city zoning rules.

I live in a near-suburb, I guess you’d call it. I can walk to work but don’t. If needed, I could walk to stores to buy groceries, pastries, fast food, building supplies, beer, tires, pizza, sandwiches, tacos, insurance. I can walk to my credit union. During the summer, there’s a weekly farmer’s market nearby, although it’s moving downtown this year. When they were young, my kids walked or rode their bikes to school. The excellent Cheyenne Greenway is only blocks from our house. I could walk to the airport if needed, although there’s plenty of free parking.

You can probably guess that there are trade-offs. I live close to two of the busiest streets in Cheyenne – Dell Range and Yellowstone. The interstate is a half-mile away but I can hear the Harleys roar down it on August mornings. C-130s make a racket operating out of the Air National Guard base – its entrance is three blocks from my house. We have rental properties in the neighborhood. One of them is an eyesore. The other looks like a used car lot. We’ve had a few broken windows and robberies but nothing substantial, crime-wise.

I like my neighborhood. But I’m a city boy. I don’t want to live on the windy prairie. Or on a suburban cul-de-sac. These people are spitting into the wind. The age of cheap oil and the internal combustion engine and sprawl is drawing to a close. It's just a fact. And I'm not scared. 

Except of the Cul-De-Sac Preservation Society activists. They're a bit spooky. In their fears of being left behind, they may do some crazy things, such as elect a horde of Tea Partiers to Congress. 

As pricey live/work artist spaces arise in Jackson, what's in store for the rest of the state?

Planet Jackson Hole's JH Weekly at least once a week due to the fact that its header demands it. I also like alternative weeklies. I used to edit and write for one. You read stories there that you don't find in MSM.

I missed the Dec. 21 article by Teton County wise-guy art critic Aaron Wallis. It's about a new live/work development for artists by architect Stephen Dynia in Jackson. You can read the whole thing at JH Weekl

Here are some excerpts:

The development is now under construction and when completed it will total eight units in two buildings. As of press time, three of the eight units have been sold.

The units are supposed to be affordable and from what I can tell, Dynia and Prugh did everything within their power to keep the price down. Unfortunately, the units are still in the $400s. Which, is again, affordable for Jackson, but that’s like saying the $10 burrito at Pica’s is a good deal just because everything else is in town is equally overpriced.

The project’s vision ­– to create a space where artists can live and work ­– is laudable. I know Tom Woodhouse would move into the Center for the Arts if they would let him. Seriously, why are residential and commercial space always zoned separately? Why not eliminate the necessity of commuting? Commuting by its very nature is a waste of time and resources. What’s the point of driving back and forth from Wilson to Jackson twice a day? It’s a colossal waste of gas, but I guess as long as there’s a “Please Don’t Idle” sticker on your SUV, it’s OK.

Anyway, if I had $400k, I would definitely consider moving in 1085 Broadway. What could be better than having artists for neighbors, creating in a clean modern space, and living in Jackson Hole? Well a Range Rover and a trust fund would be nice, but we can’t all be so lucky. I asked my Magic 8-Ball if the new development would change the art scene in Jackson.  “Signs point to yes,” it replied.

Live/work spaces "in the $400s" are a bit pricey for most artists and writers of my acquaintance. But that price is pretty reasonable in Teton County. Here's some recent info from Trulia:

There are currently 323 resale and new homes in Jackson on Trulia, including 3 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Jackson WY was $2,153,991 for the week ending Dec 22, which represents an increase of 0.4%, or $9,134, compared to the prior week.

Wowzir! Now we're talking real money.

Other live/work spaces have attempted to get off the ground in Wyoming. Project planners from ArtSpace in Minneapolis have advised arts groups in Casper and have conducted workshops in Sheridan ("Living Upstairs in Wyoming") and in Cheyenne ("Arts Summit 2008"). ArtSpace bills itself as the largest non-profit real estate management company for the arts in the U.S. As of this writing, it hasn't come up with any solid projects in the state. But it does have one in Billings.

I've been looking into an ArtSpace project called The Arts Exchange in Tallahassee. Yes, that's in Florida and nowhere near the Great Wide Open. I was in Tallahassee with family a few weeks ago and decided to take a look. The site now houses an old warehouse. It's located next to the Railroad Square Art Park and close to downtown, Florida A&M and Florida State. My sister Maureen and I drove there on graduation Saturday in December. Not much to see except potential at the Arts Exchange site. A few galleries and stores were open in the arts district. Nowhere near as lively as it is on its First Friday celebrations, which includes drinking and revelry and arts and music.

At the art park, we wandered into the South of Soho Art Co-op where Stephen Bennett was minding the store. He's from Daytona, our family's old stomping grounds, so we visited for awhile. I liked his work and the work of his colleagues on the walls. We went into the hippy-dippy Athena's Garden, with its array of herbs and teas and tinctures. The two young women minding the store were from Boulder, which didn't surprise me. The back room featured clothes and purses and hemp products, along with Wiccan stuff. My daughter Annie would have loved the place. Maureen bought her a peace sign purse. We visited the Cosmic Cat which was just the place for my son Kevin. It features manga and zines and graphic novels.

I'm interested in The Arts Exchange because it looks like a nice place to live in my artistic retirement. Not sure if I'd qualify. I plan an active post-65 life, creating fiction and also advising arts groups. For that, I have 25-some years in arts administration. The Arts Exchange will be home to the Boys' Choir of Tallahassee, the Tallahassee Ballet, and the Council on Culture & Arts. Arts orgs always ned an extra hand or grants writer. Tallahassee also puts Chris and I close to our families.

What will happen with live/work spaces in Wyoming? Well, there's one project already being built in Jackson. Not sure what will arise in Cheyenne or Laramie or Sheridan or Casper or Meeteetse. The potential is there. Someone -- or some group -- must do the planning.

Final word on the subject

I have delivered eulogies in churches and funeral homes. I've attended too many services and burials, a hazard of aging.

I have never officiated at a memorial service on a softball field. As I think of it now, almost a week later, I realize it may have been one of the most spiritual memorials I've ever attended.

My brother Pat was remembered at a memorial at home plate of softball field number three in Fred Lee Park in Palm Bay, Fla. It was Monday, Dec. 13. The park was deserted when we arrived. Not much softball is played in December, not even in central Florida.

Pat's wishes were clear. Cremate his body. No church service. No ministers or priests. No prayers. This former altar boy and product of Catholic schools had soured on religion. He and I had many talks over the years about fundamentalist Christian crazies. We also discussed the depredations of the Catholic Church. He was tougher on the church than I was. I stayed in it longer than he did. In the end, we both agreed that it wasn't worth it.

The congregation, if you choose to call it that, sat in the metal softball stands. Pat was a coach so he was in the dugout most of the time. When attending a game, he crouched in the grass outside the fence on the third base line. He didn't like the behavior of some parents. They yelled at the refs and kids on the opposing teams. Pat hated this kind of low-rent behavior. He had a temper, and he wasn't above contesting a bad call. But he loved his daughters and he liked the girls they played with. He didn't think it was right for big burly men to yell at skinny twelve-year-old girls playing a game.

On this day at the softball field, the only voice for awhile was my own. And then Pat's daughters Maggie and Erin read their own eulogies, the cool north wind attempting to snatch their words away. Pat's friend, Coach Bill, spoke about their days on ball diamonds all over Florida. Coach Bill's daughter, one of Pat's former players, spoke. Then Roger Ross spoke. Roger was our neighbor in Daytona Beach. Pat helped him land a job as engineer at the Harris Corp. Rounding out the speakers was Pat's nephew, Ryan Shay. Ryan's a communications major at University of North Florida and it was clear he knows how to communicate.

Pat's four years in the Air Force led to his long career at the Harris Corp. The memorial ended with the folding of the flag and Taps, performed by the honor guard from nearby Patrick AFB. The bugler's notes lingered in the air as the folded flag was handed over to Pat's widow, Jean.

We then traveled to Pat and Jean's house for the wake with family and friends. We told stories around the bonfire.

These remembrances that I've posted over the past week are my way of mourning. I'm a writer. How will I know how I feel if I don't write it down? Someone famous once said that.  

Photos: Pat Shay's wake

The ceremonial tossing of the Cheerios onto the bonfire. My brother Pat was a Cheerios fan. When he was a kid, that's all he ate.

Family members at bonfire. I had to come to Florida to attend a bonfire on a freezing night.

Me and my sister Eileen at the wake.

My brothers Dan (left) and Tommy. 

Pat's daughters Katie (left) and Maggie toss the Cheerios.

My brother Tim (left) and his son Finn who rides on my nephew Ryan's Shay's shoulders.

My brother Tom shares a memory of Pat at the wake. Pat's widow, Jean, is sitting at the table on Tommy's left. Photos by Mary Shay Powell.

Photos: Pat Shay memorial

Site of the memorial service, Fred Lee Park softball fields, Palm Bay

The assembled congregation. Most of these people are family members. The woman with red hair in the front row is my youngest sister, Mary. She shot most of these fine photos.

Patrick Kevin Shay, 1954-2010

My first time serving as emcee of a memorial service at a softball field.

Honor guard from Patrick AFB. Pat served in the Air Force from 1977-81.

Poem as eulogy and celebration of family ties

My Tucson son, Kevin Michael Patrick Shay, the poet and theatre guy, wrote the following poem for his godfather, Patrick Kevin Shay. I read it as part of the memorial service for my brother on Dec. 13.

[Untitled]

We are Shay
We are surfers and fishermen
Captains and sand flea enthusiasts
We are collegiate
We are Navy
We are doctors and nurses
We are bandages in one hand
That covers the wound made by the knife in the other
Sometimes

We aren't always the best
At saying no or goodbye
Pushing whatever it may be
Back across the table and into
The back of our minds
Away with us never means forgotten
Shimmering delicately on the edges
Of our overactive subconscious minds

But we remain warriors
Women and men with blood thick
Like hot pitch cascading over the sides
Of castles
Onto enemies mostly defeated
Some remain
Edging their way in and laying siege
They seem overly capable of finding
The most sensitive parts
And sword-plunging through tearing

We are multitude
Thousands of bright candles floating
Across a crystal pond
Water moccasins shivering away from the heat
Gators meandering to some safer bank
Manatees gliding soft
Edging and urging along our lights
With silent swoops of blue-grey tails

We are singular and stand out
Bellowing pride
In politics and sports and intellect
The young and old cohesive
In family's stalwart and commanding glue

We are one

Dec. 8 a sad day in so many ways

Rarely do I go more than a few days without posting to this site. Now here it is, a week later, and nothing from the writer, editor and sole proprietor of hummingbirdminds.

A week ago I was in Florida zooming down a rainy highway. My sister Molly, brother-in-law Jamie and I were on our way from Tallahassee back to Palm Bay for my brother Pat’s memorial service. Right behind us was my sister Mary, husband Neill and their son Morgan. Along the way, we all stopped in Orlando to have lunch with my sister Eileen and her husband Brian.

That’s what made my week a spiritual one – time with my family. Funerals bring us together when vacations and weddings and graduations cannot. Grieving unites. That’s when you most need the support.

I’ve made many such trips from the Rockies to Florida. A mad dash to Denver’s Stapleton in April 1986. Trying to get a flight out to be at my dying mother’s side in Daytona. Approaching spring storm caused cancellation of one flight after another. Before my flight finally left at midnight, I called my brother and he told me that Mom had passed. I phoned my wife Chris, at home with our toddler son, and choked on the bad news.

Before we took off, the plane had to be de-iced twice. Once airborne, the cabin began to fill with smoke. Tendrils of smoke drifted through the beams of overhead reading lights. At first, I thought it was cigarette smoke (yes, children, you could smoke on airplanes back then). But the smoking lamp wasn’t lit. The plane was still climbing. A flight attendant rushed down the aisle to the cockpit. The smoke thickened. A few minutes later, the captain got on the horn and told us no to worry, that ice had clogged some intake or outtake and that had caused a gizmo to overheat, thus the smoke. We’ll get the air cleared in a jiffy, he promised.

I wasn’t comforted. Smoke was now as thick as it was in my favorite bar. My thoughts turned to gruesome thoughts of death by smoke at 30,000 feet. Mike Shay, 35, Denver, Colo., died while flying to his mother’s funeral in Daytona Beach. We are aware of the irony so don’t go pointing it out.

The cabin air cleared, but not before I contemplated an array of death scenarios. Rosy-fingered dawn crept in from the east as we landed in Atlanta. I was in Daytona by 9 a.m.

For this trip, I made it to my brother’s bedside 24 hours before he passed. We spoke, even though he was in a coma and machines breathed for him. He was surrounded by machines. But we spoke. I put my son Kevin on speaker and he spoke to Pat, his godfather. My daughter Annie did the same. Chris didn’t get a chance because the room began to fill with people again and she felt uncomfortable. She got her chance later.

The following afternoon, the family heard the grim assessment from the ICU physician. Massive infection. Organs failing. Brain damage. 90 percent chance he won’t recover and, if he did, on life support or in a coma.

Pat’s wife Jean and daughters Katie, Maggie and Erin decided. Take Pat off life support and let him go.

We all said our farewells privately. Chris said farewell via cell phone. I bawled out my goodbyes. Family members moved into the vacuum created by the silenced machines. We were all with Pat at 10 that night when he slipped away.

That was Dec. 8. The same day that John Lennon died 30 years before. Someone pointed that out to me, wondering if that had been the inspiration for the header on my Dec. 12 post, “Sunflower fields forever.” Not Strawberry fields, but I heard that song in my head as I contemplated my eulogy. Here’s to you, Pat. Sunflower & strawberry fields. Forever.

On Monday, Dec. 13, we held Pat’s memorial on softball field number three at Fred Lee Park in Palm Bay. More on that next time (with photos).

Sunflower fields forever

We awoke to sunflowers.

Millions of them. The rising sun lit up their golds and bronzes and greens.

Pat and I were in Oklahoma, a few exits south of the Kansas border. We had reached the spot late at night after hitchhiking from Houston the day before.

Now it was time to get our gear and get on our way to the Colorado Rockies.

The sunflowers dazzled the eyes. Trucks roared by, tall flower stalks bowed in their wakes.

On this day when we celebrate Pat's life, I remember that summer day 35 years ago. Two brothers on an adventure. We left behind hot and muggy Florida for a high-country jaunt.

But on this Oklahoma morning, the mountains seemed far away. Someone finally had mercy on us and gave us a ride. Later that day outside Salina, Kansas, we almost were arrested. "Go 50 miles per hour or go to jail," said the burly state patrolman. Pat always liked that quote.

No way we were going 50 miles an hour. So we went into town and found the bus station. The bus we took to Denver barely broke the 50 m.p.h barrier But we did arrive in Denver and eventually the mountains.

Backpacking into wild country. In the evening, I cooked freeze-dried meals on my tiny stove. As night fell, Pat built a fire and I read poems from Gary Snyder's "Turtle Island." As a rule, Pat wasn't into poetry. But Snyder wrote of wide-open skies and wild, unconquered nature. It seemed fitting.

A month passed quickly. Too soon I was back in Gainesville and Pat back in Daytona Beach. In a few months he was off to the Air Force.

We talked many times over the years. Once, two years passed in which we didn't speak. I said some harsh things that he didn't like. We each were too stubborn to make the first call. Pat broke the ice and called me when he became a grandpa for the first time. We talked more when he was in treatment for a month. We wrote letters for the first time in decades.

Pat and I talked about our Colorado trip many times. I wish now that we could have done it again. That we could have spent more time together.

But the 1975 trip was a moment in time. Two brothers waking up in a field of sunflowers.

We saw nothing but a bright future spread out before us.

We saw it together, as brothers.

So I say this to my dear departed backpacking brother Pat, to my Air Force brother, to my Gator-loving brother, to my brother the softball coach, my brother the gardener, the planter of trees and flowers and tomatoes....

Pat, may you always be surrounded by fields of flowers.

Update: This is the eulogy I delivered as part of my brother Pat's memorial service on Monday, Dec. 13, at the Fred Lee Park softball field in Palm Bay, Fla. I will share the full text of the memorial in later posts...

In memoriam: My younger brother, Pat

Obituary for my younger brother, Patrick Kevin Shay...

Patrick Kevin Shay passed away Dec. 8 at Palm Bay (Fla.) Hospital. He was 54.

Pat was born in Denver, Colo., on Nov. 18, 1956. After his family moved to Daytona Beach in 1964, he attended our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School and graduated in 1974 from Seabreeze High School.

He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1977-81, stationed overseas for two years in the Republic of South Korea. He was an avionics senior system specialist.

He married the former Jean Weikel on May 1, 1982, in Daytona Beach. They moved to Palm Bay and he joined the Harris Corp. as an engineering specialist, and worked there for more than 25 years.

Pat was a dedicated husband, father and softball coach. He coached for 15 years in the Palm Bay Little League, winning county championships and traveling to tournaments all over Florida. He never missed a single game or school function.

He is survived by his wife, Jean, his three daughters -- Katie, Palm Bay (Jeremy), Maggie, Davenport, and Erin, Palm Bay; one granddaughter -- Riley Ames of Palm Bay. He is also survived by eight siblings -- Michael Shay, Cheyenne, Wyo. (Chris); Dan Shay, Ormond Beach, (Nancy); Molly Shakar, Tallahassee (Jaime); Eileen Casey, Winter Park (Brian); Tommy Shay, Palm Bay; Tim Shay, Daytona Beach (Jen); Maureen Martinez, Tallahassee (Ralph); and Mary Powell, Tallahassee (Neill); and numerous nieces and nephews. He leaves behind a multitude of friends.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Tom and Anna Shay, Daytona Beach.

A celebration of life will be held at 2 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 13, at Fred Lee Park in Palm Bay. Family invites you to a reception at the Shay home immediately following the ceremony. You are encouraged to wear orange and blue, the colors of Pat's favorite sports team, the Florida Gators.

I lieu of flowers, plant a tree in Pat's honor or contribute to the Arbor Day Foundation.

This is the obit I wrote for official announcements. The personal remembrance will come later.