Orville was born in April of 1929 in Ernestville, MO, although when I met him he and his 2 brothers shared ownership of the family farm just outside of Concordia, MO. It was a place that I got to know well over the past 20+ years. This is because we used to meet him there on a weekend around his birthday to go morel mushroom hunting in the woods, and cat fishing on the pond. The first time we went out there he actually got a bit frustrated with me because I was finding more mushrooms than he was and I was walking right behind him. He got the last laugh though because the first year we moved to Ohio he sent us pictures of the 5 gallon bucket full of mushrooms he had found, and several of them were the size of a twelve once beer can which he placed next to them for scale!
Being a "city boy" he and his daughter (Lightnin of course) delighted in quizzing me on farming type stuff that I of course knew nothing about. As it turns out the joke was on them because I actually paid attention and learned much more than they thought I would. I'll miss his laughter as he would tease me though, some times to the point where he couldn't get the punchline out without stopping to laugh himself!
He had no choice but to have a good sense of humor though, you see he came from a family of three brothers and fate dealt him a hand of three daughters! After meeting and getting to know all three of these women over the years, I think he must have earned his wings early on! All three of them have taken bits of Orville's humor and when you get them together in one spot look out.
Here's a bit of an interesting twist though, all three of the daughter's names start with a "T", and they all three married David's! That's right, when we get together I'm not alone in my battle of the wits with the three "T's", I have my fellow Dave's to lend a hand. I was lucky enough to marry the middle sister of the three. I'm going to say lucky because the other two were already taken at the time that we met, so I was lucky to get the third (well ok technically the 2nd) before she was taken too. (whew, that was a close one!) Interestingly enough Orville was the middle brother. I can honestly say that I never saw any favoritism by Orville towards any of the three girls, but I do think that Lightnin and GGL had a special bond that only middle children would understand. (not that I would have a clue, I had one brother and that was it).
I think I should stop here and apologize for the few photos that I have of the man, and the fact that all of them that I do have are of him with our grandson. You see I didn't enter the digital camera age until a couple of years ago and we live about 600 miles east of Missouri, so my choices of photos are somewhat limited. Although I think this one definitely shows the little boy that was hidden within the grown man's body, something that I definitely identified with.
I think one of my most fond memories with him was when we took a trip to Washington, D.C. to see the dedication of the Korean war monument. You see Orville was a veteran of that conflict and we actually were able to meet a few folks from his unit. The dedication ceremony was definitely a moving experience and I was glad to have been able to witness the event, even though we had record high heat that week.
We ended up traveling with him on another occasion. We took him down to Florida with us on a trip where we house sat for some friends of ours in Pompano Beach one Christmas when they headed back to their families in Michigan (I'll never really understand that 'cause I'd take Florida over Michigan any day, but hey it worked for us!). We took him to the beach for the first time at Ft. Lauderdale, then we hung Christmas lights while dressed in shorts and t-shirts, and spent Christmas day on Key West (I'm sure that was an eye opening experience for Orville). It was a fun trip, and I'll never forget it!
Once again you can see the smile on his face as he clowns around with the little guy. No doubt teasing him while this photo was being taken. I'm pretty sure Easton didn't mind a bit though.
We didn't get to see him as much as we had wanted to this past year. He was planning to come out to visit us during the Donauschwaben Oktoberfest, he usually came out to see us on Schwaben Tag (Schwaben Day), but his gall bladder had acted up on him and he decided to stay home to let it settle down. On the night of Wednesday October 20th, following his gall bladder surgery, he finally succumbed to the dark angle of death and ended his time in this purgatory we call Earth. We really shouldn't feel sad for Orville because as I stated earlier he had already earned his wings, although it is very difficult not to morn his loss while the rest of us put in our time here without him.
We'll always have our memories of him, and that will just have to do until we're called upon to make our final journey!
God speed Big-O, and hey save some of those morels for the rest of us!
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