Memories Past… Then and Now

Myself, with my grandmother, Lillian Knutz (left) and great-grandmother, Virta Knutz, sitting on the steps of a house that once was so filled with life and love. Though the house is empty, a part of so many of us will always be there in spirit.

Bathing Beauties

 

My grandfather, Bill Knutz, found himself a couple of special “hood ornaments” on one hot and sunny summer day in eastern South Dakota – his future wife, Lillian Christensen (right), and her cousin Ruth.   This photo, taken in 1935, depicts a common scene at the farm of his parents, Will and Virta Knutz, where their teenage children would stop up the creek to make a “swimming hole,” which was popular with all of the young people in the area.

Wordless Wednesday – Halloween, 1958

And we lived to tell about it...

I was just transcribing one of my great-grandmother’s diaries, telling of their trip to the Oahe Dam in South Dakota.  The year was 1956; they all piled into my Uncle Ray’s station wagon: Grandma and Grandpa, their two daughters and sons-in-law, and 6 kids on a mattress in the back of the wagon.

Reading this, I could almost feel my brother’s elbows in my ribs, and getting squashed by a gaggle of cousins on any of the road trips we took under similar conditions.  Sometimes there were so many kids piled in the backseat that we really weren’t sure whose foot that was...  and to make things even more exciting, there were oftentimes a dog or two in the mix.

Sometimes we’d pile into the back of my dad’s yellow pickup truck for a ride; I can still feel the wind whipping my hair around violently like it was just yesterday.  It was so exhilarating...

Awhile back in our local paper, there was an article about winter safety, and they mentioned that pulling sleds with vehicles wasn’t safe.  Even with a long rope, out in the middle of a field?  No!!  I felt a pain through my very heart!  Again, another portion of my beloved childhood memories were relegated to the Hall of Shame.

I’m not saying any of this is good, or bad, just that it’s different.  Times change.  The world changes.  Are we better off?  I don’t know.  Did the parents of the 1950s look back at past generations and think them nonchalant where safety was concerned?  I wonder.  I know only one thing ... that I won’t be telling my grandchildren about the time we ... never mind.


Image courtesy of office.com

The Diary Project

Tonight I finished transcribing one of the two existing diaries of my great-grandmother, Elvirta Graves Knutz; she started this particular journal in 1956 at the age of 66.  I have 221 typed pages representing eleven years of her life.
When I started this project, I had hoped for two things: 1) to glean genealogical information, and 2) to get to know my great grandmother in a deeper, more personal way. 
I did indeed fill in a lot of dates and family happenings, but was a little disappointed when it came to getting her perspective on life.  She was very good at reporting events, both major events and daily activities, but she didn’t share much of her feelings about those events.  Once, she did let a little anger show regarding her husband’s unwillingness to sell the farm and move to town; and another time, a bit of smug satisfaction at having shown him she wasn’t quite as dumb as he seemed to think.  It was fun to see these emotions in an otherwise quiet and dutiful wife and mother.
Not everyone has the opportunity to go back in time and spend 11 years with family members they love and miss; I have been extremely blessed to get to do just that.  Over these years, I not only “spent time” with my great grandparents, but my beloved grandparents, and even my own parents, as teenagers and then newlyweds.  In many ways, I felt like Marty McFly in “Back to the Future,” watching as my parents courted, married, and began to raise a family.  I found this becoming less and less of a transcription project, and more and more of a chance to spend time with people I hadn’t seen in a very, very long while.
I didn’t realize just how deeply I had been absorbed into this until the last few months of my great-grandfather’s life, “listening” as my great grandmother told the difficult story of his death, and the days after.   Like her, there were times I didn’t think I wanted to keep going.  But at the same time, I couldn’t stop. 
The diary ends abruptly the following year.  Elvirta had gone to Arizona to visit her daughter, and had been there 7 months, and suddenly, there are no more pages.  She lived another five years, so I assume there was another notebook somewhere.  I hope the rest of it turns up some day, and I can resume our visit and finish her story.

“K” is for Karen

Although not a man to be obsessed with material things, my grandfather’s 1952 Kaiser Deluxe was one of his most treasured possessions. In the last 30 years he owned it, it typically sat in one half of the garage, covered with a soft blanket, taken out once a year to be cleaned and waxed. It had been retired from active service about 1965 or so, but from the time he bought the car in 1952 until then, it was used daily.
The Kaiser-Frazer company churned out its first model with the Kaiser Special, a 4-door sedan, in 1947, and continued to produce automobiles in the United States until 1955.  Midway through 1952, Bill Knutz, in Huron, South Dakota, purchased what would be his only brand-new car, at the age of 41.  Typically a thrifty man by necessity, this seemed to be a very uncharacteristic thing for him to do, but he was moving his family from the farm to Gardena, California, had just sold his entire herd of cattle, and needed reliable transportation.  Knowing these facts, It seems like a sensible and practical thing to do.  But knowing his lifelong love of cars, I’m sure he was secretly and thoroughly thrilled about it.

Grandpa and I spent much time in that car, as it was his job to entertain me while my Grandma was shopping or getting groceries.  He told me many stories during those hours, and he had me convinced that the “K” in the center of the steering wheel was for “Karen.”  I bought it, hook, line and sinker, well past the point that I should have known better.  There’s still a part of me that loves to think that if Grandpa had his way, that K would truly stand for “Karen.”
An uncle inherited the Kaiser after Grandpa’s death in 1996, and sold it, as I understand, to a collector.  I’d love to know where it ended up, or even some day to see it again.  Wherever it is, I just hope that its new owner knows what very special memories are embedded in that vehicle.

Up In Flames

In the early morning hours on May 8, 1957, a bolt of lightening changed the lives of the Bill and Lillian Knutz family of Beadle county, South Dakota.  They were my grandparents.
Below, left: the newspaper account, as it appeared in the May 8, 1957 edition of the Huronite and Daily Plainsman (Huron, South Dakota).  Right, the incident as related by Bill’s mother, Elvirta Knutz, in her diary:
“Tuesday night an electrical storm came up and a bolt of lightening struck Bill’s house; they knew it struck but didn’t know it set a fire so they went to bed. It struck about 12 and about 1:30 they all woke up smelling smoke.  Bill went out for a look, Betty did too they saw the kitchen-roof was a blaze; Betty opened the stair door, it was full of smoke and 1 wall was on fire. It just happened the kids and all slept down stairs because of the storm which was a good thing; for they would have been trapped up stairs. Bill was going to phone for the fire department but the phone was burnt out also the electricity. Lillian and the kids carried out things; Bill did too when he got back. Mrs. Ted Walters phoned to us about a quarter till 2 so we went over. They run out of water and so they couldn’t save the house, they broke out windows and carried out things. Everything up-stairs burnt, so did everything in the kitchen and bathroom; some things were saved in the (living) room, some burned. The kids’ clothing all burned except what they had on; Betty was without shoes and Donny had his pajamas on, no shoes. Before we left the scene of the fire some neighbors came with clothing. Every one were helping with donations of clothing, canned goods, cooking utencils [sic], towels, and wash-cloths.”
My mother, who was a teenager at the time of the fire, said the house was actually struck by lightening twice; the first bolt took out the electricity, and the second started the fire.  She also related that her father ran to the neighbor’s house rather than drove, a distance of over a mile away, to use their phone.  When it became apparent that the house could not be saved, the firemen broke out windows and threw whatever of the family’s belongings they could grab, out into the yard. 

The two older girls stayed with Bill’s sister in Huron, and the rest of the family stayed with Bill’s parents.  In the meantime, they began looking for a house that they could move to the farm:

(from the Thursday, May16 edition of the Huronite and Daily Plainsman, Huron, South Dakota)

However, the plans changed when they found a house in town, pictured at right, and purchased it on May 20.  Bill made daily trips to the farm to do his chores.  The new house was just a half block from the home of Maurice and Loretta Sloan, their farm friends who had recently moved to town.  My grandmother and Mrs. Sloan maintained their close friendship for the rest of their lives.  My grandfather continued making daily trips to the farm until he sold it about 1972.

Wedding Wednesday – 47 years later

In her diary entry of Saturday, March 30, 1957, my great grandmother Virta Knutz recalled the day she married her husband Will:
“47 years ago today we were married and such a day as it was; it rained, hailed, wind blew hard and it blizzarded all before noon but that did not stop me; Delbert [her brother] took me to the depot and waited with me till the train came; I had to go to Huron (from Esmond) to meet Will. Henry Thompson and his girl Stella were there to be married at the same time we were; we were witnesses for each other. We ate our dinner in a hotel which is now torn down and there is a gas station and truck parking lot there now. After dinner we were married and did some shopping and drove home; we used horse and buggy those days, had to drive about 7 miles; got home I got my first meal for us; which was (as I remember) bacon and eggs and potatoes.”

Above: Their marriage certificate
They would celebrate eight more anniversaries together before Will’s death in 1966.

The Pink Bowl

The pink Stetson Melmac bowl has been a part of our Thanksgiving tradition as far back as I can remember.  It belonged to my maternal grandmother, and only on special occasions did she take it from its designated spot in the buffet.  We would sit around the large oak pedestal table, all the leaves having been added to accommodate the four generations.  Grandpa was seated at the head of the table, and the three kids would fight over the two chairs on either side of him.  I vividly remember staring at the bowl from my place at the table, being too short to see inside, and wondering what deliciously wonderful surprise Grandma had put in it, as it was passed from person to person.  Sometimes it was mashed potatoes, sometimes a vegetable dish, sometimes it was fruit salad.  Didn’t matter.  Anything she cooked was especially tasty, but there was something about that pink bowl... the sight of it still makes my mouth water in anticipation.

After Grandma passed away in 1991, my sister and I were sharing our precious memories of dinner around her holiday tables, when Grandpa surprised us by telling us to take the bowl home.  I like to think I would have insisted my sister take it, but thankfully, it was not an issue.  We were delighted to discover there were actually *two* pink bowls, as pictured in the photo above, side by side.  Now, at each “pink bowl occasion”, we compare notes about what will be served in them, hundreds of miles apart.

It’s hard to imagine a Thanksgiving without the pink bowl, and the precious and comforting memories of times past.

Flabbergasted Friday – How Did Our Ancestors Survive Lunch??

I’m having a ball transcribing the journals of my great grandmother, Elvirta Knutz.  The “current” year is 1956.  They loved to take “day trips”, and pack their own lunches rather than eating at restaurants, in order to economize. 
Each year they would visit the South Dakota State Fair at Huron.  They’d make an incredibly fun day of it.  My Aunt Mabel, the fourth of five children, told of how her mother would spend the whole day beforehand frying chicken and preparing potato salad, and then on the day of the trip, they’d get up early and pack everything they’d need into the trunk of the car, including the food, and drive to Huron.  They’d spend all morning at the livestock barns and seeing all the machinery and other attractions, then take a break and head back to the car, where they’d sit in the hot early September sun, in the treeless parking lot, but oh, how that fried chicken and potato salad tasted so good!
Another time they took a “day trip” to Pierre, South Dakota, to watch the Oahe Dam being built.  From their farm, it was close to a four-hour drive.  After seeing the dam, and touring the general area, they found a lovely riverside park, where they… you guessed it… pulled their lunch from the trunk and ate it.  Afterwards, they toured the Capital building, made several stops on their way home, and once there, pulled the remainder of the lunch from the car and finished it off.
Having my formal education in the field of microbiology, I was appalled, but apparently, this was not an uncommon practice.  The New England Journal of Medicine, in the November 19, 1953 issue, published a report by Dr. K. F. Meyer stating that contamination with E. coli, Clostridium perfringens (the bug you get from improperly canned foods), among other nasty little germs, “has been implicated in food-poisoning outbreaks.”  He goes on to say that “the true etiologic significance of the bacteria incriminated has never been satisfactorily proved.”  Yikes!
Many times, while going through very old death registers, I’ve seen cause of death attributed to diarrhea, or some vague stomach complaint.  I wonder how many of these were caused by the family’s lunch? 


(Image courtesy of http://www.public-domain-image.com)

Wedding Wednesday – 55 years

 

 

On March 30, 1910, Will Knutz and Elvirta Graves made a life-long commitment to each other.  They met while Will was working on a threshing crew, and Virta was helping to serve the hungry men.

50 years later, they celebrated a milestone anniversary.  Their marriage would last nearly 56 years, until Will passed away in 1966. 

Wordless Wednesday – The Secret Summer

The diary my Grandmother kept as a young woman

She Might Have Been a Blogger

Slowly, but steadily, I’ve been transcribing my great-grandmother Virta Knutz’s journals – over 500 sheets of notebook paper spanning nine years.  Next will be a file folder with another hundred pages or so, titled “Our Trips.”  After that, another pile of pages called “Memories.” 
Transcribing her journals has given me an idea of what her life was like on the farm.  Her children lived nearby, so her days will often filled with grandchildren, as well as the household chores, made lengthier and a bit more mundane by the lack of modern appliances.  At the end of her day, she would write.  I suspect it was probably the only thing she did just for herself.  What was her motivation?  Was she lonely out on the farm?  Wanting to share her day with someone, after everyone else was in bed?  Or did she just feel an inexplicable need to put the pen to the paper?   I think many bloggers would know something of how she felt.
If Virta were alive today, I suspect she would be one of us…

Wordless Wednesday – The New Coupe

My grandfather’s new coupe – Beadle County, South Dakota.  Date unknown.

The Strawberry Blanket

Sharing a Slice of Life
There are no finer memories than spending the night at Grandma’s house.  She had things we didn’t at home… like trundle beds!  And when she pulled out the bottom bed, she always pulled the Strawberry Blanket out of the back of the closet as well.
I loved that Strawberry Blanket for as long as I remember.  There was nothing particularly special about it, at that time, except that it had strawberries on it and I loved strawberries.  Now, of course, it also has all the memories associated with it, particularly being tucked in so warm and safe by the most wonderful Grandma that God ever created.

When my mom cleaned out Grandma and Grandpa’s house after their passing, she gifted me with the Strawberry Blanket – which by then had become the Strawberry Blankets.  For some unknown reason, Grandma had cut it into two, and whatever backing the blanket used to have was gone.  So I bought some fabric and put backs on each of them.  They spend most of their time in the back of MY closet now, but it’s surprising how comforting these blankets still are, like a hug from far, far away.  I think it’s time to move them to the front of the closet, and get them ready for the next generation of kids who need a warm, snuggly hug.

The Virtue of Perseverance

Scan the front page.  Flip it.  Scan the back page.  Put it back in the binder and take the next page out.  Repeat.  I am up to Scan #245, about 2/3 of the way through the first of two binders of papers.  When I have them all scanned, I’ll start reading and transcribing.  I can hardly wait.

You see, these are the writings of my great grandmother, Virta, who had the beautiful lace curtains in the old farmhouse.  These journal entries span from 1956 to 1967, and as I scan each page, I catch snippets of her life – all of our lives – surfacing for just a moment, to tease me about what comes after the scanning.

From a trip to town to Montgomery Ward’s, to a vacation in Oregon to see one of her sons, it’s all here.  Illnesses… the destruction of my grandparents’ house by lightning… company stopping over… their retirement from the farm… it’s all come past my scanner this evening.  And I know what’s coming – the birth of their first great grandchild (me) – grandsons going off to war – and the death of her husband - and so much more interspersed between the major events of her life.

I’m tempted to stop the scanning and just dive right into devouring it, but I saw what happened to my mother when she did just that – we didn’t see her for a week!  And as much as I want a scanned copy of this journal as a backup, I know if I read it before I scan it, the scanning won’t happen.  So I will not read it until I’m done, which will roughly be another 500 scans.  Quite frankly, I’m not very enthusiastic about this part at all.

In the meantime, I’ll keep scanning, checking to see who’s signed on to chat, scan more, read some blogs, scan another page, check email, etc., and try to remember that each scan puts me one scan closer to reading.

Thoughts on an old farmhouse

Pictured here are my great grandmother, Virta Knutz, with her boys, Willie, 7, and Howard, 5, about 1918.  They lived on this place, east of Virgil, South Dakota, until sometime in the 1930s, when they lost it in the Great Depression.



My great grandfather, Will Knutz, with the boys, on the front “deck”.  I love the old lace curtains in the window, and wonder what the room looked like on the inside.   Looking at the photos makes me wish I could step back in time, and experience what it was like to live on the old farm, and how day-to-day life felt for them.



On a trip back to South Dakota, I wanted to find the old farm.  I drove past it several times, before realizing the old house was probably behind a thick patch of overgrown trees set far back from the road.  The driveway, mostly filled in with weeds, was gated off, but I parked my car and climbed over the fence, and began the walk through the hip-high grasses. 


Little by little, the tangible reminders of our memories grow old and fall apart, and eventually cease to exist.  Such was the fate of the old farmhouse.  Broken windows, doors torn off, and graffiti sprayed across the walls were stark reminders that nothing lasts.    I wondered if the kids with the spray paint had any idea that my great-grandmother had lovingly made that room into a warm place for her family, with beautiful old lace curtains where there now was broken glass.  Or, where they stood destroying things, that a young family had once started building a legacy.   Heading back to my car, I stopped at the edge of the grove and took one last look back, and for just a moment I could see Virta peeking through the lace curtains, smiling, waving goodbye.  Holding onto the tangibles forever isn’t always possible, but thank goodness what exists in our hearts is safe.

Wordless Wednesday

The old farmer, my great-grandfather, Will Knutz, surveys the landscape after a hard days’ work on his farm in Clyde township, Beadle County, South Dakota.

If I get a Time Machine…

I’m going a barn dance!  And in the 1930s and 1940s, with dust in the fields, worries galore, rebuilding what was lost, and war, It was a time to put your worries aside.  It was a time to socialize with your neighbors, tip a few, kick up your heels.  There was no shortage of these dances on the prairie, and on any given weekend one could have their pick of where to go and what band to enjoy.  Ladies often were admitted free, while the gentlemen might have to pay 25 to 30 cents to get in.

Among the popular local bands in and around Huron, South Dakota were such groups as the Golden Pheasants; White’s Red Jackets; the Rhythm Ramblers; Doyle and His Old-Timers; the Sod Busters, and the Bill Knutz Orchestra, in whom I have a vested interest.   While these bands did sometimes play in larger venues, such as the Band Box east of Huron, they frequently booked their jobs in the barns of their neighbors.  Henry Meyer, who lived north of Wessington, Ed Langbehn, near Wolsey, Bill Schwartz, west of Huron, and Albert Baum, southeast of Huron, were frequent hosts of these weekend escapes. 

I’m not sure when my grandfather, Bill Knutz, first became interested in being a band leader.  As a young man, he farmed himself out (pun intended) as a hired man, and did some traveling around the midwest during harvest time.  He lived frugally, and when the season was over, treated himself to a saxophone he’d found in a pawn shop in Nebraska, as well as a ring for his favorite girl.  Both ended up being “keepers.”  He taught himself how to play, and eventually formed his first band, “Bill Knutz and His Harmonians”, including his future brothers-in-law, Ray Christensen playing the fiddle and trumpet; Clarence Christensen playing the clarinet; and Bill’s brothers Howard playing the bass fiddle, and Richard on the drums. Bill’s mother, Virta, kept track of their bookings.


The Harmonians were rearranged to form the Bill Knutz Orchestra, when the band leader discovered his girl was also a mean piano player, and a good-looking girl in the band never hurt business…  Unfortunately, it was not so easy where the drummer was concerned, and he had to settle for a fellow without much rhythm, who liked to keep a bottle by his drums for an occasional “swig”.  When the drummer would speed up or lag behind with the tempo, fortunately all it took was Bill to wander back to the drum set and blow the sax into the poor man’s ear until he was back on pace.   Realistically, none of these people were professional musicians, just working folks with a day job, most of them dirt-poor farmers looking to make a few extra bucks for groceries and have a little fun in the process.


Both my mother and my mother-in-law grew up on South Dakota barn dances, and described similar situations throughout the 1930s and 1940s.  Large crowds, comprised of whole families, would attend these outings, and often it was here that youngsters learned to dance.   Sonny Baum taught both his daughter and my mother a three-person dance called the Butterfly Dance; similarly, my mother-in-law, a lifelong fanatic, would dance with her father, Casper Kluthe, when he wasn’t busy on stage with his accordion.  The smell of hay, the noise, the applause, the rowdy activity, with the younger children curled up and sleeping blissfully in any available corner, all while the band rocked out “Swingtime In The Rockies” and oldies like “Little Brown Jug.”  “I’ll never forget those dances in our barn,” said my mother-in-law, and she never did.  Alzheimer's robbed her of many of her treasured memories, but not these.


The Bill Knutz Orchestra eventually dwindled to just the two main members, Bill and his favorite pianist, and an occasional granddaughter (moi) warming the piano bench next to her grandmother, learning the chords to such favorites as “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley,” while the the more talented of the duo played the melody.   The leader of the band always tooted along on his sax.  I was blessed to be a late part (although a very small part) of their orchestra.  I’d love to have seen them in their heyday, and experienced the excitement of one of their dustbowl-era barn dances.

Ray

I never met Flight Officer Raymond Christensen personally, but I’ve heard so much about him over the years that it’s hard not to feel close to him.  He was my grandfather’s best friend, and my grandmother’s younger brother, although my grandmother never talked about him much.  A gifted writer, with devilish good looks, and a sense of adventure, combined with a charming wit all equipped him to make a success of himself in his various undertakings.  His life, had it been longer, would have made an incredibly fascinating book.


Growing up in rural Beadle county, South Dakota, my grandparents and their siblings and friends “made their own fun.”  They  stopped up Cain Creek and made a popular “swimming hole”, and occasionally took my grandfather’s old Model A on a road trip. Ray and my grandmother, being less than two years apart, were naturally very close.  She was his trusted confidante, and vice versa.  But it was his friendship with my grandfather, Bill, that brought out the fun-loving sides of both of them.  Bill told how they went to the river and caught snapping turtles, and when they had several of them, they daringly positioned the tail of one in the mouth of another, and so on, until they had a Wagon Train of snappers, all “snapped” together.  They then, very carefully, got the first snapper to bite onto a cigarette and clench it between his jagged, razor teeth long enough for a picture to be taken. They learned new and creative ways to shock each other with the aid of an old magneto, an object that kept the boys occupied off and on for years.  No one ever truly knew what was safe to sit on, pick up, or even touch with Bill and Ray and that magneto around.



After high school, Ray worked as a farm hand in various midwest locations, until deciding he’d like to go to Agriculture school at the University of Minnesota, a decision that fiercely angered his father.  Going it alone, Ray sold life insurance for State Farm in Minneapolis to support himself and pay his tuition.  He was the first in his family to pursue higher education.  The photo on the left shows him grafting a hybrid wheat plant in the University’s wheat field. His “smarts”, as well as his determination, and his desire for something “bigger”, would have taken him far in the field of agriculture, had he gotten the chance.


World War II altered the course of many lives, and Raymond’s was no exception.  After three years of study at the University, he put his agriculture degree on hold and was accepted in an officer’s training school in the Army Air Force.  A letter to my grandparents, dated Feb. 20, 1942, reads in part:

“Started to school Saturday and like it O.K.  It will come fast but if they keep me in like they have in the past I’ll not only get it, but get fat too.  (The) Grub is swell … I’m learning typing – code – electricity and eventually radios.  If I pass I may get to be radio man on a bomber and fly all over heck…”

And that’s exactly what happened.  After completion of his program, he was assigned to the 417th Night Fighter Squadron as a radar observer with the rank of First Lieutenant.  He was one of a crew of two in an English Beaufighter, working with pilot Joseph Leonard.  Ray described the relationship between them as such -

“I’ve got quite a bit of faith in my pilot and we get along as well as anybody could … We’ve got to have perfect teamwork to live out this blessed war so we pay as much attention in our teaming up as we would to getting married - probably more. In this case “until death do us part” doesn’t seem to lend any humor to the situation whatever.”

The Bristol Beaufighter

Ray and Joe did well together – a “Stars and Stripes” article  gave Flight Officer Raymond Christensen credit for helping to bag a German plane in the North African war zone, in March of 1944.  

Letters continued to go back and forth between Ray and my grandparents.  A letter from Ray, dated May 5, 1944, describes the dangerous situations they faced on the island of Corsica, where Ray was stationed:

“When we go airborne we can look right into Herr Hitler’s back yard and make faces at him.  One of his little boys done foxed me the other night so here I sit on the end of the runway just awaitin’ to get revenge…”

Ray in his flight suit 

This would be the last letter my grandparents got from Ray.  Eight days later, he and Joe flew what would be their last mission.  The plane was located at the point of the red “X” on the map below, when it was last seen on radar, shortly before going down under enemy fire. Six planes were sent in a search and rescue attempt, joined by six more in the early hours of May 14, my grandmother’s birthday.  All they found was “much debris, an oil slick, and two life rafts.”



Ray was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Air Medal for his courage and sacrifice.  And that’s the end of his story.  But my mind can’t help but wander, and entertain the notion of what he might have done had he lived a full measure of years.  He took life by the horns, and he had some incredible gifts that will go forever unused. We’re left to wonder What If…