Even though school started really early this year, it definitely didn’t feel like summer…instead the week felt a lot like fall to me. Matt spent his last full week with us before he heads off to the next chapter in his life. Ann and I were having second thoughts about letting him leave the nest. We thought we were ready for him to begin this next phase, but now we’re not so sure of ourselves. We know we’ve raised an exceptional young man with a huge heart and loads of integrity. He has never met a stranger his whole life. We know he’ll do fine, but the heartache is already beginning… Abby continued to enjoy high school life (something she’s been waiting for her whole life, it seems). Luke continued being the busiest of us all with school, friends and sports. I continued my road to recovery – I did a little better with exercise, somewhat better with the diet but I’ve been smoke free for two months now and feeling good again. And Ms. Ann continued to hold us all together.
Monday started off hot and humid as you might expect for mid-August…but it would turn out to be the warmest we’d see all week. It rained on and off all day. Luke & I practiced football in the pouring rain. We got absolutely drenched out there! I got a haircut with Jamie in Columbus. Abby went to bed early. Matt went over to Colton’s house for fantasy football activities. And we heard the awful news – Robin Williams died at age 63. Robin was one of my top two or three favorite actors and probably my favorite comedian of all time. It was a big loss in the entertainment world and a huge loss for our generation…I grew up enjoying his work my whole life and he will be sorely missed as a human being who was truly gifted. He always made me laugh – sometimes till I cried. Ann & I were enjoying his new series on TV with Sarah Michelle Gellar. He was still as funny as ever, but I had also known that he struggled with depression as well as sobriety. To complicate matters, he was starting to show signs of the early onset of Parkinson’s disease. Early reports state that he took his own life by hanging. I remember his first appearance on Happy Days and fondly remember an old t-shirt Mom bought me with “Mork from Ork” and a picture of Robin on it. He was the wittiest and craziest person I ever saw perform. I’ll have to check and see if I have a picture of me in that old shirt somewhere…
Tuesday started off started off in 70s. Luke and I had football again at North Park. We lost a couple kids off the team who quit. It was very disappointing. We also got a couple banged up and so we took it easy in the 2nd half of practice. At this rate, we may not even be able to field a team. Abby had Pirateers practice that evening at the high school. We were again saddened to hear that yet another entertainment legend had died – this time it was the cool, sexy and always classy siren, Lauren Bacall, who died of natural causes at age 89. With my HVAC project at work now nearing completion, I am now moving on to our next project, which is upgrading all our XP computers to 7. So my office is currently crowded with a whole slew of new computers which kept me busy all week getting programmed.
Wednesday continued our downward trend of cooler temps – this time starting off in the 60s. Luke began the his second session of basketball camp/practice with Coach McIntosh. Ann, Bu & I went out for a walk on a lovely evening after a great dinner of homemade salmon patties. I hope there are more evenings like this to come for us. However, I need to work on Ann’s exercise routine – as we spent more time talking to neighbors than we did actually exercising! Matt was supposed to pick up Luke but as we came around the corner of the neighborhood at the time practice ended and saw all the cars still in the driveway, we knew Matt had probably fallen asleep or was captivated by his new Xbox game.
The morning started off even cooler on Thursday – this time down in the 50s. Luke & I had football. We only had about 8 that evening. We didn’t even have enough to fill a full team to scrimmage the 4th graders. Abby had Pirateers practice again that evening. Ann had Shawna over and I had Bryan over for some much-needed porch time while Luke & Drew ran around the yard. We have several new social media pictures to share this week, including: Luke in the paper for the all-star baseball team, first day of school for Katie & Jake’s kids, Nate & Steph’s kids and Emily’s daughter, this week marked the 23rd anniversary of the release of Metallica’s black LP, Phyllis & Dick’s 60 wedding anniversary invitation (!), Jason & Erica’s kids’ first day of school, Conner and recently deceased friend, Aunt Judy and her new husband on vacation, my cousin Angie and her two lovely daughters, Cassie & her daughter’s first day of school, Led Zeppelin’s first photo shoot, Grace and the Nocturnals are taking a break from the studio to play a surprise festival in mid-September, Seth and fiancé in the Virgin Islands, an unreleased photo of James (in his best King Diamond imitation) during the recording of the Merciful Fate medley on the Garage, Inc LP, there have been many specials this week for Robin Williams’ passing, Abby and Megan, Calvin & Hobbes panel, my cousin Wendy and her daughter, Keith Rosie and Megan at Cedar Point and Ace Frehley put out a new LP this week as well…
It was even colder on Friday morning. We were astonished to see the 40s…in August! The old Chevy truck loved the cooler temps. When I got home, Luke was out playing in the front yard with Drew and Grayson, who were both spending the night. I picked up a new bottle of propane for the grill. However, when I hooked it up, I found the regulator leaking badly. We’ve only had it a month, so either Weber or Lowe’s should fix it for free for us. The boys enjoyed climbing trees, riding bikes, playing ball and racing RC cars. Today was Matt’s final day of work before school starts. They generously kept Matt on-board and can work during his breaks anytime he wishes – which Ann & I thought was very cool.
The boys were up very late…or should I say very early? I believe the boys got to bed somewhere around 5 or 6 am. We got up around 9 am on Saturday morning. It was sleeping-in for Ann & I, but the boys struggled to get motivated for some unknown reason. Ann made breakfast for them and Abby did the dishes. Ann ran Luke to basketball practice and took the boys home. After practice, Luke Matt & I went outside to do yard work. The boys and I worked for a few hours – we trimmed shrubs, trimmed the tree out front, dug up the dead tree in the back, mowed, trimmed & swept. To show my appreciation, I took them out for ice cream afterwards at Dairy Point. Next, Luke & I went out to the Power of the Past for lunch. Then we checked out the old engines and tractors as well as all the booths at the flea market. Memaw & Gigi were out there too. Luke & I came away with a few cars, a great lunch, lots of exercise and some fun memories. We came home after several hours, got cleaned up and relaxed the rest of the evening. Abby went to her best friend Megan’s birthday party for the night and Matt went out with Colton and Andy for the night.
We were up fairly early for a Sunday for Luke’s football game. It was the season-opening jamboree and weigh-ins. This year it was at Connersville. We rode up there with Bryan and Drew as the girls skipped the game. Luke forgot his cleats in the damn truck back in Greensburg at the Messer’s. Thankfully, Coach Robbins hadn’t left yet and grabbed them for us. He got there right before we took the field. We scrimmaged against Connersville. We did 15 minutes each on offense followed by defense. We looked pretty good with the ball, scoring 5 TD’s on about 20 plays from scrimmage. Defensively we looked pretty good. We still don’t have all the pieces in place quite yet, but should have everyone back by our first official game next week. We did have to adjust to accommodate two kids quitting this week and although we exposed a couple holes, I thought we did very well overall. Luke played tight end and fullback for Bryan as well as defensive end, middle linebacker and tackle for me. We didn’t want to show them too much and so we stayed in our basic 5-2 the whole game. We’ll break out our full arsenal next week! Luke made a couple of real key blocks and even scored his first touchdown of his career! He carried 5 kids on his back for several yards before crossing the goal line!! He had 6 tackles for the defense along with a forced fumble and recovery on the final play. Afterward we weighed in and everyone made weight this year! Luke easily made it, coming in at 104. On the way home, Bryan stopped at Skyline Chili for lunch. It was the first time for Luke & I and we both enjoyed it. We came home to find Matt, Bu & Ann gone shopping. Matt was doing back-to-school shopping and made out like a bandit! Luke had Oakley over t play in the tree outside as well as Xbox inside. Knowing that it as the last weekend with Matt at home made me pretty sad, but I know that we’ve done a good job of raising him and we know that he will do great at college. We did our weekly household chores and watched the race on the DVR. Local boy Tony Stewart sat out the NASCAR race at Michigan (his 2nd in a row) as he is still under scrutiny for the death of that young racer last weekend. The last I knew he was still under investigation and may yet face criminal charges.
Now we step back and take a look at years gone by with our Waybac section. First up, we start off in 1980: some vintage pictures of our young family at the Brown household in January with Dad, Rob, Schnapps and Great Grandpa Morgan; Aunt Marilou her mom, Great Grandma Brown in her old house that no longer even stands in Rossville; Mom feeding 3-month-old Robby in our kitchen in Temple City; Aunt Kathy Spoor’s high school graduation at her house in Lafayette in June with classic photos of me, Aunt Norma, Stephen and others; and then in June with Grandpaw Brown working on his mower at home; next we move on to 1982: Uncle Dan, Uncle Virden, Nathan & Katie at the Bryan Christmas in Kokomo in January; Dad pushing Rob & I down the alley hill on Rockwood St in February; then on to 1985: Rob at Grandmaw & Grandpaw’s house in April; Grandpaw on vacation in Michigan with the Spoors in May; Wendy & Steven in May; Rob, Julie and Dad in October in LP; and Rob in December; next in 1986: Rob at a Wet & Wild in FL in April; Rob, Dad & I at Disney in Orlando a week later; and Rob with friends in our backyard in October; Grandmaw Brown’s funeral in September, 1988 with Aunt Norma & Uncle Ralph Spoor with Aunt Sharon Morgan; then more pictures of Paul & I in 1991 while in FC – these were taken in Brown Co National Park; then three great ones of Matt: in Columbus in Sept 1996; posing for one of our all-time favorite pictures for Xmas in 1997; and 1st grade (?) picture in September 2002; also that same year Matt & Abby prepping for bedtime on Christmas Eve and opening presents at Grandma O’s house earlier with Chad, Grace, and Mom & Dad B; then Matt playing football at the Y in October 2003 and finally a classic: our 2005 Christmas photo that became our card that year, I believe…
Next up is our Shit that Luke Says segment. Although Luke had his share of winners this week that made us chuckle and smile knowingly at each other, we again forgot to write them down. However, Matt & I loved that he referred to the big event at the fair grounds as the “Pirate of the Past.”
Next up is our video section, which includes one new family movie and several vids from around the internet.
And that does it for this week’s installment of the Scheu Family Blog. As always, thanks for keeping up with us this time out and we’ll catch up with you again next time. Until then, have a good one. We miss ya Mom.
Later, Scheu
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.