Last weekend Dennis went to Santa Cruz, CA for his uncle John's memorial. John was Jim's older brother though Jim (Dennis' dad) was always bigger. One story I loved about Jim's family. There was a third 'brother' Ray who was a cousin or something that was a member of the family. Eleanor, the mother, solved the problem of three boys' clothes by buying everything in three colors.
If it was Green, it was John's
If it was Blue, it was Jim's
If it was Brown, it was Ray's
Dennis didn't know his uncle very well when he was young. There was a divorce and remarriage that Dennis' mom did not approve of. But he invited Uncle John and Aunt Mary to our wedding and that started relations going again. In retirement, Dennis' folks and John and Mary visited back and forth a lot. Dennis felt good that he could get the family back together again.
This montage was put together for the memorial. As you can guess, John Barnes was a photographer. We visited them in Santa Cruz almost annually during the last four or five years. It would be part of our softball trip to play Stanford and Cal. In past years, John was affected by Alzheimers. This past spring, with Susanna no longer playing, we didn't go down for the road swing so didn't get our visit. Dennis fretted. I said "what you do is, you buy a plane ticket to the Bay Area, you drive to airport, you fly down, you rent a car and you go visit your aunt and uncle then you come home. You don't have to have an excuse, just do it!" So he did. His uncle was living in a facility at that time. But he was so glad he went.
He also had a chance to re-acquaint himself with his cousins and step-cousins who was a bit vague about.
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