Scott, since you are away studying a foreign language in the best place to do such a thing, I've sent these recollections of events to assist you in wondering what was missed. For years I worried that what has happened with you would happen to me when Grandad passed. I feared being on the road somewhere with my music and not being able to make it back.

The time was a great bonding time for all of us. Aunt Millie and I spent Saturday at Dad's office typing out the obituary that would run in the Times-Union. There were nervous moments during Dad's disagreements with his sister regarding the details to be included. Dad wanted to keep the article brief yet informative and feared that untethered, Aunt Millie might include all the details down to Grandad's former blood-type and social security number. Aunt Millie kind of got her way. The column inches of the Times-Union obituary were so generous one could easily fashion a necktie from it were it to have been printed on cloth. Later, Aunt Millie and I spent two hours at Kinko's downtown laying out the grave side service program. She didn't want to include a photo and I did. Every man has his glory day. 1963, when Grandad's one and only head shot shot was taken, he was in his finest hour. His business was booming. He was 54 then with the brand new house he had built at the beach. I thought the photo would honor him well but I sensed that Aunt Millie thought it tacky to put a photo in a memorial service program.

Grandad had died on a Thursday. Sunday morning Uncle Bob, Aunt Millie, Dad and I went to the mortuary on Cesery Boulevard to make body shipping arrangements and shop for a coffin . The high priced ones were shinny wooden things that reminded me of pulpits turned sideways. Aunt Millie and Dad settled on a polished grey can with silver handles that cost around two grand. I thought it was a waste of money but protocol did not dictate my opinion being considered at this moment so I didn't offer it. For some reason, perhaps relating to revenue, they didn't have the only kind of coffin that I want to be buried in - a pine box.

I brought up the possibility that maybe we could just put Grandad (in his coffin) in the back of my van for the trip to his final resting place - Reidville, South Carolina. Actually I was kind of serious about this. It would have been a little bizarre but in fact very meaningful. "That's how they did it in the old days" I said. Uncle Bob, aware of our family's propensity to let wild ideas fester into reality, kept whispering: "Walter you don't want to do that". Yet upon Dad's inquiry to the undertaker on the matter, we learned that it was legal to do. We would only need to carry the proper paperwork. We discussed the need for putting extra insulation between the van floor and the grey "can" as the heat generated upward from the turning transmission would interact unfavorably with a frigid corpse. It appeared that the undertaker couldn't decide whether to be nervous or entertained by all of us.

Dad and I wanted to see the body before the make-up was applied. The mortuary crew reluctantly wheeled the gurney into the parlor and let us know when everything was in place. Uncle Bob and Aunt Millie chose not to view at this time. At first I was anxious, tearful and shocked but I calmed as I realized that Grandad didn't look like himself. The undertakers had already embalmed him and played around with his chin somehow to fill out his natural "half-moon" facial shape. They also didn't get his lips right. They sewed them up or something.

I began to have a comforting feeling as I viewed his body. I knew that he really wasn't there anymore. We might as well have been looking at a patio brick in the yard. No breath-no movement. No more. Just plain no. "No" as a concept has always been hard for me to accept. Having just returned from the Buddhist monastery I was confused. Buddhism teaches that there is no birth and no death. Instead there is only a continuation of energy. I accept this philosophy regarding birth but how would it apply to Grandad who was embalmed and "protected"from nature? His body was not being allowed to recycle as nature intended. This aspect disturbed me.

When Dad left the room for a moment I pulled back the royal blue velour sheet and felt Grandad's uncovered feet. They had the texture of refrigerator chicken. And sure enough, just like in the movies there was the tag on the toe but they hadn't put his name on it yet! I didn't understand the purpose of an unmarked toe tag. I reached in my bag for a pen so that I could fill out the little form myself just to tidy up lose ends. I couldn't do it. I couldn't fill it out. Being the 4th I would have had to write my own name on that tag. It was too creepy.

Dad returned and of course got weird. He unsuccessfully addressed the body in the same tone he successfully used to wake me up as a kid. He spoke as if there was still a snowball's chance Grandad might overcome the inconvenience of embalming fluid, lack of heartbeat and three nights in cold storage to talk to us one more time. I discovered at this moment why I've always had problems with the concept of "no".

In humor, Dad, still on the "grandad in the van" idea, asked if I might be open to seat belting the deceased into the passenger seat. The undertaker, who was apparently keeping a tight ear on us from just outside the elegant plastic accordion style parlor door, must have thought that we were going to attempt to sit Grandad upright on the mortuary gurney right then and there. "You can't sit him up...its too late for that!" he said as delicate as insistent can be.

When we finally left the mortuary, the undertaker was beginning to "get" our family. After looking around to be assured that his co-workers were elsewhere he cautiously told us that we were a nice change and credited us for grieving with such levity.

Grandad left for South Carolina that afternoon as air freight. Those of us still living would drive up through hot August Georgia two days later.

The Florida service was given at the cathedralesque Riverside Presbyterian Church. I sang Morning Has Broken because it's actually a very old church hymn but most people know it as a Cat Stevens song. Grandad's physical therapists from St. Vincent's Hospital cried the most. We all became sad again just seeing them be so.

I drove while Aunt Millie and I played a sort of seven hour spiritual show and tell. This made us both a little nervous at first. You see, after Grandad was put in the old folks home Aunt Millie and Dad butted heads on the religious ramifications of Grandad's eminent passing in light of his occasional mental meanderings on matters of the flesh. But I found out that I wasn't traveling with the bible poundin' quota driven soul saver salesrep of the Lord I was expecting. However Aunt Millie did tell me that she feels the presence of demons in her farmhouse. She said that she does not understand the intrusion of these demons who can and do invade her rooms so she occasionally prays to have their influence bound and driven from the property. I wonder if she worried that I might put a cruel spin on her stories and swing'em through the family grapevine. Quite the opposite - none of this seemed too weird to me at all.

I was honored that she took great risk in sharing what she did. I put aside how I wanted to see her and remembered that her style was always much smarter-more understated-very New England. She was actually the person who taught me about the arts. She did it by showing me how to look through, not at, nature to see its beauty. As a kid in the late sixties she showed me the patterns in pine cone teeth and the veins in water oak leaves. I was able to take it from there. I began to see sunrises in tie-dyed t-shirt markings and started playing the electric guitar shortly thereafter. The way I see life now, if I take the time as a grown up to notice the patterns in pine cones, I'm really just having my moment with God thanks to her.

There were only three men in black suits at the hot Carolina grave side service. Standing just outside the imaginary family bubble, these three grey -haired middle aged white guys put a kind of secret service vibe on the gathering. No doubt they were the reps from the Greenville funeral home who had probably met Grandad at the airport the day before. I sang the Cat Stevens song again and Grandad's Cousin, minister David Parks offered final words. The secret agents had been waiting for us all to leave but we didn't because we were waiting for them to bury the guest of honor. Given the option to have such, a Parks will want the real experience. For instance a Parks doesn't feel right leaving while a coffin is suspended by canvas belts high over a six feet hole next to astroturf when said coffin could be properly interred. Dad told the fidgety secret service men that they could go ahead with the rest of the show. Agent #1 waved in the direction of an orange pick-up truck parked in the far corner of the graveyard under the only available shade tree.
Then two sweat glazed and muscular NASCAR shirted black men with one big bellied white bubba let gravity lead their construction boots from work vehicle to thirsty grass. Our solemn mood was heretofore extinguished. Bubba's job was to lower the vault by using a gas powered wench that belched fumes and screeched as it did its job. Now we knew why the airport welcoming committee was waiting for us to leave. I felt the obligation to balance the casualness of this scenario with just a few minutes more respect. I asked the one of the men on dirt patrol if some of the family could step in. Fred and I shoveled for a while. It was a strong moment. I had never helped to bury someone before and it meant a lot. Cousins Erin and Craig tossed in some chunks of red clay. I don't know where Dad or cousin Stuart was for this part. Final reverence was paid when the guy in the Dale Earnhardt shirt used a flat-headed jack-hammer to encourage the soil to settle a little quicker than it otherwise would.

There were many laughs at the post service fried chicken luncheon in the Reidville house where Grandmother grew up as a young Gaston girl. Grandad would have loved the time we had. I imitated him and we all laughed and joked. It was decided to have a "hat toss" to commemorate the time when Grandad threw his hat on the roof in protest. You may remember sometime in the early seventies when all the cousins were in town for the holidays. Grandad was pissed at Grandmother for thrice rejecting his choice of headwear while everyone was waiting in the car ready to leave for a football game. I think the game started without us and Grandad, who always wore a hat for any event that took place beyond his front door, probably suffered a special Florida forehead burn that day. So the way the hat toss worked was that all the male relatives attempted to toss one of Grandad's hats from the ground at Gaston Hill up to the balcony above the east facing porch.

Out against the old red barn Dad providing me with the last family image I have from the week and a half long event-the back view of one generous torso and two long bowed legs with a fountain of water falling between them.

The 6 train line could have taken me to work at 9 o'clock but would have done so one hour early. I had my camera with me so I just stayed on the train with the intention of taking it as far south in Manhattan as I could go. That would be the best stop to view the trade towers. There was talk of terrorists. I don't listen much to talk. The train continued south, though painfully slow, it seemed. Not many passengers were headed south as I was, but I could see the northbound trains and they weren't very crowded either. I checked because I wanted to be as sure as possible that I wasn't riding down into mayhem. It seemed like a reasonable risk to take. This was, I thought, just going to be another bizarre New York experience. I prepared myself to see the wreckage of some Cessna or some helicopter and wondered what possible damage could have been inflicted upon the towers. I could make it back to work by 10:30 am at the latest.

Special announcement-and they're rarely paid attention to in the subway: Because of an incident in lower Manhattan, City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge stop will be the last stop on this train. So I got off at City Hall, walked towards J&R Music World and looked up to a shock that froze me still. This was serious. Really serious. I became very alert and nervous. What I saw made me feel so strange. Some people make me feel that way. I would not identify it for a few days but when I did I reasoned that I was looking up to pure evil. The flames were so unreal-an orange and black belt around each building's eastern side. Logic told me that people were inside the towers in pure misery but I could see none of that. Neither did I see anyone jump.

Cautiously and somewhat reluctantly, I set my heavy black leather knapsack down to dig for my camera. I took only these shots. A man passed me northbound in a bloody t-shirt. He edged between me and the iron gates of city hall. I could not bear to take any more photos. Something told me to just stay ready to leave. I overheard a guy say that there was a jet engine part over near the Woolworth Building. The Woolworth Building is the tall white spired one on the right side of these photos. It is three blocks away from the Trade Towers. Just as I headed for it women began screaming. The women seemed to know what was happening before the men did. Pops. Horizontal in direction. Just below the floors in flames. Thunderlike pops melding into one loudning roar. Had the south tower been rigged with explosives as a grand finale? I must have been seeing the columns bursting outward as the ones above them reached their melting point. The top part of the building shifted downward and disappeared in smoke. I thought that the building might be toppling towards me. Up high there was too much smoke for me to see that the building was collapsing straight down. I didn't know what was in the smoke and dust that was spinning and whirling down the narrow streets like some movie monster in pursuit. I began to run for my life as did others. I was aware that I had never run for my life. I was aware of the functional co-operation among us all. I was aware that no one was trampling. I was aware that there was no good reason why this was not my day to die. My throat became so dry. I did not look back again for many blocks. In construction boots and with my heavy pack I kept running North as fast as I could until I tired. I plunged my head into water spewing out of a copper deer's mouth. I took a fast drank. I would have never done that normally but it was essential. I was exhausted. Most people were just walking at this point. I kept running because I felt that the show might not be over. When I started to slow again I did so unwisely in front of the Justice Department Building. Because I thought that I might be standing in front of the next target, I forced another run.

I woke up my friend Rachael at 8th Street and Broadway. I used her phone to leave a message on Margo's voice mail telling her what I had done but that I was safe. I urged Rachael to leave the area. We both continued north with multitudes of other New Yorkers in a strange exodus of men with briefcases and women in heels walking in the streets. We zig-zagged to avoid the Empire State Building at 34th Street, the United Nations Building at 41st, Grand Central Terminal at 42nd and the Citi Corp Building at 53rd. I believed that any of these could be other targets if the show was in fact not over.