Yessssss

I finally found a video clip that I was worried might have been lost! I never re-uploaded it to my computer after I reinstalled the OS last summer, so it wasn't in the files I put on the new computer. It was on a backup CD of photos that was in my CD case, in my car (probably due to my own semi-JTD paranoia, in the hope that even if my computer perishes in a fire, the files will be elsewhere). It's one of three short clips of my grandfather and my mother, made the summer before they both died. It preserves his voice, and her laugh, and the fun that we used to have just sitting around making fun of one another. And, of course, it contains my grandfather's immortal line, uttered to my mom as she avoided me taking a video of her: "Joan, you think you're homely?" Classic Papa. Oh, and it has Jen's maniacal cackle in there too, for good measure. The concluding "Die, Bob, die!" is particularly ironic, since she and I are the only ones still alive, lol. Unfortunately, Blogger does not want to let me post it.

However, on the same trip up there I took a lot of photos of his house, because I was worried it might be one of the last times we would be there. I was worried he would die, but of course I didn't expect that when I would be there again, for his funeral, my mom would have been gone for more than a month. Some of my favorite pictures came from the basement walls, which my dad and aunts had begun covering in graffiti when they were kids, and to which all of us kids contributed over the years:


That's probably my grandfather's writing in the middle: NOTICE: Only assholes write on cellar walls--join the club!

My dad contributed plenty of his own writing, mostly in the form of geekiness:


Let me assure you that in all three DiMarzo generations, only one person would have been writing out calculus formulas on a basement wall. The same person who doodled Planck's constant in his journal. Dork.

Finally, my grandpa put this on the wall down in his workshop:


The very first grandchild. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the wall by the stairs, which had all six of the grandkids' names in chalk (for some reason, I come last, even though I was the second! I suspect Jen had a hand in that...)

I'm so glad I found these discs, the pictures, and especially, the videos. One of the things that makes me sad about my dad is that I have trouble remembering his voice sometimes, but thanks to these, I won't forget my mom or my grandpa.