My Father In Law, Kenneth R. Wheeler, Sr.

Monday evening, we lost a great Warrior of the Faith, and the Patriarch of our family.

Ken Wheeler Sr moved on to enjoy the fruits of his labors, and his reward for 87 years of faithful service to The I AM.

As my family puts it when one of our loved ones leaves us,
"They crossed over The River to the other side."
This is an allusion to Stonewall Jackson's last words,
"Let us cross over the river and sit under the tree on the other side."

I first met Ken just before Phyllis and I were engaged.
Her big end of college dinner and graduation celebration was at the Kapok Tree Inn, a beautiful garden complex in Miami.

She sprung the fact on me at the last minute that "Oh, my parents, and my sister and her family will also be there. Is that O.K.?"
Uh, yes, I guess so. was my muttered, terrified response.

The only man I have known with as deep a voice as Ken was my own father.
He took great delight in intimidating his future Son's In Law.
All three of us have similar stories.
I was seated next to Irma all throughout dinner, with Dad Wheeler sitting across from us.
Giving me the once, twice thrice over all througout the meal.

But my most vivid memory of our first meeting was the delight on his face as he took his two young grand daughters, at the time his only grandkids by the hand for a walk in the gardens afterwards.
Both Heather and Kimbie were adorable in their little party dresses and "Pippi Longstocking" pig tails.

I knew then he wasn't so forbidding!

The next time we met was in August at their homestead in Bartow.
We were engaged by then, and as my sister put it "attached at the hip"
While attempting to eat breakfast one morning without letting go of Phyllis hand,
without a word or a sidewise glance he reached over and steadied my toast for me so that I could butter it.

That's the first time that I saw that wicked gleam in his eye illustrating his Scot sense of humor.
There are many more stories that I will attempt to put in a letter for all of you.

Most of all, he loved his God, and he adored his family.
As my boss put it this morning,
"It's always family first with me, A.J. God Bless your father in law"

He was privileged to bounce most of his great grandchildren on his knees.

And we were privileged to know him.

A life well lived Ken, we will see you again.



A brief log of the pictures;

Ken, Irma Eloise and Elaine, circa mid 1940's





Dad as he looked when we first met, summer of 1981.

Dad and his love, Irene at Jessica's wedding last summer.
Dad, looking dapper in his red suspenders and red bow tie.
The man knew how to dress!

Various pictures from the wedding with Ken and some of his children and grandchildren.

Appalachian fall vistas, football fun!

A rainy Election Day, Halloween Football

I was supposed to attend a golf/cookout that some business friends of mine host each major election day.
The weather here is lousy, in the fifties with a steady rain.
The golf course asked that the event be postponed, so as it is I have some unexpected office time.

I will be careful to avoid any media/information source that gives 'exit polls' or predictions of any kind.

Around 11:00pm I will check and see if the election has been called, or if it will be another long night like the last two.

My only prediction is this; if it is apparent that Obama will win it will be called very early.
If there is any doubt and it looks like McCain may pull off the biggest upset since Truman beat Dewey in 1948, the media will refuse to call it until the wee hours, if indeed they call it at all.

We were able to spend the weekend in Boone with Ariel. Queen Felicia's pictures to follow.
A goodly abundance of leaves were still up, and it was glorious in the Appalachians.
I was in Blacksburg on business first, we had a nice time with my sister after hours.

Then Friday it was on to Boone!
App State had a rare nationally televised regular season game on Halloween night.
We were blessed with perfect football weather.
Woffard University was the opponent, and as it turned out the Halloween sacrifice.

Woffard was ranked third nationally in 1AA, right behind App, and second nationally in all of Division 1 in defense. It looked to be a tough, dead even game.

To start with it looked to be just that, with the score tied 14 all at the end of the first quarter.
Then App scored again, and after the kick-off the 'D' came up with it's first of five turnovers.
Before you could blink it was 28-14 and the rout was on.

Led by their remarkable Junior Quarterback Armante Edwards (who will not turn 21 until Dec)
the Mountaineers scored Touchdowns on their first six possessions.
It is almost criminal that he will not be considered for the Heisman trophy in December.
On one play he rolled to his right (he is a southpaw, making that a tough throw) spotted an open receiver down field, and threw a perfect pass 65 yards in the air, hitting Quick in the hands full stride for an easy touchdown.
Once he gets outside of the tackles, tackling him in the open field is like tackling smoke.
Ariel knows him casually, and said it doesn't seem like all of the acclaim has affected him.
He still seems balanced and 'normal'. Let's hope that continues!

The final score was 70-24!
The toughest part came after the game, when the Queen and I made our way up "The Rock"
(Elevation 3,400' +) to the Broyhill Inn, which sits on top of the Mount.
This trek includes a long flight of very narrow stone steps.
There seems to be about a thousand of them when you are trudging upwards.
But we made it with a little breath to spare.

Since it was Halloween, a large portion of the students were in costume.
Many were quite inventive, and some of them I could even describe here in my PG rated blog.
Several I could not, but they were funny!
The halftime show was memorable, the announcer affected a Vincent Price style voice, and the excellent ASU band (the music program is regarded as the best in the Carolina's) did a version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" to close, the entire band doing the Zombie walk, then collapsing on the field. Really funny, and it reminded me of how much I miss seeing the halftime shows, now never shown on TV telecasts.

The highlight of the trip was seeing our boy though.
We mostly saw he and his old High School buddy Nathan at meal times.
Nathan had just built him a new, mega-powerful PC for about 800 dollars.
Were I to have bought one for him with comparable power and features I would have spent close to 3,000.00.

Needless to say I would not let Nathan pay for any of his meals!
It is remarkable what some of these tech-savvy kids can do these days.
All of the major components were purchased on-line, except for the case and power supply and the new Windows Vista operating system, which Nathan had a licensed copy of.
Ariel uses his HDLCD TV for his monitor.
The detail is almost like watching an HD movie with the newest video games.

We were able to go to Blowing Rock on Saturday, one of our favorite towns in NC
Lunch at the "Sixpence Pub" was a highlight, it is an authentic English style local.

The weather was so mild on Sunday morning that we were able to eat outside on the patio of our favorite breakfast joint in Boone.

A few purchases at the Mast General Store, some winter sweaters for the Queen, dress winter shirts for me, all marked down 50%, and my traditional Mast purchase, a new Cowboy hat for me!
This year I went with Black. Felicia said I looked very snappy, so I am happy.
An elderly woman told me "now you need to get yourself a pistol and your're all set!"

I might just do that Maam!