Mother's Day Gift

With the Blazer being such a big symbol of Dad, I decided to take a picture, blow it up, frame it and give it as a gift to my mom and sister for Mother's Day.
It was taken very early in the morning near a rogue patch of bluebonnets off State Highway 105. Bluebonnets typically don't grow east of the Brazos River, so I assume someone just threw some seeds out here.
I inherited the Blazer. My dad wanted me to have it. I was going to sell it but had a change of heart after driving it. It's a nice ride, and it only has 84,000 miles on it.
The horse in the photo just kind of showed up out of nowhere. After I took the picture, it just ambled off.
It was kind of a chilling moment.

The Red Blazer - A Daughter's Perspective

As long as I can remember, Dad had a red Chevy Blazer.
It has been in my parents garage in the same place for many years. My brother has many camping memories in that Blazer. I have many memories of that Blazer saving the day.
Last Saturday, I went over to my parents house to hang out with Mom while my husband went to media duty at our church. I usually go out to the garage to start the Blazer and run it a bit. Before Dad passed away, I was doing it in hopes that it would be running when he came home from the hospital. Now I do it, just to keep it running.
On Saturday, I went out to the garage and put the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. It wouldn't start. I suppose it just sat there too long.
Who knows?
Memories came flooding back to me about that silly Blazer.
When I was a senior in high school, my dad bought a brand new red Blazer. I needed to borrow it to pick up some homecoming balloons for the big game. On my way to school, I was distracted and went head-on with a parked car, a Toyota Corolla, which didn't have a chance.
My first instinct was to run. Drive off. Who would know?
But I got out of the Blazer, went to a front door and knocked. Dad was called, came to my rescue. He made me drive the wrecked Blazer to school anyway, where I received my first tardy slip in all my years of school.
Dad's insurance covered the repairs on the poor Toyota but not the 2-week-old Blazer. Dad ordered the parts and sat in the driveway while he instructed me on how to fix the Blazer.
I'll never forget it.
In college, on my way home for the weekend, my car died. Dead as a doornail. Cell phones were not around yet. Some kind people stopped to assist, but I wouldn't take a ride with them. I just told them to call my dad.
Someone did, and here came Dad in that red Blazer to rescue me once again. Somehow found me in the middle of nowhere.
One time when I flew the friendly skies home, I gave my parents the wrong airport. When I realized the error, I called home. Mom said Dad was already on his way to the wrong airport and for me to go catch the shuttle that would take me to the hotel close to my parents' house. So off I went, looking for this shuttle. Couldn't find the shuttle.
Went outside frustrated and sat on the curb. Low and behold, the red Blazer pulled up. It was Dad. How he knew I was there, I don't know. But he found me!
We have always had this sixth sense about each other. He always knew when I was hurt or in trouble.
In the late 1990s, he got a new red Blazer, that one that now sits silent in the garage, the one with which my son has always been fascinated.
Not long ago, on the way to the post office, a garbage truck ran a red light and hit my car hard. I walked away, sore and confused but otherwise. As soon as I walked in the door of my house, the
phone rang. It was Mom. She said Dad wanted her to call me. They had invited me to lunch, but I turned them down. I didn't say anything about the accident because I was still in shock. Mom hung up. Dad insisted for her to call me again. Mom told me they were on their way to my house and asked whether things were OK.
I said, "No, it's not OK, but I will tell you when you get here."
I wanted them to see I was OK before I told them I was hit by a garbage truck. I didn't want them to panic. But Dad knew. He knew I was hurt.
He insisted to come see me. He pulled up my driveway in that red Blazer. Once again to save the day.
He has always known what I was up to. I have always felt him here. I still do. I know he is up there watching over us.
Doesn't make it any easier.

- Kristen Pearson

Video Tribute

My brother-in-law, Mark Fusco, put together a fantastic slide show covering my dad's life.
The goal was to have it play at the funeral services, but due to equipment limitations in the chapel, it was decided to have the slide show playing during the reception.
I spent a heartbreaking afternoon scanning in a majority of the photos, which I wanted to capture his lifespan, from the time he was a baby, through young adulthood, into war, later family life and then old age.
It marked the peak of the grieving process for me because it helped put his whole grand life into perspective.
It even includes the last photo ever taken of him, using my camera phone. I hesitated to use it, due to the morbidity of it, but there is a touching beauty to it, with my mom holding his hand during the fleeting moments where we still believed he had a chance to survive.
Other siblings added some more pictures, and Mark put it all together.
At first, I thought about having Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" as the background music, but then I remembered something from my childhood, a classical guitar piece that John Williams (the guitar player, not the "Star Wars" composer) had on his greatest hits album.
Dad and I listened to a tape of it on our first adventure to Brady, Texas, home of the state championship muzzleloader competition. I was seeing the Hill Country for the first time, and the piece was playing, and all was well, beautiful and exciting. I'll never forget it.
Another version can be heard on the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning John Wayne movie, "The Cowboys," a favorite that Dad and I watched together several times.
But finding the Williams performance of that piece proved to be difficult. I have it on album at home, but converting that for use in a DVD slide show would require some high-tech effort using my eight-track digital recorder. And I could not find "John Williams' Greatest Hits" anywhere on the Internet.
However, we managed to find the performance on another collection of Williams' performances, so "Concerto For Lute (Guitar), 2 Violins (Strings) And Basso Continuo InDMajor, R. 93: II. Largo" finally became the background music.
The video was a smash hit at the reception. People stood mesmerized. It's a fantastic work.
So here it is.
Grab some tissue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kTeTIDIC1k

1 Month Later

It was one month ago today that Dad passed away.

During this time of grief, obscure, fond memories have bubbled to the surface, moments I haven't thought about in years.

I worry about the memories fading, about me failing to pass on his story to my children. I grieve over not getting the chance to engage in one last adventure with him.

I feel his soul and spirit all around me, when I'm out running, when I'm trying to be a good father, when I'm challenging myself to do the kinds of things that would make him proud.

One of these challenges had been a backyard treehouse I've spent several months now toiling over. Heavy rains this winter slowed progress, but I'm close to getting it safe enough for the kids to climb on.

The treehouse idea started in the complicated mind of my son, Curt. Several years ago, after watching a "Little People" video, he asked me to built him a treehouse. At the time, potty training was an issue.

My construction skills also could be called into question. Dad could turn a piece of wood into a nuclear power plant. During recent visits home, I've noticed more and more all the guns, chests and frames that he built.

Amazing.

Meanwhile, my attempts at wood-working have been restricted to staining and installing shelves. I haven't had the patience to take a chisel and toil for hours over a 1-square-inch space of wood, like Dad did on so many of the muzzleloaders he built.

Instead, unlike anyone else in the family before me in recent memory, I've taken to music. I write it, play it, record it, produce it and put it on CD. I've probably got 100 songs in my musical Rolodex. Music is my muzzleloader.

It's not the kind of stuff worthy of a record contract, but it amuses and entertains me, as well as a handful of those around me, such as my children. They love to hear "Daddy's new song."

But crafting wood is another matter, hence my apprehention about my son's treehouse idea.

I got the clever idea of telling him I'd build him a treehouse when he pooped in the potty and abandoned diapers forever. We talked about a few times, but as the months of potty training wore on, the subject was dropped.

But then early last year, months and months later, it happened. He decided he'd had enough of the diapers and pooped on the potty.

And the first words out of his mouth?

"Now daddy gotta build me a treeshouse!"

So treehouse construction started in the fall. Little Curt and I picked out the perfect spot, and, without any kind of blueprint, I just started hammering boards. Sometimes, little Curt would join me, randomily hammering nails into wood. He's a good little hammerer.

My dad got to see the early stages of this, and he seemed pleased. Many of the suggestions he had were already taken care of.

"You might want to put a cross support there," he said.

"It's already there. Look under there," I replied.

"Excellent! Way to go! I'm proud of you," he said.

Now that he's gone, treehouse construction has taken on a whole new meaning. The treehouse must be sturdy. It must be impressive. It must be clever. It must look like a professional's work.

And I believe it's well on its way to being all that.

Last weekend, I finally got the floor in, aside from a few little places. Next, I'm going to put up railing and a staircase, and the children can play on it while I start adding the roof and assorted bells and whistles, perhaps a slide and few other creative ideas.

Some day soon, I'm going to sit atop my finished work, drink a beer and reflect as the excited children frolick around me.

And then I'll probably break down and cry.

Three Rakes

My father's father, Albert, died when I was in elementary school. Like with my 87-year-old dad, who passed away Jan. 13, it was a stroke and its wicked complications.
Albert was only 72, I think. On the day he died, I remember coming into the house and seeing my dad sitting in a chair, head hung low, sad but not in tears.
Then, in silence, we went out to the front yard and started raking. I've never fully understood why, but I'll never forget it. There wasn't much to rake, but we did it anyway, with little more than the sound of rake on grass. I remember the weight of sadness in the air.
We created a few piles of mostly dead grass and began stuffing it all into a lawn bag. I doubt we needed more than one bag.
At one point, I broke the silence by asking if I could go with him to New York to help take care of funeral arrangements. He said he appreciated the gesture, but it was probably best if he went alone.
I must have been in fourth or fifth grade. Thinking back, and having two sons of my own now, I wish he would have taken me, but I understand his reasons for not doing so.
On Friday, we buried my father at the veterans cemetery in Houston. I played "Taps" on my trumpet. VFW members fired guns and gave stirring messages. One of them handed my mom a bag full of spent shells. Another gave her a folded American flag.
But what got me the most was the VFW member who walked up and shook my hand, and in his hand was something cold and metallic. He was giving it to me but didn't want anyone to see it.
It was one of the spent shells.
I don't know whether he gave it to me because I played "Taps," which veterans funeral services folks told me no loved one had been able to do before, or because I was a first-born son.
Either way, it put a cannon ball in my throat and tear in my eye.
We left the cemetery and drove my mother home. There, I grabbed two decades-old rakes out of the garage and crammed them in the back of my car before loading up the family and heading home.
Later that afternoon, I choked back tears as I sat my sons down in the garage and told them what my father and I did on the day Albert Pearson died. Then we gathered up the old rakes, plus one I already had, and went into the back yard.
The raking, however, didn't turn out like it did with my father.
First off, the giant inflatable Moon Bounce arrived for my son's birthday party the next day. When having to chose between Moon Bounce and raking, you'd think there really wasn't much competition in a boy's mind.
Nevertheless, after taking the apparatus for some test bounces, they soon exited the thing, picked up the old rakes and joined me.
My boys are far younger than I was when my grandfather died, and there was a heck of a lot more leaves to rake.
There wasn't much silence, either.
Instead, it was the sound of innocence, laughing, happiness, goofing around and a little hard work. We raked up a leaf pile the size of an SUV and muscled it into the burn pit.
It filled my heart with pride and joy.
I would like to believe that this is how my father would have wanted it.

- Brian Thure Pearson

Eulogy For A Father-Jan. 17. 2007

Ten decades. Two centuries. The dawn of a new millennium.
From Model T’s to SUVs. Biplanes to space shuttles. Ragtime to rap. Penicillin to Viagra.
16 presidents. From Woodrow Wilson to Gee Dubya.
And then there was World War II. Korea. Vietnam. Iraq.
The creation of air conditioning, television, jets, atomic bombs, jazz, space ships, rock and roll, the Super Bowl, microwave ovens, MRIs, VCRs, DVDs, computers, the Interstate and the Internet.
This is just some of what Curt Thure Pearson witnessed and experienced during his long, colorful life. He was part of the Greatest Generation during perhaps America’s greatest century. He was a Swedish immigrant who found his way to Texas and became as much a Texan as anyone you’d care to name. He saw a country’s population swell from 104 million to 300 million, and a world population soar from less than 2 billion to more than 6 billion.
Born Dec. 27, 1919, in Helevik, Sweden, not long after the guns of World War I had cooled, he was an only child who spent six years with his mother in Sweden while his father, Albert, toiled to start a life in America, building houses on Long Island, New York. The price of a stamp was only 3 cents.
He immigrated here in 1925 and grew up in Huntington, Long Island, during the last half of those roaring 1920s. Charles Lindberg’s historic flight took place. Flappers. King Tut. Prohibition. Al Capone. The great stock market crash.
His family weathered The Great Depression of the 1930s. He read news about the Hindenburg. The Dust Bowl. The Empire State Building. “The Star Spangled Banner” becoming our national anthem. Adolph Hitler’s rise to power. And then World War II.
Like other young men during that time, he heard the call and joined the military. He didn’t have to be drafted. He didn’t ask his parents. He just up and joined the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Like others who wrought death and destruction during that defining historical moment, he talked little about his war experiences. And, like others from that time, he came home from war ready to work, build and better our country. Stationed for a time in Texas during the war, Curt fell in love with this state and decided that this is where he wanted to be.
He spent years working as an engineer for a Houston company and later went into business for himself, a tough, gutsy move. If you’re ever driving up U.S. 71 toward Austin, on the right you’ll see two huge smokestacks rising out of the horizon. My dad was part of the project on one of those, as he was on so many industrial projects in Southeast Texas, Canada and overseas.
He and my mother, Marion, built a home in what was then Houston’s remote, heavily wooded west side. They moved in on their wedding night.
And I was born nine months and two days later.
He fathered three children, all of whom have found success in our fields and, hopefully, lived the kinds of lives he wanted us to live.
This muzzleloader builder, silversmither and gifted artist taught me how to throw a baseball, shoot a gun, hit a golf ball, gut a deer, throw a punch, camp, drive a stickshift, cook a steak to perfection and tell really, really bad jokes. He attended almost every baseball, softball and soccer game as well as eight years worth of his children’s marching band performances. He taught me a profound appreciation of the outdoors. We had so many fantastic adventures, too numerous to mention.
So many stories. So many good times. So many life lessons.
It was a bit different being raised by parents who skipped a generation to have children. I could have been a hippie, or perhaps raised by one. My parents’ old-fashioned values, discipline and a demand for children to have manners and to respect their elders sometimes was a bit different from what was taking place in some of the neighbors’ homes.
I might have felt their approach to be odd and anachronistic at times, but I find myself, now that my wife, Amy, and I have two children of our own, passing what was instilled in me on to our boys, Luke, and pawpaw’s namesake, Curt Thure.
Curt Pearson was a tough guy, the kind of man they just don’t seem to make anymore. In his later years, he beat bladder cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, three hip surgeries and blocked arteries, and it was the latter that ultimately got him.
I was only part of half of my father’s life timeline, and I feel blessed to have had him in my life so long and that he reached the age of 87. So many of my closest friends lost their fathers at a much earlier age, and that has kept me from taking my dad for granted. I look out at you who have come today, and I see a wonderful cross section of Dad’s life and all of those whom he touched, with his kindness, generosity, selflessness and gentle nature.
As my life’s journey continues, I’ll see his spirit all around. In the scent of gunpowder. The sight of limestone rocks of Central Texas. A grilling T-bone. Roadside bluebonnets. A hawk casually gliding on an air current on a cloudless day.
I owe it to him to pass all this on to my children, so that they’ll, in turn, pass it on to their children. And while I feel such profound sorrow over my father’s passing, I also have an overwhelming sense of pride, joy and being blessed to have been raised by such a great man.

- Brian Thure Pearson

Curt Thure Pearson-Dec. 27, 1919-Jan. 13, 2007