Jack Frick’s Funeral

Today we had the funeral. The family got together and talked about the life of Grandpa Jack in the form of an open mic testimonial of the amazing life experiences each of his 7 children shared with him.

Obituary:

John R. “Jack” Frick of McKinleyville, CA, died at home surrounded by family, on July 26, 2011 after a brief illness.

Born in Kansas City, MO to Charles and Margaret Frick, Jack was the youngest of six children. During WWII, he proudly helped build the B-25 bomber and later served as Radioman in the United States Coast Guard.

Meeting his true love and Irish lass at a church picnic, Jack married in 1951, thus beginning his legacy as a loving husband and devoted father. Concurrently, he established a near 30-year-career in Wage Administration for North American Aviation and later, at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

His heart and soul will forever live on with his surviving spouse of 60 years, Catherine, sons and daughters, Ellen, Kevin, Tim, Brian, Teresa, Patty, and Charles, their spouses, sixteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Jack was a life-long and devout Catholic. The Rosary will be recited at Christ the King Catholic Church, 1951 Mckinleyville Ave., Mckinleyville, Ca. at 7:00 PM Thursday, July 28, 2011 with a Funeral mass at 11:00 AM Friday, July 29, 2011. Arrangements are under the care of Goble’s Fortuna Mortuary, Fortuna, Ca.

The Pantry

We’re staying at the Comfort Inn in Arcata, CA. It was the best deal we could find for the lowest price that 5-stains-or-less could offer.

Across the street there is an eggs-ketchup-&-burgers restaurant called The Pantry. I already had eaten the continental breakfast at the hotel across from ours, but I decided to eat again. My mom got a “side” of fries. They’re so generous at family restaurants.

An hour later, my sister and Tim had just flown in and were hungry, so we headed over to the Greek restaurant across from The Pantry and I ate again. By this point I was getting pretty full.

After eating at the Greek place, we went to my Grandpa’s Rosary ceremony. When it was over, people started talking about maybe getting some food somewhere, we all looked at eachother and somebody said, “I know! let’s go to this place called The Pantry.”

I ate a hot fudge sundae for dinner because I was kind of getting tired of eating the actual meals at The Pantry. After that, everybody sang happy birthday to my cousin Vanessa. Then everybody sang happy birthday to yours truly, because mine was yesterday.

Nobody really wanted to leave The Pantry, so I left early to sip some Jameson with Josh in 106, and cousins caught wind of the party and joined us and we all gave a toast to Jack Frick.

The Graduate

I took my sister back to the airport and said goodbye. I hit yoga. Then I watched The Graduate for free on On-Demand.

What a good movie… a good, good movie.

Journey to Old Town

I took my sister and Tim to old town today for some Mexican food with Jeremy and Jodi. We started off with some margaritas, and then hurt ourselves with way-too-much food that I’m much less used to eating these days.

We walked to the Natural History Museum to see if there’d be any good imax flicks playing.  A girl named Rachel was working at the front desk, but I pretended that I’d never met her before and that I was unaware she had some kind of history with my friend Ben Standage during his stay in America (instead of England, or Canada). I presented some margarita-induced charm to her, but I wasn’t very good at it, and she didn’t really care for it. And somewhere in the conversation, I think she pointed at the “closed” sign that was being turned at the front door.

Along the way, I stopped to look at a group of statues that had some kind of southwestern significance (?), but I chose to focus on a statue of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus prancing along on a donkey in the midst of murderous Spanish conquistadors while bearing an expression of approval.

Your Favorite Movies Tell You About You

I picked up my sister from the airport today. I haven’t seen her for a while. I was finally able to give her the DVD that I got her for Christmas, a movie called Chaos Theory with Ryan Reynolds. She has a thing for Ryan Reynolds because he’s “cute” and “funny”… This time, however, he plays quite an unremarkable square, and this movie was a little less funny than a usual Ryan Reynolds flick, having intense dramatic dilemmas, cry scenes, etc.

This movie does contain a theme that is held by some of my favorite movies of all time; the character experiences a revelation, epiphany, or paradigm shift, that throws his mundane reality out of wack, sometimes painful, but resulting in an awakening. Sort of like:

Fight Club

Vanilla Sky

American Beauty

Office Space

There’s something subconsciously appealing to becoming a person with nothing left to lose. I think it’s a collapse we’re all afraid to experience, whether or not we expect the resulting outcome of rebirth and liberation. Lust for comfort suffocates the soul. The world knows by now that there are a wide array of minds and personality types encapsulated in each human being, yet we are put through a mediocre school system that indirectly teaches that uniqueness is unacceptable, and that having a goal to live a banal domestic life amongst a 40-hours-per-week office job is 100% acceptable.

Of course there are apparent downsides to not following the professional corporate work approach. Money can be hard to come by. But what I’ve observed is that money has ways of flying out the door, no matter how much you’re making, and money has ways of coming, no matter what you’re doing.

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making plans.” -John Lennon

This is a video where a 14-year-old snagged an interview from John Lennon in his hotel room almost 40 years ago.