Rod Creagh

Rod Creagh

With deep sadness topped off with many fond memories, I bid farewell to my old friend and brother-in-law, Rod Creagh.

Rod was a truly great man. Professionally he was an oral surgeon of extraordinary skill. From the mundane (he extracted all of my wisdom teeth) to the heroic (repairing the obliterated lower face of a pretty UGA coed to like-new), he never turned away a patient. Farm-to-table gifts were not uncommon, in lieu of cash.

Rod was also a musician. He organized a "garage" blue-grass band, “True Grass”, in Athens, he wrote songs (one of which, famously, was recorded by both the CW singer Mickey Gilley and the jazzman Mose Allison), and after retirement he formed "3-Wire Music", a music publishing company, in Nashville. Many wonderful family evenings have been spent listening, chatting, and singing along with Rod.

The phrase "3-wire" comes from his days as a US Navy fighter pilot. Four arresting cables, or "wires", are on the flight deck to snag the tail hook on a plane as it lands, the third being the optimal wire. Rod once had the third wire rip the tail hook and lower fuel drain system out of his F4D Skyray, sending the plane off the front of the USS Shangri-La. He ejected just in time.

I have had many wonderful travels with Rod. We rode several TOSRV-Souths together, and even a couple of the TOSRV Tuneups many of us did back in the day. We did Mt. Mitchell a few times and the 6-Gap more than I can tally. We rode several week-long bicycle tours, including Ride Across Arizona (twice) and Peddle the Peaks in New Mexico and Colorado. We competed together in whitewater canoe races on the Nantahala and spent a week bringing a yacht from Cincinnati to Mobile (via the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, Tombigbie, Black Warrior, and Alabama rivers, using the Tenn-Tom waterway to get over the divide from Lake Pickwick to the Tombigbie).

Rod was always there to help and believed in going out of his way for family and friendships. While my Mom was living with us, Rod made it a ritual to visit and go out with us for "Tex-Mex", one of Mom's favorites. (Well, that and the Margueritas.)

The passing of great friends like Rod leaves holes in life that cannot be filled. We can only cover them with steel and live the new, diminished version.

Fare well my friend.

Swim Meets

It's been a while since I was involved with competitive swimming, and like everything else, the systems have been fine tuned and enhanced with information technology. It's really impressive what a group of mostly volunteers can pull off. Case in point:

The "Muppet Meet" last Sat. This was a regional meet for 8 and under kids:

• 15 teams
• 281 swimmers
• 890 individual entries
• Grouped by age [4-6, 7, 8] and gender [boys & girls] for a total of 28 events each with 4-6 heats of up to 8 swimmers per heat. 
• Approximately 150 heats
• Venue: Amphi High School Pool, Tucson

The heats are wham-bam, about 10 seconds apart. The meet is pre-organized using recorded best time for each swimmer, with heats from 1 (slowest) to 5 or 6 (fastest). The volunteers have to get their swimmers in the right heat and lane and ready to get on the blocks. It's controlled chaos, but nobody missed a designated slot! The attached link shows a few shots of the pool. It's a really nice facility at a local high school - full Olympic pool with timeing sensor boards, so the humans operating the two stop watches per lane are the backup.  

https://goo.gl/photos/FFyTD3fwWT2P5ZVc6

Note the two shots of a matrix of 8yo girls sitting on a grid. The grid organizes an entire event by heat and lane, a big help in getting the kids to the right block at the right time. Mikaela is in these grids peeking at the camera. Two sets of volunteers work the grid. one set is in charge of seating the kids at the correct matrix coordinate, another group moves them out by heat to the starting blocks. There are separate grids for boys and girls, so that one grid is being sent to the blocks while the other is being filled. The team coaches make sure their swimmers are at the grid in a timely manner.

Event results are ready to print and post within a few seconds after the last heat of the event.

BTW: I'm "awash" in swimming: 8 practices and 4 meets in 10 days. Plus I did some recreational swimming today after practice.

Go Marlins!

Barred Owl Postscript

The wing was shattered, the shoulder crushed. It was determined that survival would be possible only with a terrible quality of life. Barry was euthanized. He died peacefully.

Barred Owl

Today, 4:00am, I happened to be walking my neighbor's paper to her front porch, accompanied by Beauregard. He quietly approached a shadowy unknown object - and I heard the unmistakable CLACK of an owl beak. (If you have ever heard a mature owl do that, you know the sound. If you haven't, just know that it is menacingly loud, the equivalent of a ferocious growl from a canine. No creature wants to get near that beak after hearing it.)

I turned on my hand light, which I carry only "in case", preferring natural light. It was a mature Barred Owl with a sagging wing. Hurt and afraid, but not about to show it or give up.

I went home to think through what to do and get my equipment:

• Large cardboard box - cut two air vents in it
• Thick towel
• Welding gloves (the manly substitute for oven mitts at the grill)

Checked the St Francis web site, woke up Kathy and asked her to drive the car over to the neighbor's, and went back to get the owl. He had moved up to the front porch. With Kathy holding my light, I put the towel gently over him, amid ferocious clacking, and managed to get him in the box and thence into the car.

Called Northwood Animal Hospital [24/7 emergency animal care], which is the after-hours intake for St-Francis, to alert I was bring in an injured barred owl. They are only about two miles from us, yet by the time I got there the Leon Co Deputy who does the transport to St Francis was already there waiting for me. She was expert. Took "Barry" out of the box (with gloves of course) by the talons, got him calmed down, and looked over the injured wing. Several broken bones, some protruding. So sad. I had been thinking car, but she thought more likely a collision with a window. They promised to let me know - possibilities range from setting to amputation to, unfortunately, euthanasia.

This is undoubtedly one of the mated pair that lives in our immediate neighborhood and sings duets in the evening. I requested that if this one can be fully rehab'd that we release it back here. 

(Back home reading the paper at 7:00am.)

(See previous post "Owal Rescue", July 2012.)

Tallahassee Civic Chorale performs Imant Raminsh' Missa Brevis

The Chorale - a modest group, in size and resources. 49 singers, a conductor, a smallish wind ensemble of local musicians, piano, pipe organ. Eight donors listed in the program.

The Artistic Director - talented and dedicated - working three music positions in small colleges scattered over two states and hundreds of miles.

The composer - escaped from Latvia to Canada as a boy in 1948. Canadian citizenship and music education. Wrote the Missa for an Indianapolis children's choir, and re-voiced it for mixed voices at the turn of the century.

The audience - families with children, grandparents, flittering teenagers temporarily escaped from the nest, oldsters out on the town. A photographer.

The venue - a church.

How often is this scene replicated across America? Too many to count. And too meaningful not to. What confluence of fates brings us all to this event? Is it a higher power?

Last night's Tallahassee Civic Chorale concert was beautiful. Poignant. Uplifting. I was struck, by the scene, by the dedication, and above all by the music. Imant Raminsh's Missa brevis is a stunningly beautiful piece of music and the performance by the Chorale could not have been better. I was overwhelmed with emotion.

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2013

Up at 5:30, coffee brews just fine - why wouldn't it? Power company employees ensure that for us. Newspaper already delivered, read by 6:30. Check out weather on TV. Facebook's up & running, thanks to behind-the-screen tech folks. Take a look at my saved shopping cart om Adorama - they've offered a discount for pulling the trigger on LightRoom, I take them up on it. Went for a workout at YouFit, listening to NPR while driving, passed a firestation - on duty as usual.

Then we drive to Honey Lake - plenty of fuel stops open along the way - deputies, FHP on the road. Honey Lake Plantation - dogs walk, we eat, dogs walk again. Lovely place, obvious sincere enthusiasm of service folks. And in a few minutes - FOOTBALL ON TV. All made possible, sometimes we forget, by those men and women of our forces around the world who keep our country safe for democracy and freedom.

To all of you Americans out there - armed forces, newswomen, paper delivery guys, electrical workers, TV station employees, NPR staff, IT workforce, folks running the gym, firefighters, emergency rescue, cops, deputies, patrolmen, truck stop employees, restaurant staff, football refs, stadium workers, cheerleaders, TV cameramen, weather channel gurus, and many many more:

THANK YOU for helping make this the greatest country on the planet. My hat is off. My heart is warm.

Sarah Rhodes Lacher

Sarah Rhodes Lacher of Athens, Georgia, died after a brief illness on July 6, 2013.                            

Mrs. Lacher was born on March 8, 1915, in Lake City, Florida, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Jesse Ansley Griffin.  After Dr. Griffin’s death in 1921, she and her mother moved to Athens where she attended the Lucy Cobb Institute.  She attended the University of Hawaii for a year and the University of Georgia where she was the first piano student to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music under the direction of Hugh Hodgson, her long time teacher and mentor.  After graduation, she attended the University of Freiburg in Germany for a year doing post-graduate work, and returned to the University of Georgia to complete her MFA in music.

Mrs. Lacher was preceded in death by her husband, Hermann Lacher from Hofgeismar, Germany, who was an International Exchange Student at the University of Georgia; her mother, Ellen Griffin Rhodes McWhorter; her father, Jesse Ansley Griffin; her adoptive father, Alexander Rhodes; and her step-father Robert Ligon McWhorter.  She is survived by her children, Christopher Lacher (Kathy) of Tallahassee, FL; Ellen Lacher Creagh (Gerard) of Athens, GA; Lisa Lacher Bryan (Stephen) of Walpole, NH and New York, NY; Michael Lacher of Washington, D.C.; grandchildren, Walter Lacher of Denver, CO; Adam Lacher of Denver, CO; Laurel Lacher Milczarek (Michael) of Tucson, AZ; Ellen Bryan of New York, NY; great-grandchildren Austin Lacher of Crawfordville, FL; and Daphne and Mikaela Milczarek of Tucson, AZ.

Mrs. Lacher was a member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church where she directed the Junior Choir for many years and was a founding member of the Emmanuel Episcopal Thrift Shop.  She was also a founding member of the Rabun Gap Nacoochee Guild, a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the German Club of Athens.  She was well known for her sewing and smocking work and took great pleasure in creating special things for her friends.  She taught piano and was the pianist for the Lucy Lampkin School of Ballet. She worked constantly “behind the scenes” to encourage and promote musical talent and awareness in the community.  A great animal lover, she adopted and raised many pets over the years.  In addition to her personal friends and colleagues, Mrs. Lacher is remembered fondly as a gracious and entertaining hostess by friends of her children, as on many occasions she opened her heart and home to them.  She and her husband enjoyed sponsoring University of Georgia International Exchange Students and entertaining the Navy Supply Corp School International Officers, doing many things to make their experience in this country a memorable one.

A memorial service will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,  424 E. 92nd St., New York, NY 10128-6804.

On line condolences may be made at www.bernsteinfuneralhome.com