In Dad's memory

Part of the glory of being in "the energy"  ( http://EnergyForSuccess.org ), is that relationships can get far easier than they used to be.

With my sister,  Suzy a radical shift has taken place, from something like hostility to friendship.

Part of this friendship is sharing of various topics that we never would have shared before, because we never would have talked.

Recently Suzy told of visiting a psychic in Newport Beach ( a novel and new undertaking for her) and hearing that our dead father, though surrounded by people who loved him, was a bit numbed out.

She and other sibs are thinking we can upgrade our input of positive remarks about James Cornelius Elms, IV.

So let me share just a few.

Once, my then wife and younger daughter of 2, were living the life of the early sixties and trying to make a commune work. We'd bought land with eight adults, two brothers and three couples, with five kids all together. The property, near Chico, CA, had a main house on it and we cooked there and had all the electrical things and washer and dryer.

Then each family went off to build their own sleeping cabins, which was a lot of fun for a bunch of city slickers who had never built before.

He comes to visit, and says that everyone else thinks we are crazy, but he explains it to them as we are being like the Rockerfellers, where they go off and have a big main lodge and side sleeping cabanas.

Sweet.



Another time, this wife, Peggy and I and our daughter even younger were living out in the country. I was teaching school. The property came with a batch of apricot trees and when we came to visit, he was dying to help, so we went out and pruned trees for awhile and he was enthusiastic to do useful work, commenting, "It wouldn't be hard to work up a good sleep around here."



Still a third visit, far later, when the daughter was off to college and he and I and my son, who was about seventeen at the time, visited a construction job I had in Berkeley, and had to get up on a roof to inspect something, and he remarked how amazing in was to have three generations of Elmses up on a roof, and how he could never have imagined this happening with his father.


Dad had his issues, lord knows, but when he got enthusiastic it was great, and he was a worker and loved to chip in for any type of work, though by the time of all these interactions he was a management and desk worker.

In his younger days he'd worked in labs, and young in his marriage he put together electronic equipment.

In the good moments, the world was a fascination to him and he loved to be part of a team getting something done.

Anything done.

A good sport and a good man.