Life and death are always kind of weird. Maybe it's because life can be like a good song - most of the time. But sometimes, after a good steady build, it just ends. Usually too soon. Something's in the air this season though, and I can't help but feel a bit gloomy that this death was the first of more to come. Most people can't help and be a little gloomy in the fall, but I live in Florida, and if anything, Fall means long awaited cool weather. It's fantastic.

My uncle had been declining for awhile, it just wasn't clear to me how much he had declined when he finally passed. His body had turned on him - a nuero-muscular disorder similar to ALS slowly wasted away his body. It was a damn shame, because he was a runner and biker, who had instilled his love of sports early into my two cousins. Dave had two girls, and my father, his brother, had two boys. The joke my dad liked to say was that he (my dad) had gotten the boys, and Dave (my uncle) had gotten the jocks. I was never offended by this because it was the truth. I enjoy sports, and have even played on teams, but have never been able to follow them real well, nor has my life been dictated by the seasonal scheduling's of professional or colegiate sports. I simply don't posses that kind of focus.

My father was a good 10 years older than my uncle, so what you could call a generation gap existed from the get go. Though my grandmother would never admit it, Dave realized that he probably was a bit of a surprise to his parents. Dave delighted in this fact and used to tease my grandmother relentlessly about the cold hard facts and though she never admitted it, the anecdotes are a good example of the sense of humor he possessed about thing. They were probably in their mid to late 30's when he was born, which in 1951 would have made them pretty old to be parents of a newborn. Couple this with the fact that Dave was about as normal as they come. He grew up in the shadow of my father who was ambitious and driven from the beginning. Dave was a straight C student and got through college by the seat of his pants, a low draft number, and the idea of being awoken by military horns waking him as motivation to graduate. He was a no drama, down to earth guy. He's the kind of guy anyone could have a beer with. I mean this in only the most respectful terms. Speaking as someone who can make their own life overly complicated, we could all stand to posses a little of Dave's normalcy.

Everything my father possessed as a high school football player and later engineer, Dave had the exact oposite of skills. He was an athlete, but couldn't play anything with hand eye coordination. He chose running and biking as his sport of choice. He couldn't fix a single thing. He was technologically inept. But he was a salesman to the bone, like my grandfather. He was easy to talk to and the kind of person his bosses would come to to crunch the numbers and no nonsense results or opinions. One season a year was usually reserved for traveling - yet he always made it back for every game or track meet my cousins were in. He loved his girls - as he should have, they were some of the best kids (and now most admirable adults) a parent could ask for. Again, no drama, no pretense.

In my somewhat dysfunctional upbringing, Dave's family was almost alien to me. I experimented and tested the boundaries as most teenagers will. We both watched as my father died from Luekemia, probably both becoming a little more aware of our own mortality. My take was from a 15 year old point of view and his from a 40 year old one. We weren't always great about keeping in touch, but we did keep up, and he always showed up for big events like graduations and weddings, and visiting my children shortly after they were born. I can remember getting a chance to have a beer or a dinner with him when business would bring him through Atlanta when I was in college. He would tell me about things he learned about or ask questions about different landmarks he ran by that day. Dave was not an idle person, certainly not one who should be condemned to his future fate.

I later heard him tell an annecdote about working as an Ice Cream Truck driver in the summer of '69 and hatching an idea with his friends to drive one all the way up to Woodstock and sell Ice Cream there. This idea of course didn't fly with my grandmother, a very straight laced individual who wouldn't have done anything but worried herself bald if she knew her son had been there. Instead, Dave was forced to go see Led Zepelin instead (either in New York, or at The Stone Pony - the details of which I am fuzzy on). Tough luck, huh? It was stories like this that made me want Dave to be my dad. My musical curiosity was never quite satiated by my dad's collegiate folk LP's, or by the likes of the Kingston Trio records we had on our shelves. Dave always sounded like he had the better record collection. He didn't make snarky comments about the Beatles. My dad was a career man before the 60's even happened, Dave got to be a teenager through it. Those were the stories I wanted to hear my dad tell - being a teenager with a soundtrack that was all rock n' roll.

My family moved down to south eastern Florida almost two years ago, and we had finally made a trip out to visit Dave and my cousins on the Florida's west coast back in May. Due to a large geographical gap, it took 32 years to finally see where the other half of the family lived. I realised then it had been too long, and we should do it more often. Unfortunately, we never got that chance. Dave passed away quietly in his sleep, peacefully. Dave wasn't the kind of person to make a lot of noise about himself, or to talk about how he felt. When I heard of him passing this way, it seemed apropriate. As an active man who became more and more trapped by his own body, Dave was finally free from the pain.

So press play if you like, even if the song has nothing to do with the post. It's a hard driving rocker that I dare you to not move a foot, play some air guitar (or drums) to. It's good old positive, straight forward rock n' roll - the way Zep did it best. Celebrate your life a little, I know just by being himself, Dave celebrated everyday of his.