thanks, eugene, for the hint

That would be Eugene Wolfbauer, one-time companion of Mother Pat.

They used to go to Hawaii every year for winters, to escape Michigan snow.

Even after she died in 2007, he still spent winters in that Pacific state, and would send me a calendar with that ocean life every year.

I would send back a chatty card of thanks and that would be it for our base-touching until the next January.

Then, about 9 years ago or so, the calendars stopped.

I had sent a "Happy new year" card, but received no response.

Perhaps he wasn't going out there anymore, or something had changed.

Realizing that life moves ever forward, I let it drop.

Well, mostly.

You see, when the nights got colder and became "sock weather", he would come to mind.
That's because of these socks.

He had found them somewhere, or maybe ordered them, and gave me at least four pairs of them.

Why to me specifically?

Because of the US Navy emblem at the cuffs!

Nice, right?

But that's just how he was.

He would see something that reminded him of someone and, next thing they knew, they'd have several of them in the mail from him!

Let me tell you, those socks have been very durable.

I bet he gave them to me 25 years ago, which means I've worn them for 25 winters, and I've only had to throw out a few that got raggedy heels eventually.

So, yesterday, I was doing laundry and all three pairs were in the wash.

That meant that this morning, I paired up all the socks and when I got to these, I thought of Eugene the whole time I was holding them.

And another thought popped into mind: was he still alive?

Maybe it was from all that genealogy work I've been doing, right?

So I checked with one of my new favorite sites... and there he was.

Apparently, he was alive until October of 2021 and is now interred at a military cemetery.

So, I texted Jeff to let him know.

Odd enough, he responded that he "was thinking about him recently though [he] couldn't remember why."

He and Amy go down to Rochester Hills periodically and Jeff said he kept thinking he would run into Eugene or one of his kids when they were there.

It had never occurred to him that the man might be dead.

It had not occurred to me that Eugene would have still been alive.

We were both wrong.

Eugene would have been 92, had he made it to December of '21.

Mother Pat would have been 82 last year.

Roughly 12 years difference in age.

That was about the same age difference as there had been for  Mama and stepdad Frank, as well as for Bonnie and Daddy.

Eugene's obituary captured some of the man's bon homie and generosity, but the tributes, from neighbors in Hawaii and former employees at Savair, Inc., the company he founded, shone a beautiful light upon his spirit.

I remembered a party on his boat and eating catfish here in Savannah and meeting his daughters and their children and tales of his and Mother Pat's trips all over the world.

And that smile... that ever-present smile!

I wonder if Chris Adams knows he's gone?

She and Mother Pat had been so close, even sharing a birthdate, not just a birthday.

I'll have to let her know.

What to do in remembrance of him?

The obituary listed two causes that were dear to him.

Leader Dogs For The Blind was the one that caught my eye and my heart.

Had I read that right?

I had.

The organization had been started by the Shelby Township Lions Club.

Their slogan was "Where there's a need, there's a Lion."

Didn't Savannah have a Lions Club?

All I knew about them was they collected old eyeglasses.

And yes, Savannah does have a chapter, and they've been here 100 years, since 1922.

And yes, the Lions Club specifically works as "knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness", having been charged to do so by Helen Keller in 1925.

While waiting for the washers to finish yesterday, had I not read an article about a fundraiser for the Savannah Center For The Blind And Low Vision?

I had, having found an issue of Connect Savannah from mid-June of last year, an issue I had not read before.

That article brought to mind, for the second time this week, that my invention to benefit blind students had reached an anniversary of being patent-approved and needed to get out of my house and into the world.

Josie and I had spoken of patents and my tactile periodic table and how long it had taken to go from patent-pending to patent-approved. 

The Leader Dogs For The Blind made the third reference to loss of sight.

Right place, right time.

I felt like an alarm was going off, for me to go into action...

and that's why I'm attending the Lions Club luncheon next Thursday.

I plan to take my invention with me and ask for their help in finding a manufacturer and getting it into the hands of chemistry students.

Thanks, Eugene, for the push...

I needed that.