Monday, January 19, 2009

Happy Birthday Grandpa

My grandpa, Robert Malecker, would have been 84 on January 16th, so I thought I'd post a little tribute to him. The above photo was taken during WWII when he worked for Pan Am in San Francisco. He was a photographer in his soul and could never say no to a good photo-op.

Above is the Malecker family in 1970. I'd be willing to guess that this photo was taken because my grandpa got a new tri-pod or something along those lines and he just couldn't wait for the curlers to come out to try it out on the family. L-R: My dad, Craig, Grandma Carm (a.k.a. Sketti Grandma), Grandpa, Uncle Mark (Dad's twin brother), Aunt Shelly.

My grandpa was exceedingly proud of the family he created and all that he had worked for in his life that was centered around his family. Some of my last conversations with him were about just that. In this picture most of us were enjoying fun and very little elbow room at the family cabin my grandparents spent 7 years building in Flaming Gorge.

My granparents on the side steps of our cabin. They started building in 1970, so this must have been taken about the time the majority of the work was finished. They drove up every weekend there wasn't too much snow on the ground for 7 years to make this dream come true. I can't even imagine the amount of love and dedication that took and can only hope to do my share to keep the place in good condition so that my kids can enjoy it, just as Grandpa intended.

Here's the cabin last summer- it looks a little disheveled, but all that lattice has since been fixed.

Grandpa bustin' a move. He just burst out of the cabin one afternoon and started up a game of frisbee. My dad had been hounding him to 'get relaxed' translation: get out of your work clothes and put on something more comfortable. We thought he had, until we realized what the white thing you see hanging out the back of his sweatshist was- he had put sweats on over his work clothes to try to make us think he was relaxing. Nice try Grandpa!

This is one of the last good photos I have of him. He took a lot of pictures at my wedding. I like many of his better than the ones done by the pros. we hired.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I still miss you everyday.

1 comment:

  1. Weird- I just noticed that Ian's grandpa, Sug Bailey is in the background behind my dad in the wedding photo. Sug is still alive and as well as a man in his 80's can be. I'm not sure why I think it's weird, it just is.

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