Zen and the Art of Speedskating

My first father’s day was not about me at all. I am visiting my grandfather, Colonel Edson Snow.

He is 94, and was very happy to meet his Great-Granddaughter, Arzelia Jane Love.

To understand my grandfather, I show you a few things I noticed this afternoon, on a shelf in his room.

What you have here is a can of WD-40, next to a morse code sender. Right behind his morse code sender, is a spool of DVD-RW for his laptop.

I find this collections of stuff amazing, and very telling about my Grandfather, as he has always been an early adapter of technology.

Grandpa was certified for Morse code when he graduated high school in 1932, and passed the exam proving he could send at 20 wpm. He is a lifelong ham radio operator, and has spoken to people in 150 different countries (he keeps track), he now loves email and video Skypes with his family.

Jess and I have spent much of the past two days with him. We have heard so many stories of his life & family, of my mom & uncle, and people I never met, but who look like me & RZ.

This is a blog about skating, so one story he likes to tell about his childhood is that there used to be a company that owned numerous vacant lots in NYC. In the winters they would flood them, and turn them into ice skating rinks.

To show the ice was ready, they would fly a white flag with a red dot on it (looked just like Japan’s flag actually). If you saw that flag, it meant “ice skating open today.” And all the boys wanted “long blade skates” in those days too!

Grandpa owned his own plane, and his stories of service in Italy during WWII would fill journals. Today I found myself reading V-mail he sent to my grandmother in 1944. That was HARD to read, and so tiny.

Here he is with Arzelia. They are already best friends.

Morse code to ham radio, V-mail to eMail, and now technology like Skype makes distance seem like nothing. Happy great-Grandfather’s day, Colonel Ed!!

What will RZ see in her life? Will the changes be that great?

There is always a sadness leaving close family who are very old. He is so clear, and so strong for 94. But as he shuffled away, I felt my heart tear a bit, and hoped I would see him again.

(that is too sad a note to end a usually optimistic blog on… so I will toss in a gratuitous baby image, RZ is really starting to have some serious brainpower starting up. It’s thrilling to watch)

Filed under: on the road