Thanksgiving and missing Frank

It’s one of those inspirational days today, and quite sad at the same time.

First of all, it’s Thanksgiving here in the USA. It’s pretty much the biggest family holiday in the country. If you don’t go home for Thanksgiving, it’s something serious. You at least go home with somebody, and no, I don’t mean like after a night at the bar…

It’s inspirational because I just watched “October Sky” with my family. We laughed and remembered how when I was a young kid, I’d check out this one book from the elementary school library over and over agian. It was entitled “The Scientific Results of the Viking Mission” or something like that. What it was doing in the lower school library at Walsingham Academy I have no idea. But I’m sure my name is still all over the checkout card in the back of that book. Funny where you end up so far away from where you thought you’d be as a kid. I always said I was going to go up in the Space Shuttle. But that was before I found out you couldn’t pilot the shuttle if you didn’t have perfect vision. That shot me down quick. But the movie reminded me that anything you want to do is possible, if you just don’t give up. Sometimes the best motivation is not having a plan B.

Also, we found out this morning that my Dad’s best friend, Frank Fong, passed away yesterday. This guy was one of the coolest people I’ve ever known, and he always harped on me for going architecture instead of engineering. I always thought I was going to go into aerospace engineering too. Probably would have if it wasn’t for my senior year in high school. Frank was like an uncle to us. He was the fifth Athayde kid to my grandparents. So this kinda hits close to home. He was young, he had fought in Vietnam and barely made it out. He had never been married, but almost was. He was always smiling and the jokester of the family. His mom had died a year ago today. Frank was only 52.

We miss you Frank.