Tuesday morning we drove to Green Bay, Wisconsin for my husband's grandpa's late afternoon wake. He had to work until 11 am that morning, to make best use of the few hours off he has accrued in the last 6 months he's worked there. They really are a bunch of petty micromanagers over there. I dressed us all for the extreme heat we've been experiencing over the last few weeks. Instead of the sun, however, we were followed all the way, the entire 5 hours, there by low, black wall clouds, and rain so hard it was sometimes almost impossible to see out the windshield. Other drivers were pulling over, along highway 29. But we didn't have that kind of time, so we just kept going. Some of those clouds seriously looked like they were trying to develop funnels, but luckly none of them ever did.

We arrived, at Blaney's funeral home. We'd been here about a year and a half earlier, for my husband's grandma, on the other side of his family. Grandpa Buck was laying in his coffin. Really he looked really good. They'd put his glasses on him, for show, and he was wearing a suit with a tie with little cows on the tie. My son was disturbed that only the top half of the coffin lid was up. The half of the lid that covered Buck's legs was closed. My son asked me , "Did they cut off his legs?"

Everyone there, approached my husband and wished him luck for his big job interview the next day. They all knew about it!! It was because right there at Buck's deathbed, in the nursing home, while they were planning his funeral , Paul's parents requested an early morning funeral, so Paul would have time to make it back for his Thursday morning interview! It was big news in the family!

Then in spite of the fact that they had a Catholic Church funeral scheduled for him the next morning, they really did set out chairs there at the funeral home and have a memorial service for him there, too . Just as I did a year and a half earlier, I took my son in to an adjoining room, where he coudn't sit still, rolled around on the floor, obsessed over the many kleenex boxes until I put them up, and just generally acted like A.D.D. Hyper Boy. I always feel completely set up for failure in situations like that. There was a couple in there, with chairs right in the doorway between our room and the memorial service, they looked a little familiar to me , but I couldn't place them. They re-introduced themselves to me later, they were our friend Dave's parents!

The next morning we all drove to their church that their family has attended for generations, St. John the Baptist Church of Howard , Wisconsin. The place was packed! Grandpa Buck was very popular ! Just as with the memorial the day before, at the funeral home, also in attendence was Buck's very elderly one remaining brother, Jim. They came from a large family with a lot of children. Now Jim is the only one left. He's had to go to all his brothers' and sisters' funerals.

Again my son was hard to watch, there in our pew. My husband delivered the eulogy , at the request of his father. He told a lot of the anecdotes that his granfather had told him during all his interviews with him, and everyone laughed. A lot of people came up to my husband later to say how much they appreciated his speech. I bought 3 kleenexes with me in my purse, and I used them all up. We all really did look up to Buck. He really never did dislike anyone, or say anything negative. It was really refreshing to be around him.

I didn't know this, but my husband's Uncle Nick told us all that just before Buck's 99th birthday, Nick asked Buck, "Where do you want to have your party this year." Buck answered, "Call Mike." Nick asked, "Who's Mike?" Buck answered, "He owns Blaney's Funeral Home, let's have it there this year!"

After the funeral there was a luncheon, and after the luncheon we attended his burial. All the children were fascinated by the machinery that lowered the coffin in to the open grave, and placed a second lid on top of the casket.

After that we really did have to stop by my in-laws to pack , and leave. We drove the 5 hours home Wednesday afternoon , and made it home around 9 pm. We did hit rain at first, but most of the way was good weather. We needed to come home right away, because my husband really did have a Thursday morning interview.

Thursday noon, my husband called me to say the interview was over, and that he felt he'd interviewed well, but that the people interviewing him really didn't give him very much feed back. It was hard for him to tell if they were impressed or not. But Thursday afternoon, one of the interviewers called our house to ask permission to check one of his references. My husband wasn't home, because he had to drive straight from that interview to work, and work 1:30 pm to 9 pm to make up the hours he'd missed going to his grandpa's funeral. At least we *told* them we had to drive back Thursday morning, so he could make it to that interview. I told the interviewer to go ahead and check that reference. So they must at least be interested enough to check his references.