A Life Worth Remembering

A Life Worth Remembering (Verse 1) Born in October, nineteen forty-three, National City, California, that was me, A skinny kid on 30th Street, Brooklyn Heights, Riding my Flexy in the Southern California light. My Gram sang carols by the fire Christmas Eve, My Gramp showed me stamps from every place you could conceive, I rode my bike down every street in San Diego town, Built my world from the bottom up, brick by brick and pound by pound. (Verse 2) I was eating lunch in sixty-three, SDSU, When the intercom told us what we never thought it'd do — Said the President was gone, send everybody home, And I rode two buses back, a twenty-year-old, alone. Six years later, Sunday night, a grainy black-and-white, Armstrong stepped onto the moon — Lord, what a sight! I was already drawing airflows, dreaming of the skies, Engineering the machines that helped a whole world rise. (Chorus) I am a hinge between the old and the new, From Mayflower ships to jet engines cutting through, From Plymouth Rock to the Pacific shore, One ordinary man in an extraordinary story's core. I watched the world change, held my family tight, Put my name on the airplanes that crossed the night, Not a king, not a hero, just a man who tried — A life worth remembering, and I wear that with pride. (Verse 3) Thirty-five years at Rohr, Chula Vista, California sun, Nacelles, thrust reversers, 'til the work was done, Boeing, Douglas, Airbus — I helped keep them in the air, Every safe flight crossing oceans, I put something there. I was a training camp boy for the Chargers, sixty-three, They won the championship — don't tell me that wasn't me! I DX'd on the AM band, chased signals through the night, A scientist of small things, always hunting for the light. (Chorus) I am a hinge between the old and the new, From Mayflower ships to jet engines cutting through, From Plymouth Rock to the Pacific shore, One ordinary man in an extraordinary story's core. I watched the world change, held my family tight, Put my name on the airplanes that crossed the night, Not a king, not a hero, just a man who tried — A life worth remembering, and I wear that with pride. (Bridge) My roots run deep, from Mayflower decks to colonial shores, Through Alfred the Great and Charlemagne and so much more, But none of that matters half as much as what I built right here — A family, a life, a legacy I hold so dear. Linda, my love, my partner, my very best friend, Twenty-five years teaching children, a deacon to the end, Lori and Tami, women of grace and grit and fire, Five grandchildren climbing higher and higher and higher. (Verse 4) I've been blogging Genea-Musings since two-thousand-and-six, Every ancestor I find is another name I fix Back into the story so the grandkids someday know Every farmer, every soldier, every seed that helped them grow. I am the hinge — the keeper of the old and the new, From Roxbury to Rohr, from Wiltshire to the seven-eighty-seven's view, I've had my seat at history's table, quiet but here, And I wouldn't trade a single blessed day of my eighty-some years. (Final Chorus) I am a hinge between the old and the new, From Mayflower ships to jet engines cutting through, From Plymouth Rock to the Pacific shore, One ordinary man in an extraordinary story's core. I watched the world change, held my family tight, Put my name on the airplanes that crossed the night, Not a king, not a hero, just a man who tried — A life worth remembering, and I wear that with pride. (Outro - slow, fading) *Go look them up in the family tree…* *Mayflower, Rohr, and a life lived free…* *Linda, Lori, Tami, five grandkids bright…* *Genea-Musings, every morning, posted in the light…* *San Diego born, San Diego raised…* *A life worth living… and a life worth praised.* *(repeat and fade)*