Moving On - Getting Porter

In my last post I said I was going to describe changes in the year other than family drama, so that is what this post is for. 

From almost the minute Kat and I started dating, she has been talking about getting another big dog. Before she moved to the lake, she had a 250 lb St. Bernard. Her condo association doesn't allow big dogs, so she had to re-home him when she moved. She had mentioned that if she had only met me a few months earlier, I might have been able to keep her dog for her. So as we became more comfortable in our relationship, she would come over and talk about getting a dog together. I would mention over and over that I already have a dog, and that having two really makes it hard to just get up and do things. 

In November Kat came over one weekend and said that she had found a Great Dane / Labrador online, and asked if I would go see it with her. I knew what her game was, how would I be able to say no to a cute puppy. We went and saw the puppy, but it turned out they were just guessing at the breed. For his age he was way to small to have any Dane in him, so we passed on the dog. I had softened on the idea of getting a dog though. 

There were a couple of good reasons to get another dog. The first was that Juno was still young enough to enjoy being with a puppy, and it would be good for a puppy to have Juno, so it wouldn't be so alone when I am at work. My other thought was that we were going into fall and my hours had been temporarily cut, so this would be the ideal time to train a dog. Kat had suggested waiting until spring, but I said that wouldn't work. That would mean giving up another summer because it would take all the time to train a puppy. 

Kat kept looking for larger dogs, and found a web site that was selling Mastidanes or Daniffs, a Mastiff / Great Dane mix. They had a litter of puppies, but they weren't going to be available until the first week in December. I looked at the pictures of the puppies and thought they were really cool looking dogs. They just seemed like a good fit. Kat got in touch with the breeder and made an appointment to go see them in Ohio. 

The following Friday we headed to Ohio to look at the puppies. Kat was trying to convince me the whole way that she was just going to look at them, and that if they aren't exactly what she wants, she was leaving. I knew from the pictures that she was going to fall in love with them instantly, and she would put a deposit on one. I was still a little apprehensive, but I knew how much she wanted a big dog, and I figured the timing made sense. I also knew it would mean a lot of sleepless nights, so I wouldn't be heartbroken if she didn't get one. Of course that would also mean, I would keep hearing about it every weekend until we did get one. 

Of course when we got there, the puppies were adorable. Kat was worried that they weren't big enough, but I assured her that he was going to get plenty big. She held one for a while, then went into the pen with all of them. She wanted a boy, so she was deciding between a couple. I knew she was just trying to pick out the biggest one. I was trying to pay attention to temperament, but I could see that wasn't going to have any affect. It was all about the size. It kind of reminded me of when I was a kid and my dad would take me to the store, and I was allowed to get one candy bar. I didn't pick the candy bar because it was my favorite, I usually got the one that I thought was the biggest. That usually meant I got a Butterfinger which I do like, and Kat picked out Porter which I also really like. 

The drive home was about 2 hours. Porter was not happy being in the car at all. He whined and moved around all the time. He was 10 weeks old, but he was already 27 pounds, so it was a bit of a stressful trip. He threw up in the car, but he didn't have any other accidents, so that made me feel good. He pooped as soon as he got out of the car which also made me think housebreaking might not be too bad, and in general it really wasn't. 

The hardest part of house breaking Porter was carrying him down the stairs at night. He was growing at a rate of 5 lbs a week, so in two weeks he was almost 40 lbs. He was scared of going down the stairs, so I had to carry him. We were getting some remodeling done, and the railing on the stairway was off while they repaired the drywall and painted. That made carrying him up and down the stairs kind of tricky. He finally started going up the stairs on his own, but it was still a couple of weeks before he went down the stairs. He still doesn't like stairs much, but at least he does them. There is no way I could carry him now. 

Porter is a bit of a nervous dog. We have been taking him to stores and to the dog park to help him get used to people and other dogs, and he has gotten a lot better, but he is still nowhere near the level Juno is. It isn't fair to compare Juno to Porter though. When we got Juno, we still owned the restaurant, so she interacted with people and other dogs every single day. She didn't have any choice but to be social. Porter is doing really well, and every week he gets more and more comfortable with strangers both human and other dogs. 

Porter turns 6 months tomorrow, and he is almost 100 lbs. Kat still calls him small, but I just shake my head and walk away now. I would say Porter is about 99.9 % house broken, and other than a few accidents here and there was pretty easy to train. He has been through the first round of puppy classes, and he has learned a lot, but he also has a bit of a stubborn streak in him. He probably isn't as smart as Juno is, but he is more affectionate. At 100 lbs, he still thinks he is a lap dog, and he wants attention all the time. I was really reluctant about getting another dog, but getting Porter was the right decision. 

Takeaways from the Memorial Service for my Father

Obviously as I have gotten older, I have forgotten more and more of my childhood. Since my dad died, I have looked at pictures and tried to recall things, but seeing the video yesterday, I realized that I have forgotten so much more than I thought I had. 

Seeing Steve Zammit again was a real treat. Of all my dad's students that became friends, Steve was always my favorite. I have always related to Steve really well. He got me my first restaurant job at Delphines in Ann Arbor at the Sheraton Hotel. Talking to him was really cool after all these years. He has an amazing sense of humor, and is such a genuinely good person. We found out that we had a mutual friend in Ken Shannon which I think I may have known before but forgotten. I was able to introduce him to Kat, and they connected really well over mechanical engineering. Seeing Gary Talbot, Uncle Dean, Mrs Dubin, and Mrs Hiss again was really nice. I had a sad feeling that it was nice to see these people, but I may never see any of them again.

Having Steve start the presentation was a perfect way to begin. Steve and Gary were two of my dads closest friends, and Steve has been around longer, so it fit that he went first. When Steve started talking about the SAAB that my dad had and how he had one sitting out front, a flood of memories came to me. My dad loved that car, and I can vaguely remember him giving me rides to nursery school in that car. I remember loving that car, but my mom hated it. I am not sure if she hated it just because it was a stick shift or if there was some other reason. The next two cars we had were sticks as well, so I would have thought if that were the only reason, they would have gotten cars with automatic transmissions. 

There were so many things that Steve mentioned about my dad and their relationship that made me smile. The story about bringing in a six pack of beer and my dad with a beer in one hand and a stick of chalk in the other while teaching the last day of spring class really made me happy to think of. It reminded me of a spring physics class I took at WCC where we had beer while taking our final. Steve made the comment that my dad was never Bruce to him, it was always professor Karnopp, and that he called him that out of extreme respect. It made me think of something that my dad once said about respect being something you earn, and my dad really did earn the title of professor.

When Steve talked about Carol's wedding where he and his wife did a dual service of renewing their vows with my mom and dad, it made me realize how long Steve had been in my dads and my life. The wedding seems like such a recent memory, but it was over 15 years ago. Steve said that he went to U of M between 1980-85 which means I met him when I was 13 or 14. Watching Steve tear up at the loss of such a long time friend made me realize there was so much more to my father as a professor than I realized. My dads job was so much more than just a job, he really connected with his students, and they really loved him for everything he did for them. 

When Dean got up to speak it was a little surreal. He made the comment that it was a little unnerving to have a memorial for professor Karnopp when he is also referred to as professor Karnopp, but the same could be said about watching him speak. Dean and my father look very similar, sound very similar, and also have a lot of the same mannerisms. I never knew Dean. He visited once or twice when I was young, and I have seen him a few times as an adult, but always very briefly. My dad would tell stories about him as a kid, but there was always kind of a separation in the description where they just weren't as close as you would expect. There was however, never a negative word about his brother or any of his family for that matter. 

I think Dean's talk about my dad really explained their relationship very well. Time and Space worked against them throughout their lives. At four years apart, they really weren't in the same place at the same time either physically or emotionally. His comments made me think about my relationship with Carol and how we were three years apart. We had some time together in Elementary school, but after that, were never in the same place at the same time. The interesting thing about my dad and deans life was that even though they were never in the same place at the same time, they both had the same trajectory for their education and career. Deans life was a little more exciting than my dads, but I think having a special needs child played into that a bit. 

There was a little confusion between Gary and Carol about who was to talk next, but Carol took over and did a nice remembrance of her father and family life. Her relationship was so much different than mine. She worked so hard to please my dad, and I worked so hard to show my independence. We both wanted him to be proud of us, and I am sure that Carol succeeded much better than I did. I know my dad was proud of me for who I became, but I caused him a lot more stress getting there than Carol did. Carol did a great job speaking, and I know my father would have been very proud of her for that. She isn't the shy little girl that she used to be. 

There was some jostling back and forth with the video, but they decided Gary should speak first. I have known Gary for a long time, but he came into the picture after I was out of the house, so I didn't have the same kind of relationship with him that I did with Steve, but I heard about him all the time from my dad. When my dad got sick, Gary and Forrest communicated a lot more than I did, and I think they created a special bond in the process. It was interesting hearing Gary describe his childhood in Ann Arbor and how he got to the U of M after being a mechanic. I knew a lot of this about him from my dad, and I had known him when he was a student, but hearing more details was really nice. 

When Gary described his first meeting of my dad, I really started to tear up. He had gone back to school at WCC and transferred to U of M, and my dad came up him and and asked him what he was doing there. He hassled him a little bit in a way that I could so easily imagine, then gave him his card and told him to come and see him. Gary waited a couple of hours feeling self conscious and out of place, but finally made his way to my dads office. He said my dad talked him about his history and really got to know him over several hours. Then he told him to go to his classes, do the best he can, and when he is struggling, which he would struggle, come back and see him. He did what my dad said, and my dad helped him get through. He said my dad wanted to see him make the effort, but once he did, he went out of his way to help him succeed. That was my dad in a nutshell.

One of Gary's comments that really hit home with me was when he was talking about my dad referring to him as a non traditional student. Gary had always thought that he was referring to him that way because he was in a wheelchair, but when he asked him about it once, my dad just looked at him and said, that has nothing to do with it, you're non traditional just because you are old. Gary talked about how much my dad did to encourage other non traditional students. Steve was another non traditional student who had worked in a steel mill then went to EMU to get his grades up and then went to U of M. I think my dad really liked teaching people who had real stories to tell before coming to the University. I think he had a lot of respect for them and knew how much work it really is to make changes like that in a persons life. 

The video Carol put together was really cool. There were so many pictures of things that I didn't remember. I had completely forgotten about the photography club my dad had done at St. Pauls Elementary School, and there were so many pictures that I didn't even know existed. I lost so many of my pictures from film when I moved into my house and the basement flooded, and I didn't get a digital camera until 1998, so there are so many years that I just didn't have much of. I'm sure there are some in the box that grandma sent over with Forrest, but I haven't had a chance to go through them at all. Unfortunately it was just a bin full of packets of pictures. There were no labels, no dates, and nothing to identify them. It was funny that Carol mentioned the Doors as that was one of my dad's favorite bands which seemed so out of character compared to everything else he liked. It was really a beautiful video and a wonderful tribute to our father. 

I didn't know the next speakers who went up and told stories of interactions with my dad. I did really enjoy the one where my dad joked with a colleague about putting a sensor on the toilets in the bathroom to measure who would be able to fill the chair of the department. I had to glance at Forrest because he has definitely inherited a lot of his Grandpa's toilet humor. Kat kept squeezing my hand nudging me to go up and talk. I was about to when Steve called on someone else. My heart was beating in my chest because I was loosing my nerve at this point. I hadn't prepared anything, and I am not good at speaking off the cuff. I thought I could pull some things from memory from my letter that I posted on my blog right after his death, but that was going to be a stretch. The next speaker mentioned a story where my dad had been working on his dishwasher, and rather than go to the basement to find the breaker, decided to short the circuit with a screwdriver to kill the power. The really funny part of the story was when my dad described the chunk of metal missing from the tip of the screwdriver as a result of the arc and how he decided to return it to Sears and get a replacement. My dad did love Craftsman tools, and although he may have returned that particular screwdriver, there were a number of them in his set with the tell tale chunk missing with the rough carbon pattern. 

After hearing about the dishwasher, I knew I had to be next. I walked to the podium, and I cant remember whether I used the mic or not. I am not much of a public speaker, and the adrenaline coursing through my veins made the entire event seem like a dream where I am trying to recall the memories. I remember introducing myself and telling everyone that I was the more challenging kid. I explained that I had to come up after the last speaker because I had just been doing wiring around my house the week before, and my girlfriend had insisted that I not work with live wires. I had used pliers and the ground wire to short the circuit, but the effect was the same. Hearing the story about my dad reminded me of all the things like that I had learned from him. I described how we did things like that together. Then I mentioned my paper route and how he had taken it over after Steve got me the job at the Sheraton because it was cash money. I told the story of how one time we were talking after delivering papers and he told me he didn't know what I was going to do with my life, and that I hadn't taken the path he would have liked, but he knew whatever I put my mind to, I would do it well and be successful. I mentioned how I have always remembered those words and I used them with my own son when he graduated high school. 

I also mentioned in there somewhere how Carol had done things the way he would have wanted and how well she had done. I think at that point I thanked everyone for coming and returned to my seat. I know my eyes were starting to tear up, and I don't think I could have said much more without losing my composure. When I sat down, Kat squeezed my hand and told me how proud of me she was. I sat there thinking of all the things I would have liked to have said, but I guess I said what was most important.

I was a little disappointed that my mom didn't say anything. It would have been nice if she could have mentioned something about the man that she was married to for over 50 years. I tried to sit next to her during the service, but she got up and went to sit next to her handyman. I can't even imagine how someone could have such hatred for their own son that they would avoid sitting next to their own son in favor of someone they paid to be their friend. I have a lot of resentment toward this man who got all of my dads tool, cameras, furniture and a significant amount of money. Of course he is nice to her and agrees with everything she says, he has taken over my spot in the family. It is actually her loss. After the server the entire family except for my mom were sitting outside because she had to spend time with Mark. My dad loved his family more than anything and he would never have allowed this. 

After the service a woman came over to me and told me she used to work with my dad when I had my restaurant. She said her husband had been trying to start a bakery at around the same time, and my dad used to share emails from me about the restaurant. She mentioned my last email where I had said goodbye to my customers and tried to analyze the mistakes that were made. She said my dad was always so proud of me and talked about me all the time. That really made me feel good. Mrs Hiss stopped by to tell me how sorry she was that my dad had passed, and she mentioned how when I was young my dad had made a ribbon board for her daughter Meredith just like the one he made for me. 

After hanging out with Carol, Holden, and John for a little while, we helped Carol carry stuff to her car. We waved them off, then Kat and I along with Forrest and Sarah walked over to Knights restaurant and had a wonderful meal together. It was kind of a somber time together, but we shared stories and commented on how our family might come back together now that Carol and Holden live nearby. I am sure that rebuilding our family would be the one thing my dad would want more than anything.