Remembering Dad: His Camera Collection

I remember the trips to Goodwill when I was a child. I always tried to sit in the center of the front bench seat when we would make the trip in his 1962 Pontiac Safari wagon. It had a type of stick shift that was known as three-on-the-tree, which meant that the three-speed transmission was shifted with a lever that came out of the steering column. I wanted that seat because Dad would let me shift the gears during the trip there and back. We would be going to Goodwill for two things: books and cameras. 

Dad bought thousands of non-fiction books over the years and built quite a library where he could slip away to read a twenty-nine-cent book about a WWII battle written by somebody who was there.

However, it wasn't the shelves and shelves of books in his library that would catch your eye. It was his display of the several hundred cameras he salvaged from the as-is bin of old cameras, most of which he paid less than a dollar for and still worked. He took great pride in his collection that he showed frequently to friends and family, especially if he wanted them to see cameras that he may have paid two or three dollars for since they last saw it.

A New Day Dawns

It is about ten minutes to two in the morning. I have had a bit over five hours of continuous sleep and feel rested now. 

I think the thing I like best about retirement is that I can sleep when I am tired. I am not a person who is devoted to routines. I think of my daily chores and desires as processes. I believe major projects should be broken down into minor tasks. If you accomplish a task or two toward completing the project, you've gotten closer to your objective without burning yourself out.

This is especially important for people who display a lot of empathy. Empaths are easy to take advantage of, and, because of their caring second nature, they have difficulty expressing their own feelings, if it is at the expense of hurting someone else's feelings.

I am Creating the Wayne Koecke Memorial Camera Collection

No one will ever know the truth about why Mom chose to hoard everything, which led to a huge mess to deal with when the time inevitably came to deal with things. I understood the sentimental value that Mom placed on Dad's camera collection, but I never understood why I was the only person in the family who placed a value higher than sentiment on the collection.

Dad's collection included two-to-three hundred cameras that he would pick up at Goodwill and other sources. It seemed to me that the best way to honor Dad was to loan or donate some of the best cameras to museums and to put some in displays where he was known. 

What happened was the collection remained in Dad's library room, where it collected a lot of dust. 

THE PUNCH!

Erin would never back down from a fight, which meant that she was suspended for fighting periodically throughout her school years. I would have to go to the school to get her, and I was able to talk the principal out of suspension a time or two because she was defending herself.

For a time in middle school, I suspected that she was getting suspended on purpose to get a few days off. I warned her that I would take swift action if I felt she was doing that. 

Solid Gold Sisters (Video)

Elliana always wanted to hang out with Gemma. 

She loves her little sister to this day, because love transcends life and death! 

We all still love Elliana, and Elliana still loves all of us!

Solid Gold Sisters

Video by Tom Koecke in memory of

Elliana Tapia (2005-2023)

Click this to check out other videos on my YouTube channel.

Remembering Elliana: Elliana Tapia (2005-2023)

With tremendous sadness, the family of Elliana Tapia announces that she passed away on July 18, 2023.

Elliana was born on July 28, 2005. She was the first child for both of her parents. She was the first grandchild of some of her grandparents. She made her mother’s sister an Auntie for the first time.

We all loved and adored her antics and her huge personality. She was creative and artistic. She loved music, makeup, animals, the ocean, the mountains, cooking, and hanging out with her friends. She was beautiful, loving, and full of wonder and mischief! We could not imagine life without her!

Remembering Elliana: Thinking About the Day She Died

As I try to reconcile my granddaughter's death on July 18th, the relationship to so many things come to mind as I think about the things we did and said on the day she died.

Her birthday and mine are exactly six months apart. She liked to ask me how old I would be when she turned a certain age. She would have turned eighteen years old ten days after she died. I will likely be sixty-five-and-a-half years old that day. 

Candace, Erin, and Elliana were all told as small children that I would be their best friend until they found best friends their ages. Candace and Erin found their best friends in elementary school. Elliana loved hanging out with me well into her teen years. She was my travel buddy, she was my biker babe, she was my best friend, and she was my equal-opposite.

My Diabetes Update, or "That's a Good Question; We Don't Know"

I received good news and bad news about my diabetes about three weeks ago. The good news is that I don't have diabetes. My blood sugar is actually in good shape after they put a stent into a bile duct that was blocked. I don't have diabetes at all. 

However, the bad news is that my bile duct was closed because of cancer. I met with the oncologists for the first time today. What I learned is that it is pancreatic cancer that has metastasized to my liver. Because it is that advanced, it is deemed to be stage four cancer. 

The questions the doctors asked were more about the quality of my life today, whether or not I am in severe pain, and to tell me there are two treatment options that often work to at least slow the growth and spreading of the cancer. In the best case, the treatment will stop the spreading, and the cancerous growth may shrink. However, they would expect that it will eventually come back even in the best-case scenario. 

My Projects as a Butterfly

Butterflies make the world just a bit nicer while they flutter around our yards and gardens. The results are not immediate, except for the beauty they bring to our views just by being what they are.

My first project as a butterfly was to paint the interior of the house. It is an arduous process because it had to be done while maintaining the house as living space. The change brought new colors to the walls, and it also inspired others to pitch in to improve the living conditions here at home. For example, doing the dishes every morning was a task that I did for the most part. It was just the way it worked out. 

The most difficult part was convincing people to rinse their dishes and stack them next to the sink rather than to pile unrinsed dishes on top of other unrinsed dishes in the sink. One roommate graciously complied. Another roommate required me to put the dishes in front of his door with a note reminding him of my request. A former roommate got told on the fifth time that I would be asking Bryan to evict him, but he moved out voluntarily before that.

You Don't Know Me Better than I Know Myself

Whether you are a friend who has smoked pot and bullshitted with me for a couple of decades, or a cousin who has known me for sixty-five years but hung out with me about ten times over that span, you don't know me better than I know myself. Neither do my siblings and other relatives, my longtime friends, or even you know me better than I know myself.

I am nowhere near perfect, and I am aware of more flaws in myself than you are. However, I am always willing to listen to another person's opinion about a behavior of mine that bothers them. That does not mean that I will change that behavior for them. Sometimes, it is better for me to explain why I do that or did that, and, if they cannot accept my reasoning, move on from the relationship. Such is the case in the relationships with my friend and my cousin.

The Great Motor Scooter Debate

I have loved riding on two wheels since I was young. Dad had a Honda 90 step-through that was kept at "the lake place" near Church Lake. Dad acquired the property from his long-time business associate and dear friend, Tim McCartney, and used it as a recreational getaway for the family. It was mostly my brother and me who rode it, but I remember one time when my younger sister rode it. She knew how to make it go, but she didn't know how to make it stop. She ran it into a fence that we had to rebuild before we could ride it again that day. 

Even though my brother and I were upset for her not knowing how to stop, I now recognize that one of the hardest lessons we learn when we ride motorbikes is how to stop on them. My own first experience riding a scooter with a clutch was on Uncle Rudy's Lambretta 125. He told me how to let the clutch out and how to shift the gears, which was done by a slight twist on the clutch handle. The ride went really well, but the bike started jerking on me as I came back to where my uncle was. They didn't tell me that I needed to pull the clutch back in or to be in neutral when I stopped. 

My Diabetes Follow Up Visit

It was time for the follow up appointment with my doctor yesterday. It couldn't have come soon enough for some of my friends who seem to worry about my health because, they believe, I am reckless with it. For example, if I had taken my incessant coughing and dry heaving as seriously as they did, I might recognize that I could have a bleeding ulcer. 

I try to explain to them that throwing up is different than dry heaving, and I haven't been throwing up for six weeks either. I tell them that I threw up once six weeks ago and twice last week, but they always hear me coughing. I tell them that the most common time I cough is after a hit of weed or a dab, but what do I know compared to some app that diagnoses all types of terminal illnesses for exaggerated symptoms?

Anyway, I assured them that I would ask the doctor about it. 

Remembering Dad: Looking Back on the Night He Planned His Funeral

Dad was 58 years old when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was referred to an oncologist who told him that he had to quit smoking if he wanted an operation to remove the cancer, but that he should now get his final affairs in order regardless of his decision to quit smoking or not. Without the operation, his condition was terminal.

Mom immediately quit smoking cigarettes, and she enforced the non-smoking rule on Dad when she caught him smoking some old pipe tobacco that he had put on the shelves years before when smoking a pipe was his thing. Dad reluctantly cooperated, but he truly did quit smoking for the last two years of his life.

Remembering Mom: She Wanted to Live and Go Home the Last Time I Visited with Her

A memory came up in my Facebook feed today. It was the third anniversary of a post I made after visiting Mom for the last time. We did not know it was the last time at the time. My post was not about it being our last face-to-face visit. March 9, 2020 was also the date that more than 100 cases of COVID-19 were discovered at a nursing home in King County, which prompted an immediate halt to visiting patients in nursing homes and hospitals the next day. 

I don't recall if my older sister told me that Mom had been transferred to a nursing home the morning of the 9th or the day before, but it was the day Mom was transferred. I am thankful to this day for her keeping me advised about Mom and what was going on. I would not have liked visiting her in the hospital and finding an empty bed where I expected to see her. 

She also told me in that conversation that our sister who had "the plan" for Mom to live with her was probably going to have her move into a long-term care facility rather than accommodate her home for something as unpredictable as Mom was going to need accommodations for a wheelchair. 

Bugsy Says, "Hold My Milk Bowl"

I have lost two of my cat buddies in two of the past four years. Both Prancer and Mr. Grumpy died in 2019. I lost my cuddle-buddy grandkitten, Charlie Cakes, in January of last year. In August, I lost Jezebel, who was my best friend ever who was an animal. 

We are able to get new furry family members as we lose our pets, but they do not really replace our losses. For example, I got Kai Guy in 2020. He is nothing like Prancer or Mr. Grumpy. Kai has his own distinct personality. He likes to be brushed, but he does not like being held. His greatest sign of affection is when he will stand on my lap and let me brush him or pet him. He is gone the moment he is free from any coddling I try to give him. 

Late last year, a roommate had to rescue two of his adult cats from the home of a scorned ex. One of those cats is a seventeen-year-old guy named Bugsy. I call him Bugs Buddy.