My Ramblings

Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 1:44 AM on June 6, 1968 after being shot by Sirhan Sirhan the previous early morning. I mention it here because this event resulted indirectly in a traumatic event for me later that day. Be patient, as it will take me a minute to get to that. The names in this story have NOT been changed to protect the innocent. I was in Miss Lum’s fifth grade class at Whitmore Elementary School in my hometown of Ceres, CA at that time. Some of my classmates included Ron Megee, Debbie Rayford, Dave Stiffler, Eddie Morrow, Rita Woodral, Tim Crownover, Debbie Fabela, Robbie Spears, Jonni Dunnegan, Nick Chipponeri and Mark Lowe. During lunchtime, the school allowed kids to go home to eat but we weren’t supposed to go anywhere else. Being the adventurous and unbridled boys that we were, some of us would go instead to Ceres Billiards to shoot pool and play pinball. On one of these days, not the day recounted above, a few of us – Eddie, Dave and Tim went to...

My daughter, Heather called me today with a sad story. My 7 year old grandson, Luca was drawing a picture last night and as he did so he was crying. Heather heard him and went over to see what was going on. It depicted Luca and his Uncle Daniel standing side my side, each with a broken heart over their heads. Another panel showed a grave with Luca standing at its foot. Heather asked Luca about his picture. He replied that he really misses his Uncle Daniel and wishes he was still here. Hearing this broke my heart. This is not the first time Luca or his little brother, Logan has, out of the blue mentioned Daniel and his death. Each time they do, it again brings the pain of this event to the surface. While I am sad for myself, my heart aches for these little guys who loved him so much. Folks, if you ever consider taking your own life, please think again and again and again. Think of how detrimental your death will be to your family and friends. Think about the mess you will leave behin...

We are beginning to get ready for Christmas, but this year is so different than in the past. Yes, some of this has to do with us knowing Daniel will not be here to celebrate it with us, but it’s not the only thing. I have, up until now, neglected to report here that Linda and I are now “empty nesters.” Judah and his parents moved back to the Bay Area on November 17. My attempts to keep Judah here with us when Holly and Bryan moved were unsuccessful. Funny how a mom requires the presence of her child without any regard to how this makes the sad and lonely grandparents feel. Judah has lived in our home since his second day on earth. We got accustomed to seeing him daily. We have been told by friends what a great thing an empty nest is and how we are going to love it and blah, blah, blah. Yes, it is quieter and I can walk around the house in my underwear if I want to (don’t picture that in your mind), but so far, these “benefits” are not what they’re cracked up to be. Putting up the Ch...

I have felt like writing lately so I will continue to do so. After yesterday's post regarding my early life, I thought some of you might like to know a bit about what I did as a vocation. I have received a number of compliments regarding my writing ability for which I am grateful. Most people do not know that for many years as a Probation Officer, I wrote reports for the Court. In this job I got a lot of practice as an "Indentured Wordsmith." The following is a fictional account of one such report. The defendant in this case was convicted of attempted robbery. In addition to all the other information required by the Court, the reports I wrote contained information resulting from my own investigation including my interviews of the victim and defendant. Most of the report is who, what, why, where and how, but in the evaluation section, I got to throw in my opinion about what consequences the guy should get. Keep in mind, the defendant had already been convicted...

The following was written by me in September 2008. Keep in mind it was four years before we lost our son: For years now, I have thought about writing a book. Friends and family have encouraged me to do this. I have felt, at times, a calling to write a book. Why? Several reasons come to mind including that I have had a lot of varied life experiences, have met and am related to some interesting people whose stories should be told, and I have a keen, sometimes odd sense of humor that can be entertaining. But most of all, I have been moved to write because I have lost all five members of my immediate family, four of them to drug or alcohol related car collisions. As a result of that last sentence, I am sometimes asked how I handle such tragedies, what helped me escape such an ending, why are you different, Stan? etc. My answer to that is Jesus Christ and the following is our story – mine, my family’s and my relationship to God, my Heavenly Father. In 1966, my father was working for a...

I am feeling somewhat melancholy this evening and am treating it with some good and loud Dire Straits. Some of their live versions on Sultans of Swing and Money for Nothing are so great and listening to them put me there and out of my darkening mood. Here in Turlock, it’s dark, cold and rainy and the weather was pulling me into its vortex of grayness. Then, I listened to a ten minute version of Sultans with Mark Knopfler and crew which they performed in Sydney, Australia in 1986. Knopfler’s guitar work would be plenty but in this rendition they employed a guy to play saxophone which just brought it up a couple of notches. Hearing the audience clap, whistle and scream placed me there in the center of all that energy. I love listening to music. I listen and sing along but the only thing I can play is the radio. I’ve been thinking a lot about my girls, grandkids, and beautiful wife who all love and appreciate me. Thinking about them is really helping me to work through the pain of Danie...

 This is how the nurse put my hat on me. Unacceptable!  Today I had an electro cardioversion in an attempt to get my heart back into a regular rhythm. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my heart went into atrial fibrillation due, likely, to Daniel’s suicide. The procedure was performed at Kaiser in Modesto and I am thankful to report that it worked. I was concerned about having it done but found during my research that it is effective 90% of the time and there is only a 1% chance that something would go wrong. Everyone I talked to who had it done or knew a family member who had it said it was successful. Nonetheless, I am a Faddis and it seems that “bad things” happen to Faddises.   I made sure that Linda knows what to do in the event of my death regarding our finances, computer passwords and my pension. I then joked a lot about dying, seeing you on the “other side” and who she might find to replace me as a husband. She said that no one could replace me b...