My Ramblings

There is a door in our garage that opens to a 6x8 foot storage closest. I dread opening the door to inventory what’s inside that closet because it contains Daniel’s possessions. He lived with us prior to his death and I assigned him that storage area when he moved in. It is packed full from floor to rafters. The plan was for Daniel to move everything he left here, including his gun safe, and clothes at the end of June to his apartment in the Bay Area prior to his wedding on July 21. Going into the gun safe was less a problem because I knew more or less what was in there. Although, the safe did have in it a couple of “surprises” such as a gazillion rounds of ammunition od various calibers including five boxes of shotgun shells containing buckshot, nun chucks, throwing stars and 20+ knives of various sizes and styles. It has been more than six months since he died and I honestly do not know when I’ll be ready to sift through all that is in that closet. As a point of reference, my Mom ...

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 but then I caught her on the computer looking at dating sites. J/K We got to...

Linda and I went to the cemetery today to visit Daniel’s grave. I sat in the truck as I am unable to walk up the small hill on the thick grass without fear of falling down. Daniel is buried about 100 feet from the road. Linda went and stood there for a while. This was a good thing because I believe she needed some time alone with our son. She came back to the truck and we held each other while we cried. Although the pain of our loss has begun to subside, we have moments when it hits us again that our son is gone from this world; out of reach. Gone is his presence, his largeness of life, his dry sense of humor and his gentleness which he attempted to hide under a rough exterior. These moments of sadness hit us without expectation. When they come to me, I cry for a bit and then get myself under control. Last week, I opened a drawer and there was a picture of him on top that I had put in there and forgotten. Certain songs get me. One of these is a Don Williams song titled, “If Hollyw...

Back in the late 70’s I met a young man like myself who eventually came to be my best male friend. I say “late 70’s” because I only recall it was 1977 or 1978. You’ll have to excuse me for not recalling certain details of events that occurred over 30 years ago. I specify “male friend” because as a married man, I am required by political correctness and my own safety to profess that my best friend is my wife, Linda, who has been chained to me for nearly 33 years and has done a stellar job at it, I might add. At any rate, Bill Dobos and I became friends when we met at San Jose Bible College. He came to the school from Southern California. He entered into our circle of friends which included Rick Criscione, George Gardner, Mike Huskey Dennis McGuire and Mark Thompson. (Please note that the preceding names are in alphabetical order so there can be no argument about any particular guy’s importance or lack thereof). Because I did not have wealthy parents to pay my tuition,...

In college I befriended several people with whom I remain in contact. When we are together now, talk often turns to our days at San Jose Bible College where we met. One of these people is Rick Criscione and we now happen to live in the same town, Turlock, CA, go to the same church and remain friends. Rick grew up in San Jose and attended Yerba Buena High School from where he graduated in 1976, making him about one year younger than me. I was already at SJBC when he arrived. I don’t recall how we met, other than it was a small campus with about 200 students in attendance. But we eventually got acquainted and became pals. Rick came to the school with two other guys he had grown up with – Mark Thompson and Rodney Williams and there are stories about them, too, but that’ll have to wait. The following school year Rick and I decided to be roommates and began looking for an apartment. Another student, Steve Walker, said he was also looking for roommates and he had already put a deposit o...

One of my favorite stories about my two brothers, Jeff and Kevin, and me is about a particular fishing trip. We fished together quite a bit, all over several counties in our area including Stanislaus, Merced, Tuolumne and San Joaquin. Usually, we took an old green metal Coleman ice chest on our expeditions in which we put our lunch and soda pop. Later in the day we put our catch in it whether it be fish or bullfrogs. One day we ended up on the Merced River, downstream from Lake McSwain and east of Snelling, CA. An elderly woman owned the property on the Merced where we liked to fish. She had given our dad permission to fish there many years before and then also let us have access. The river there had a dam which was designed to allow the water to run over its top, slowing down the flow into shallows in which we could wade and fish. The Merced contains trout, salmon, bass, crappie, perch, bluegill and catfish. At the time of this story which occurred in 1974, I was 17, Jeff was 16 ...

Today I offer some reminisces about my little brother, Jeffrey who was 15 months my junior. It would take a book to tell just the stories I know about him, let alone the dozens of those that have been told to me by others. So this will not be the only recounting of his life in this blog, but it’s a start. Most people called him Jethro Bodeen or just Bodeen, and it fit him so well. His true initials were JB (as in Jeffrey Bert) but he was given his nickname by one of his second grade classmates who was not fond of Jeff. The TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies was popular at that time and the kid thought it was funny to dub him Jethro Bodeen because of his manner of talking, his “redneck” behavior and that he appeared to not possess a lot of “book learnin’.” The nickname stuck with him the rest of his life until his untimely demise at age 46. In school, Jeff was enrolled in an EH (educationally handicapped) class. He was hyperactive for which he was prescribed the drug of choice at that ...