I Honor the Memory of my Father, Ross Bowen

My niece with my Dad the summer of 2008.

My father just passed away the other day, after a long, long battle with Parkinson's.

This guy was a man's man. Big, strong and very handsome.

He could do everything; hunting, fishing, camping, doll mending, wire hanger maker for Barbie doll clothes, and getter of 7-up for a sore throat after tonsil removal. He just seemed to be able to do everything! He even knew how to carve a potato for me to use as a paint stamp when I was in first grade! I always new I wanted a husband who could do everything like my Dad.

Dad rarely sat around lazing, until he got Parkinson's. He always did what he called "puttering",

constantly working on something or other.

He taught me how to ride a motorcycle, he taught me how to shoot a gun. He taught me to keep trying and never give up. The only thing I ever saw take him down was this ugly Parkinson's and even then he never really gave in. He worked in his yard right up to at least two hours before his death. He rode his stationary bike every day. He read every day.

AND, he loved to travel around in a car and see new sites. He always loved to car travel. He got me in more predicaments with my car while trying to show me things as I drove him around the last couple of summers - like the memorable drive down the Richfield canal road - in a CAMRY!

OR, up and over the mountain from Fishlake to where in the heck I don't know - in a CAMRY! (he said it was a good road when he went over it on his 4-wheeler!) And he'd laugh when I'd get scared and begin to scream: "I can't drive here!" He'd say "Take it slow, you can do it".

But my best memory?

I was so lucky to have worked for Eastern Airlines up until they folded in 1989. They gave free flight benefits to parents of employees. My gift to my Dad was to make the opportunity to travel something that my Mother could no longer say no to. He could not get her to travel and lamented about it many times to me. But she had to use the free tickets I gave her at least once or risk hurting my feelings! Right? She went on that first plane trip and, well, the travel bug bit Mom hard and both my Dad and Mom went EVERYWHERE after that first time!

But the dearest gift I gave my Dad (and my Dad gave back to me) was a trip by car to Alaska in September of 1990. After I was laid off from Eastern Airlines, I went back to school to get a Biology degree. I found I had about four weeks with nothing to do after summer quarter until fall quarter started and my Dad had mentioned several times earlier that he just could not get Mom to drive with him from Utah to Alaska. (She had a bad back and didn't feel up to that long of a car ride). So I and my husband cooked up a plan that my Dad would not be able to refuse - I told him that I needed a couple of more hours of credit in order to graduate and they didn't have a class I could take, but my advisor agreed to give me those two hours of credit if I wanted to go and take pictures of ecological things that I could use when teaching Biology. "So, how about if he and I went to Alaska, camped out along the way and took pictures so I could get those hours of credit?" He fell for it. And we began to plan.

Then my Mom, with seeing our excitement, decided she would go after all because she could stretch out on the back seat and I could help switch off driving with Dad. "But", she said, "we had to stay in motels as often as possible."

I had absolutely no money at that time (jobless and paying for college, my husband just starting a second career and teenage boy at home), so Mom said if I would agree to stay in motels then they would pay for all the hotels and food but I'd have to buy my own souvenirs! What a deal! And off we went. That trip has to be one of the most wonderful memories in my life. It took us 7 days to drive to Alaska, 7 days sightseeing around Alaska and 7 days to get back home. We drove an average of 500 miles per day. I can't even remember how many total miles we traveled!

I had never before in my life had my parents all to myself and I'll never forget it. But I'll especially never forget the walks with my Dad in the evenings while Mom rested on her motel bed.

I feel sorry for all the rest of you because my Dad was the best ever! Bye Dad, Love you.