Dave Alway memorial

I have just returned from my weekend trip to Otsego for the memorial for Dave Alway, the kind and generous filker whose death shocked us when we got home from GaFilk.

The trip started painfully early but without incident, with birder2 arriving at my house on time and with us leaving only a minute or two after the planned time of 7 AM.  We drove up Indiana 63 to US 41, jumped over to I-65 on Indiana 10, and picked up I-94 at Gary.  All was without incident until traffic came to a complete stop when we were almost at Kalamazoo.  Luckily, the traffic backup was timed just so that after I'd been literally stopped for a couple of minutes, I was able to edge around the semi in front of me onto the last exit before M-131 and take a surface street detour (which was marked once we got onto it, but if there was a sign that said "save yourself! get off here" before the exit, I didn't see it.  From M-131 the directions peteralway had provided were quite sufficient to get us to Glimmerglass House, where I signed the log, rang the gong (which very few people did, in spite of the sign right there exhorting them to), and started greeting people and taking some pictures.  (I will not be doing anything with the pictures tonight; I am dead tired and want to go to bed, but I do want to write some of this.)

I'm fortunate enough to not be a seasoned critic of memorial observances, but the non-religious "service" led by brother Bob, consisting of his and the other siblings' remembrances, was both more authentic and more touching than most that I've been to.  As was fitting for the memory of Dave, the memories were happy and humorous, and I think there was more laughter than tears in the formal memorial.

( arbitrarily cut here 'cause this got long )