P.S. - Gilbert Emerson Revisited

My previous post came rushing out of me in a frenzy. Since publishing it, I have had a lot of time to think about what I left out of it, which is, of course, a lot. The most important part of his life well lived was his impact on the people around him.

The first huge impact he had was on his brother Jim, who was born paraplegic to a farm family, in which pulling your weight was paramount. Gilbert was my Uncle Jim's best friend to the end of Jim's life. During their childhood together, they figured out ways to include a paraplegic boy in every aspect of their life. Gilbert built transportation devices for getting him around the farm, carried him around the neighborhood on his bike, insisted on including him as plate umpire in baseball games, and helped figure out ways to make it possible for Jim to do his share of chores with some device or gadget they would invent and manufacture. In an early indication of the direction his life would take, Gilbert was the illustrator of the bird books he and Jim produced. Jim wrote the text, Gil drew the pictures. When they got mad at each other, they would each tear up their half of the bird book. Then they'd make up and start over.

During his time in the Navy, Gil was an excellent morale booster. His wacky sense of humor and upbeat attitude were just what was needed during those grim years. He did impressions of the celebrities of the day - such as Jack Benny and Rochester, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In one instance, he hid behind the radio, which was huge enough to hide behind, and did a long Roosevelt speech which included the story of those brave men in uniform fighting the war from the little town of Vero Beach, Florida. He had them mesmerized for a short time, until he got so specific, even naming names, that they knew it wasn't really FDR. 

After the war, he married Wynifred, and a year later they had their first son, Jack. My dad was a good dad to both of us, even though my mother insisted that he refrain from being affectionate so that we didn't grow up to be sissies. He was always involved in our lives, gave us baths, helped us build things, took us with him when he could. When Jack was in second grade, Gilbert became president of the PTA in Odenton Elementary. He was president when the Supreme Court handed down their decision that segregation was unconstitutional. Gil refused to consider all the mighty protests that were thrown down. He told them that he would cooperate with the decision, and if they didn't like it they could vote him out of office. They didn't.

He and my mother were largely responsible for forming a Cub Scout pack in Odenton. He was Cubmaster for many years, and my mother was a den mother for many more. One really cool thing I remember from the Cub Scout years was a thing he built for ceremonies. When he asked Akela for a sign that He was with them, an arrow suddenly appeared, stuck into a target. In later years, I realized that the arrow was inside the target, spring loaded to pop out suddenly so that it seemed as if it had been shot from beyond. Show biz.

He was always very involved in Boy Scouts. He was Scoutmaster sometimes, Assistant Scoutmaster sometimes, and went camping with us whenever his schedule permitted. My favorite adventure (and his too, I believe) was a week-long canoe trip, 87 miles down the Potomac River, sleeping under the stars on the river banks in the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland. He took a lot of pictures on Kodachrome, and after we got home and rested up, he and I created a slide show with two carousels of slides and a reel-to-reel tape with his narration and music. We presented it several times to Scouting groups in the area that were thinking about doing the same trip. We recommended it highly.

When we moved to Vero Beach, one of the services he tried to market was slide show production. We did several, most notably one for Mel Fisher, the famous seeker of sunken treasure. Is it any wonder, then, that my project for High School Communications class was a very dramatic slide show with music? Or that I was a sound technician in community theatre years before I built sets. But I digress.

One of the first big projects we did in Vero Beach was a bit of show biz. 1969, our first full year living there, was the 50th anniversary of the incorporation of the City of Vero Beach. The Indian River Citrus Bank hired us to build a full-size replica of the front of a 1919 Model T Ford for people to sit in and have their picture taken in front of a street scene of 14th Avenue as it was in 1919. At sixteen, I was in awe of his ability to transform ordinary objects into windshield, headlights, grill and radiator cap, not to mention drawing and painting the street scene. When we were done, the pictures looked for all the world like people were coming down 14th Avenue in a Model T. I was proud.

Gilbert was in business there for about twenty years. We worked together for my three years of high school, and then for nine years before I married Carmen and we moved to St. Cloud. During that time he developed a devoted pool of clients and vendors. The thing I liked best about it, however, was his willingness to take on young people with no experience in graphic art (me being the first) and teach them the business. He preferred people who had no formal art schooling, because he didn't have to deal with the know-it-all attitude. He could teach them what he needed them to know how to do, and they were grateful for it. Most notably, my friend Craig, a brilliant guitar player and singer. His family was always struggling, due to the sketchy opportunities for brilliant musicians in the little city. But I knew that he also could draw. The thing that told me that he was a good candidate for the Gil Emerson School of Art was the fake license plate expiration sticker he put over his expired sticker. I had to get very close to it to see that it was hand drawn. I brought him in in '82, and he stayed with my dad until a year or so after I left in '87. Craig and his family also lived in one of Gil and Wyni's rental properties for nearly twenty years, their longest stay in any one dwelling.

The rental properties were another matter. For one thing, helping him with repairs and maintenance taught me a lot (mostly it taught me to not be a landlord) and for another, it was a platform from which to help people along. Sure, he got screwed now and then, but there's a much longer list of families who are forever grateful to him and my mother for their compassion and flexibility, including Craig's family.  

Then they moved to Smokey Mountain Estates in Blairsville, Georgia. I am truly grateful for the help and support given to both my parents, but mostly my dad, by his neighbors on the mountain. Mary and Darrell just down the hill have been wonderful friends to them, providing companionship, gluten-free beer, dinners out and in their home, and transportation above and beyond. Ted and Ray and Chip and the rest have all been helpful and fun to have around. I personally attended the 70th anniversary party, which provided us a brief respite from a long siege with my mother in the hospital; and the Goodbye Gil party in February, with Gil Emerson wildlife paintings as party favors for the guests to take home. Both parties featured live entertainment, as well as story telling, gifts and good wishes.

And let us not forget Rachel. She married my brother in 1986, divorced him ten years later, but remained the devoted daughter-in-law for as long as my parents lived, which was thirteen years beyond the death of my brother. In 2013, six months after Gil's stroke, she moved from Denver to Blairsville to be there for my parents. Living in their house quickly became impossible with my mother's dementia, but she got an apartment nearby and continued to help them out with whatever they would let her do. It was a great comfort to us to have her there, and to my dad as well. Luckily, she still loves living in Blairsville.

Anyhoo, perhaps you can tell that the biggest impact he had on anybody, was on me. From him I got my patience and calm demeanor, my love of inventing and building interesting things, my facility with sound technology and my  wacky sense of humor. All of those attributes have served me well over the years and decades. And the long history of doing things as a team served us both well as we navigated life together as hospice patient and care giver.

The Wizard of Oz said, "A heart isn't measured by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." My daddy had a huge heart.