Andy and I had not been in close contact at all since shortly after my grandfather died in 1992. Grandpa had been predeceased by his youngest son, my father, in 1990. A few years ago, on a sentimental whim, my mother and I discovered that Uncle Andy was living in Florida very close to one of her friends, and she gave him a quick call, but he didn’t seem interested in staying in touch despite our connection to our dad.
It’s sad Uncle Andy died, of course, and in this tragic way, as he was the last member of my father’s immediate family to pass away, but I was definitely not close with him for a very long time, even though I had regular contact with him growing up.
Many of my relatives knew my Uncle Andy as “Corky”. Like my father, Andy was born in Monterey, California, so not all that far from where he died. Despite this he is being described as a Florida man, although he had lived in many places, including Scotland, Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Guam, San Diego, Alameda California and Half Moon Bay itself for years. Even more strangely was that my father started dying himself almost 22 years ago from an aneurysm when he was in Half Moon Bay on his fishing boat with my uncle, who drove him to the Saint Rose Emergency Room (in rush hour traffic) all the way to Hayward, California, where I live now and where my mother still lives. It’s kind of creepy how they both faced their death in the same town about ninety minutes’ drive north of where they were both born. My father had his ashes scattered by the Coast Guard, in which he served for 27 years, a bit further up the coast, in Marin County. My grandfather, also a veteran, had the same thing done with his and his wife’s ashes.
Coincidentally it seems like the journalist who wrote some of these article has the same last name as my uncle and me. I will cross-post a few of the articles below.
The first of these has my second cousin, Dr. Kevin Sowles, in Arizona, describing my uncle from his perspective.
