So Long Ron

My ex-father-in-law Ron Olson died last Saturday morning and that was a bit of a blessing since it had a fairly significant stroke two weeks before with many of his communicative and mobility skills significantly impacted. Ron Olson had just celebrated his 90^th birthday last month and he lived a full life much of which was in Iona, Idaho.

I think I liked Ron Olson so much because he was a bit of a maverick, a freethinker pretty much traveling his own path which I've always felt was pretty rare in the environments in which he lived. I divorced Ron's daughter 20 some years ago and have had limited contact with the individual sense. We had two children which equals two grandchildren to Ron. Since my family moved from the family home base of Iona Idaho my kids had limited contact with their maternal grandfather. There are of course many extenuating circumstances for this isolation much of which I don't understand how do I care to understand. But many of the Olsens know I have contact with my children. So it was only natural that members of the Olson family notified me of Ron's passing and asked for contact information to my son and daughter. I felt more comfortable just notifying the kids via social networking I. E. Facebook. I know there are ways to do this that will only inform the readers you want to read a specific post. But I'm lazy and basically put it out on my regular Facebook account. Of course many of my people responded as if I lost somebody very very close like a father. Indeed, I've enjoyed the paternal some relationship with a man but his passing, though sad, was more of an interest then a loss to me and even less to one of my kids to is fairly well estranged from the rest of her family-- those are my thoughts and my long-- I hope I've got this right. Anyway, they know and if they want to respond/act accordingly I'm sure there will. We were just not close on that level. So I have had to post some history of my relationship with Ron Olsen in doing so sure brings back a rush of memories: good bad or indifferent.

What I remember most of Ron Olson was of his support of me and my family during the challenging time of our lives. He gave what he could, living long distance from us. I was always impressed. Ron was a navigator on a bomber during World War II, he actually taught navigation and later taught school all those days allowing him the most control of his life. Ron was the inventor, thinker and a downright friendly fellow. My favorite expression of Ron's was “ he always got a have a good Catholic friend”. I don't know why he said this except he must've met a couple friends of ours in an earlier marriage who were Catholic and really our only friends at the time. But it always made sense. Farewell Ron, thanks for your support and acceptance over the years and taking interest in my children as you have.