Yogi & Linda

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JERRY!

(aka "YOG", "YOGI")

January 30th

Not only do we want to wish yo the happiest of days on your birthday and always, we want to THANK YOU for all you have given us as a family. Your great wit has humored us, your courage and strength has inspired and healed us, your compassion and kindness has taught us, your ability to love cannot be expressed in words. You have given so much to us all just by being you. From all your "way older" siblings we love you and Happy, Happy Birthday!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Toe, Geno, Ne-Ne, Sha (aka Gooch), Ba, Ish, (and John, Cole & Chelsea), & Doy (this looks like something from "Secrets of the Code!)

Toast Masters

"ICE BREAKER SPEACH"

I'm Guilty

by Jerry Mark

I'm guilty, guilty of having a wonderful life? And these are just a few of the wonderful moments from my life that I would like to share with you today.

Now, the first ingredient of a wonderful life starts with a surprise. Mine was to my parents - letting them believe they would only have seven children. But then I arrived late...in their late forties. Three months later my picture was back in the paper showing my two front teeth. When life is this good you don't want a gummy smile.

I learned at an early age junk yards could be a wonderful place to find things; such as: broken mixers and blenders that I could take apart and put back together, using my paramount childhood discovery- Dads tools!

By the age of five I had my own tools. And every motorized anything, I owned, was disassebled. I had to investigate how a battery could make a bail of wires inside of a magnet spin! During this period of time, the TV Repairman came to fix our BW Philco Ford TV. This was a doubly wonderful day in my life (as it turned out) ! I was running my naked motors on the floor in front of the TV, when I noticed this made white specs on the TV's screen. I ask why? The man said he did know, but to stop doing it. I did! And that's when I noticed his black tool case ajar. Inside I could see handles in every color of the rainbow, my eyes bloomed, I saw for the first time.....electronic tools!

Born from this day was my intense curiosity of "how things work" and my love for precision tools. However, I never forgot the question I asked that day and years later I answered it.

At twelve I was an uncle six times over, with four younger nieces, and one niece my age and one niece four years older. That's when Dad decided to build the family room and asked me to help do the electrical wiring. He knew of my ability in electricity, with the added plus of having my own tools! Of course by now I was looking at mail order tool catalogs from Jensen Tool Co. in Phoenix, Arizona. The creme de la creme of precision tool catalogs.

With high school came electronics, new friends, the soccer team, and my first plane ride in a Cesna 150....which I parachuted from at 5000 feet. High school ended with some awards, old friends, and a tuition scholarship in chemistry.

A year later a chemistry explosion occured at the University, it was beyond wonderful, it was Linda. We were promised by firelight on snowy christmas eve, a year later engaged at dusk on the shore of Lake Luzern, in Switzerland, and married the following year on a warm August day under a watchful oak tree.

Five years later, we moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, which is where I started with Tek. The first week on the job, I attended a local business show with my manager, which included dinner and door prizes. Uh, the second ingrediant of ta wonderful life: winning things! I won the grand door prize, a $250 digital meter. But the real prize for me came at the dinner that followed; I sat next to the president of Jensen Tool company.

The Family Boat

Sam, the family Beagle, was given his first swimming lesson. Veto, tossed him overboard. Kick your feet, Sam, Veto said. Sam started to sink. Randy, dived in saving him.

Linda was given her first swimming lesson. Veto, tossed her overboard. Kick your feet! Paddle with your arms, Linda!, Veto said. Linda started to sink. Randy, dived in saving her.

After a day of boating on the lake, it was time to load the boat on the trailer. Jane backed the trailer down the launch in to the water. Veto idled the boat in the water. Then carefully and gently maneuvered the boat in to the half submerged boat trailer, then securing the boat, or not! Punch it Jane!, commanded Veto. She does, the Boat and Veto bounce several times on the concrete launch area. Linda and Randy laugh on the inside but display stultified expressions from a safe distance.

After a day of boating, in the canyon with neighbors, it time to go home. Veto is driving the car, Jane and Randy are riding in front. Little Linda, is sandwiched between the neighbor couple in the backseat. The boat in toe, or not! From the backseat, the man calmly says, Veto, youre boat is passing you. Galvanized out of highway drone and KFC coma, ten saucer sized eyes looked out the drivers side windows at a passing boat and trailer. The boat and trailer were perfectly level, as if being pulled by an invisible car going 45 MPH down a canyon road. Up ahead, a curve having evenly spaced ties about two feet high and spaced a foot apart but without a guard rail. The trailer tongue squarely impacted the tie, partially unearthing it, but stopping it.

There remains so many more stories Linda has conveyed to me over the years her first and last deer hunting adventure with Veto her cat that loved to lick its paws after coming out from under the kitchen counter where the open sugar sack was kept

Jerry Mark

Art of the Wheelie

Stories about Linda from Jerry....

The Minibike

Twenty-five cents for gas and another for S&W stamped black licorice sticks would get you there and back. Evaporating a portion of a Summers day, this two wheeled adventurer would begin her clandestine maneuvers through subdivision streets, down back roads, across dry farms, and deer trails. Finally, arriving at the Oaker Mountains where she would leap the minibike out from the sagebrush on to an unpaved, seemingly, derelict highway cut into a mountain side. Twisting back on the throttle, her illegal access was ratted-out only by the rpms of her motor - a chainsaw engine held hostage inside a steel frame. After many zigzags, Knivelinda, would come upon the slowly traveling reason for which this highway existed its denizen.

A view from a height, roughly two stories, might reveal the agog facial expression of the driver in the crows nest, as he looked down to witness an animated silhouette passing him, in the shadows made by his machine. A small hunched body gripping raised-V-handlebars, hair blown back, seat out of the saddle with knees bent to absorb every shock and rattle of excitement the frame anxiously translated to the rider. At this critical moment, it was mono to mono for the power plants. The unbridled chainsaw engine was rapped out; bucking forward to overtake the 2500 HP Detroit diesel engine. The minibike passed, chain oil spewed, the power plant discrepancy was made up by the spirit of the rider.

Passing within yards of revolving tire-tread - above eye level - supporting 260 tons of Uke truck would immediately shutdown any reasonable persons sensory overload mechanism, but not Lindas? What would? Not getting home in time to for lunch! And, otherwise having to explain to Mom, her Sally to the top of the Worlds largest open pit copper mine.

Linda

Karen's Early Memories of Jerry

The first and most prominent memory I have of Jerry is the first time I met him. He was 3 years old and Tony took me home to meet his family. You can imagine how tense things were to start with - everybody wanted to impress everybody else. Tony immediately took Jerry in the kitchen and gave him some big bucks - like 25 or 50 cents - and told him to keep his mouth shut. Well that lasted about 20 minutes. Then Jerry asked loudly, "Tony, wheres Lulabell?" - or whatever his last girlfriends name was. There was a few minutes of silent squirming until we all decided it was funny. Actually, it helped to break the ice and we were more relaxed afterwards. So Jerry got to keep his money even though he squealed.

He was very easy to fix breakfast for. When he wanted an egg, Ma would take one out of the fridge, break it on a saucer and hand it to him. He would slurp it down raw - and cold. It shivered my timbers every time, and I wonder if he still eats them like that.

If you ever wanted to find Jerry when he was little, you just had to find Pa. Jerry was his Dads little shadow - He really loved his Dad.

I watched him grow into a handsome teenager complete with smarts and athletic ability. Then he turned into a wonderful and responsible adult. There is a huge generation gap between Jerry and me, but I love to talk to him and value his friendship. I always wish him and Linda all the best. Happy Birthday, Jerry.

Love you, Karen

Jerry Mark

Jerry's Soccer Days