Now, some of you may say that my papa never made it to all fifty states. He
died in Oklahoma before he ever got the chance to see Minnesota. But my
family and I don’t feel the same way that you do. After he died, we had a
funeral service for him in Florida. My grandma has a hard time moving
around. She doesn’t have ALS, but she’s old, and that’s just what happens.
My aunt, uncle, and cousins all flew down to be there too. All of papa’s
friends from college, the Navy, and his co-workers from the submarine
company were there. Papa met a lot of people as he was going to every state.
I didn’t talk a whole lot about that, but he didn’t just step over the
borders, and take photos. He became involved in people’s lives, and they
remembered him later. People heard of his accomplishment, and because of my
dad’s work with the news, it made it into national news. Everyone knew that
he had died, and they knew when the funeral was. They even had to move the
service to a bigger room, because there wasn’t enough space in the one we
had booked. When it was all over, we took papa’s cremains up to Minnesota.
When you die, you might be buried in the ground, but they also may turn your
body into ashes. It may be scary, but a lot of people want this to happen to
them, and that’s what my papa wanted. We spread his ashes in the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota. Papa loved forests, so we thought
that it was a good place to do it. Don’t worry, we asked for permission
first. Some of the ashes are still in a little urn on our mantel. We had the
special map framed, and it’s hanging on the wall right above it. The rest of
the ashes will stay in Minnesota forever. I think that’s fitting. My papa
went to all fifty states in the United States of America. I think that’s
pretty amazing. Thank you for watching and listening to my presentation
about my papa.
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