Rough week

Perry Dewitt Brantley b. 1946, d. 2007
A good man died recently, and he was Ron's uncle. Perry Dewitt Brantley passed away on Sept. 18 at his home in Capitola. He was like a father to Ron and it has been a very emotional week, to say the least. Lotsa tears and fond memories and more tears... and that's life.
Perry was...
- ... a wonderful son, uncle, father and grandfather.
- ... a Navy vet, who did two tours during the Vietnam conflict. On the high seas, he served for a time under (then lieutenant) Sen. Kerry on the USS Gridley, and remembers Kerry dropping in on a bar one night and telling the guys not to get into any trouble.
- ... big on fast cars. Bought a Plymouth Road Runner and a Datsun 240Z the years they arrived and looked pretty damned cool in them.
- ... a great self-taught tennis player. For a star high school football-type guy, this seemed like something that might be a stretch. But this was Perry, and it worked. He became an A-level singles player by USTA standards and taught me well enough that I went on to play in high school, college and a stint on the pro tour in Europe... thanks to Perry.
- ... one-half of the double sax attack in the popular 1960s Santa Cruz band Corny and the Corvettes, a staple at high school and major dance hall gigs all along the central California coast. They were cool teens who ruled the Cocoanut Grove at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (1965 Battle of the Bands champs!) and many other venues. Some of them really stuck with the music thing too. Band founder and sax man Cornelius Bumpus went on to fame with the Doobie Brothers and Moby Grape, and scored a Grammy with Steely Dan. Bassist Dick Yount went on to be one of the founding members of Harper's Bizarre ("Feelin' Groovy" was their big hit). Drummer Johnny Craviotto went on to collaborate with Neil Young, Ry Cooder and Arlo Guthrie. Craviotto attended Perry's funeral and had some very kind words to share. His final words as he passed the casket, "I'll always love you man."

Perry leaves a son Michael, a daughter Alexis and one grandchild, Tatiana (and Logan on the way). I'll post some pictures of Perry and the band after I scan them. For now, it's back to missing a guy a whole lot of people loved.
- Ron

Bye Bye Baby Yoga

Summer waves bye-bye now and points to the moon when we ask her, "Where's the moon?" Also, she has outgrown our mommy-baby yoga class. I'm really going to miss it! I remember when she was the yongest baby in the class. No more! She's just too mobile now. No more laying there like a newborn baby blob. She crawls all over the place. It's hardly relaxing. It looks something like this:
Me: Doing pyramid pose.
Summer: Trying to pull up on my leg.
Me: Hoping Summer doesn't fall on her head on the hardwood floor.
Summer: Biting me on the calf.
Me: Saying "Ow Summer. Don't bite mommy."
Ya, not very yogic. She loved her teacher Mara though. Every time Mara would walk by during class, Summer would clap and smile trying to get her attention.

Summer and Mara 9/14/07

Oh well, when one door opens (yada yada yada.......) She's moved on to mommy-baby swimming class and she loves it! What a little fish! She's already putting her head under the water. Her Auntie Junior (Julie) says she has three water signs in her astrological chart. I'm not really a big astrology person but I guess that means she likes water.

Smoochers.

Back to Blogging

I've been avoiding the computer lately. Well, first I broke it. Ron, the nice guy that he is, says it's not my fault that the computer crashed, but I see the look of terror in his eyes anytime I try to do something technological around the house. It's the same look I have when Ron approaches the campfire that I just built. We call him 'water.'

Now that I'm over my technophobia, I can finally catch up on my blogging and all the milestones Summer has reached in the last two weeks. It's hard to keep up!

As you can see from Ron's last photo blog, we had a wonderful Labor Day holiday and enjoyed our visit with the family. Summer loved having her cousin Sofia around.

First of all, Summer started crawling! Yes our whole world has changed. Anything that we don't want Summer to play with she finds. Forget those boring toys! There are cabinets to open, remote control buttons to push and Buster's water bowl to dump over. To say the least, we have been very busy child proofing the house.

She also does this funny downward dog pose. Sometimes we swear she's going to get up and start walking!

We love hearing the little clicking sound she makes with her tongue when we snap our fingers. I think her Grammy Jennifer taught her that! In fact she's doing a lot of 'talking,' making new sounds all the time. Grandma Doris was quite amused by her chattiness when we went out to dinner. She gabbed for the entire time we were at the restaurant!

She also starting eating crackers and drinking from a straw which is most enjoyable with her 7 teeth. She has 4 on the bottom and three on top.

Labor Day

Sofia says "Cheese!"

Martell

Surfers at Steamers Lane.

Sofia and Tatianna say and display "cheese." Nice move Sofia!

Doris directing traffic at the backyard BBQ.