The funeral of Vincent Craig, Part 2: A few of the physical things he left behind

This has become a bit more difficult for me than I anticipated. After the funeral, burial and lunch Friday, I returned to Hon-Dah intending to get everything posted before I went to bed. I reached LeeAnn's house at about 6:00 PM. She had gone to Phoenix to pick Margie up at the airport and they planned to overnight and spend most of Saturday there, so LeeAnn left me a note on when and how much to feed the dogs and noted that she usually does so at 7:00.

I felt extremely tired, temporarily incapable of doing anything. So I lay down and dozed in and out of a nap for an hour during which time the songs of Vincent Craig, interwoven with the Mormon hymns from my past that had been performed at his funeral, played in my head.

I then got up, fed the dogs, rummaged through LeeAnn's fridge and found the leftovers from a turkey-potato casserole that she had fed me two nights before, along with a salad and some zucchini stuffed with cream cheese. I warmed these in the microwave and fed myself.

Afterwards, I took the dogs on a walk and it was a bit chaotic. Maybe I will tell you about walking those dogs in another post.

I had completely run out of space both in my computer and the external harddrive that I had brought with me and had no place to download the days photos, nor did I have any money, not in cash, not in available credit, to go to Wal-Mart to pick up another harddrive.

So I spent some time in the external hardrive seeking out photo folders that I knew I had copies of back in Wasilla and then, when they added up to enough space to allow me to move the day's take in, I deleted them.

My plan then was to download my photos onto the external drive and work off it, but it is a USB drive, my card reader is USB and I had only one USB cable with me, so I could not. So I selected a number of photo files from within my laptop and then set them to copying into the drive. This took about half-an-hour, during which I did some channel surfing on LeeAnn's TV, but never stayed on any one show for more than a minute or two.

Then I erased the folders that I had copied from my computer, unplugged the external hard drive, plugged in the card reader and started the downloading process.

In time, everything was in my computer, so I drove over to the Hon-Dah Casino, where they have a good, strong, wireless connection. I sat down about 10:15 PM but before I began to edit my pictures, I checked and responded to email and paid a couple of quick visits to a few places on the web.

Finally, at about 11:00 PM, I turned my attention to the editing, thinking that maybe I could get everything done in 4 hours, 3:00 AM, which, as regular readers know, is not an uncommon schedule for me.

But I could not do it. I could not pull up a single photograph on my editor and look at it. I had "hit the wall."

I called Margie in Tempe, where she and LeeAnn had checked into a motel. "Go to bed," she said.

So I did. I slept reasonably well for about four hours, but could not sleep a wink after that.

Why am I telling you this? I don't know. Sometimes, I just put my fingers on the keyboard, not knowing where they are going to go and they just take off and do things like this to me.

I will stop now. Suffice it to say that Saturday was a busy and broken-up day, but I did do an initial photo edit of both days, the visitation and the funeral, and at 2:00 AM this morning, I was organizing the photos that I intended to put in this post - those from the visitation. I was trying to decide what sample image of a Vincent Craig cartoon I should use, what sample image of the photos that were on display and what sample of a Vincent Craig artifact - should it be his saddle? His guitar? His climbing gear? The display of his cowboy hats?

And then it struck me: this is a blog. Why do I need to have just one of each up? I could put a bunch in, and that would give readers familiar with Vincent Craig a reminder of the man they loved and those unfamiliar with him a glimpse that they would not otherwise have.

So I decided that I would go to bed, get up and do just that.. So here is Vincent Craig, as seen through the physical items that he left behind, starting above, on the stage in the LDS church house in Fort Apache, where part of the display of his life had been placed.

A number of his cartoons had been placed on the back wall. This is one that he did when he was working with me at the Fort Apache Scout.

Vincent's rock climbing gear, with a portrait of Vincent and his wife Mariddie, who he always called Ann.

A few of the cartoons hung on the wall.

One of his guitars, and keyboard.

Self-explanatory.

His friend Rich, who played guitar with him just about every week, says this black guitar was his favorite. Vincent's Mandolin.

Vincent Craig's Navajo Superhero, Mutton Man. The sheep herder gained his super powers after he and his herd waded into water contaminated by a uranium mine on the Navajo reservation; a sheep drank the water and the herder ate the sheep. Thus he became, Mutton Man.

Scenes from Vincent's life.

This is another cartoon that he did when he was working with me, well over 30 years ago. Keep in mind that not only legal residents of Hispanic origin could find themselves grilled and harassed under Arizona's controversial new immigration law, but so could Navajos, Apaches and any Native American.

More scenes from the life of Vincent Craig.

Again - self explanatory.

Vincent's saddle and rope.

More scenes from Vincent's life.

His take on the argument about who "discovered" America, Christopher Columbus or the Vikings.

Vincent's cowboy hats.

Several times, during the course of the visitation and then the funeral the next day, I would catch of glimpse of someone off to the side, someone with broad shoulders with the brim of his cowboy hat curled a certain way and, for just a moment I would think...

I need to eat some breakfast now and then I want to take a long walk.

Then I will come back and try to finish parts 3 and 4, to stand as a record for those who loved Vincent but did not get to attend his funeral, for those who did and might want to remember and for those who never knew of him, so that they might wonder and learn.

Comments

[mocha]

A loving recollection of a life well-lived. Very nice memorial to your friend. Thank you for sharing this.

[Grandma Nancy]

I'm looking forward to the next installment! Thank you for including the cartoons. The cartoon on illegal aliens is priceless and should be in all of our papers nation-wide this week -- his cartoons say so much so quickly!

[twain12]

i love, love his cartoons. What an extraordinary Man and i can understand you hit a wall with everything going on.

[dahli22]

i can see why you hired vincent craig on the spot. he was gifted.

[clippingimages]

loved it..............