He had good and bad days, it wasn't hard to tell when he had a good day. He was more himself, he was able to express what he wanted without frustration, and most of all he was happy. When I saw him it made me sad; I would never really get to know what he was like. I was too young to care about spending time with him, and by the time I did, The dementia had eaten away at his personality.

But that day he was different, better, more himself. He was cracking jokes and getting in trouble with my mom for his crude humor. Teaching me cuss words in different languages. He began to tell stories. “Have I ever told you about the one about George” Charlie said with his shaky voice “Who's George?” I asked. “My spider monkey, well he was my spider monkey.” “You had a spider monkey!?” I said with excitement “Yep,” Charlie said, clearing his throat and taking a long breath.

When I was still in the Navy we had made a stop over in Thailand for whatever reason; and this was sometime after Vietnam so it was early 70’s so,71,72 I don’t know. But anyways we had some free time so decided to head over to the floating markets.

 “The floating markets?” I asked. 

Yeah, it's a bunch of boats and barges on a canal and it's basically a market on the water. I went to check out the market because why not, I needed something to do. In my wandering around I saw a spider monkey for sale, I felt bad for it but also thought it would be cool to have one as a pet. So I bought it.

 “You bought a spider monkey?!” I chuckled.  

Well yeah, I didn't want him to have to stay in his cage, and it was funny. Although I now had a new spider monkey I had no idea what to do when we had to get back on our plane.

When the plane came into view I put my jacket on and wrapped George around my chest and zipped my jacket up. And quickly walked in. I let everybody know that I was there and hurried to find George a hiding spot. I put him down with the cargo and strapped him in with some food so he would keep it down. When the time came for takeoff, I sat silently waiting for George to make some kind of sound but he never did. When we reached the correct altitude I stood up and went to check on George. He was fine eating his snack and just looking around. So I headed back up the cockpit, and as soon as I sat down I heard him start to howl. I looked over to my commanding officer as he stood up and started walking to the back of the plane. I slowly followed him to the back of the plane. When he looked at George he then looked back at me and said “ Charlie, he has to be off the plane before we land ''. How the hell am I gonna get a monkey off a plane mid-flight, at that moment I looked down at one of the parachutes on the floor and knew what I had to do. I unstrapped George from his seat and held him while I grabbed the parachute. I Headed to the front of the plane and told the guys up front to bring it low and slow. I opened one of the doors while the plane briskly flew over the forest. I opened up George's chute and bundled it up. I said goodbye to George; Then I threw him out. 

And don't worry I looked, and I did see the parachute open and Float down to the trees.

That story may have seemed silly to me at the moment but I now realize the lessons he was teaching me. One, it's a stupid idea to bring a monkey on an airplane, and two, never take the great people in your life for granted because you have limited time together.

To this day my mom and I still wish we would have recorded Grandpa telling his stories. He was truly himself that day; we think he realized that. He realized that was going to be one of his last good days, that he had to get his stories out while he could. Tell about his life and pass it on to the next generation.