COLBY PILBRO
(Posted 2007-04-25 12:50:59 by ArchPaladin)

I don't know much about my extended family.  My parents and I would travel
down to Texas to see them perhaps once a year for a while when I was
little, but that stopped long ago.

Colby Pilbro was my father's stepfather.  My actual paternal grandfather
died from (I think) heart problems, and my grandmother remarried later in
her life.  I had very little interaction with Colby, since when we would go
down to see my extended family we would tend to spend more time with my
mother's side of the family than my father's side.  Also, he was an older
man and I was around ten, and we came from rather different backgrounds. 
His generation grew up when radio was big and you spent most of the day
outside working on the farm.  My generation grew up with TV, comic 
characters, and really bad '80's music.  Not too much in common.

I know that he was a woodworker and furniture maker - something of a dying
trade nowadays.  I remember his speech being something of a cross between
speaking, mumbling, and slurring, and I couldn't always understand what he
was saying.  He was missing a portion of one finger up to the second
knuckle.  I'm pretty sure it was the ring finger on the left hand, but I
could be mistaken.  This was from an incident with a saw, which I suppose
happens when you handle wood for a living.  He could grill venison and knew
the secrets to turn it from tough, dry meat into a tender and juicy steak
that you would always want a second helping of if you hadn't already filled
up on the first portion.

Everyone always said that he was a very gentle man, who cared much about
other people.  One time when the extended family got together he made those
little triangle shaped puzzles with the pegs that you have to complete by
leapfrogging each peg off the board until there is only one peg left.  He
made enough for all the grandchildren to take one home with them. 
Apparently, little things like this was something that he often did to
enrich everyone's life just a little.

At 10 AM yesterday he passed away, to go see what lies beyond this life. 
We will miss him, even some of us that grew up many decades later and never
got much of a chance to know who he was.

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