Rudy's funeral

My great great uncle Rudy's funeral was yesterday. As far as funerals go, it was pretty good. I sang in the choir with some of my aunts and uncles and their cousins. Rudy and his wife, Bernice, never had any children, but they had a lot of nieces and nephews, and were very much a part of their lives.

Bernice is my grandma's aunt (although she's only about 7 year older than my grandma), she's the youngest daughter or my great great grandma and grandpa Burger, her brother was my great grandfather.

Bernice was married to Rudy for almost 66 years, which is approximately three times as many
years as I've been born. That's pretty amazing to me.

Anyway, when I was young enough to go trick or treating on Halloween, Bob and I would go trick or treating in the Woodland Hills neighborhood, where Rudy and Bernice live. So when we finished trick or treating, that's where we would end up. Rudy would always give me a lot more candy than I needed, especially since at that point in the evening I already had a pretty full bag of the stuff. While we waited for my mom to pick us up I would talk to Rudy and Bernice, pretty much nonstop (I was much more talkative as a youngster than I am now). I would babble on incessantly, not really saying anything and Rudy and Bernice would just listen and give me more candy. They seemed to genuinely interested in what I was saying (which was odd, because few other adults did, or should've from what I remember). When I got older I stopped trick or treating, but I'd try to go visit Rudy and Bernice on Halloween. Those Halloween nights still stick out in my mind as some of the best times I've ever had, and Rudy and Bernice had a lot to do with that. I think that probably has something to do with why Halloween is my favorite holiday. Halloween pretty much represents the best things about my childhood, maybe childhood in general, which I guess why I always try to make Halloween a big deal now.

Just in case you were wondering, Catholic funerals are about a quadrillion times better than Protestant funerals.

Also, I wasn't joking when I said Carolina Drama by the Raconteurs is the best track I've heard in the past two years.