George Musselman – 1921 to 2022
I lost my father-in-law a week ago. He was a part of my life for the last 35 years. He lived an amazing 37,080 days (101 years, 6 months and 6 days). There were eighteen different US Presidents during his lifetime (Harding to Biden). He came of age during the Depression, became an engineer with the Michigan Highway Department and then with Michigan Bell. He fathered three daughters (“They were drafted.”), followed several years later by a son (“He was a volunteer.”). He outlived his wife, Beverly, his siblings and their spouses. He was the last of his generation. Always a voice of calm and humility. He was a wordsmith who shared his wit and wisdom to friends and family via a weekly email (“The Week”). In the nearly two decades of those weekly emails he shared the nuances of his daily life, Netflix movie reviews, his poetry and a little politics. And invariably his sense of humor. I will miss conversations with him about his youth, his extended family, his gardening and his travels. I remember one particular conversation with him when he told me about each of the cars he drove from his father’s cars in the 1930’s to the cars he owned in his senior years. I’m grateful to have known him as long as
I did.
Life Fade
A minute, a year, a hundred years,
our lives a blink in the eye of history.
Captured within the fleeting moments,
are encyclopedias of emotions.
Spanning 4.5 billion years,
the rock and seas exist.
Our sparks burn furiously,
for as long as a firefly’s glow.
Our sparks are connections,
both minute and immense.
For each of us touches others,
In ways only they may know.
George was an engineer,
of roads, buildings and family.
While he may fade away today,
he left a bright spark for each of us.
(David Shannon – 12-18-2022)
For those with a little time on your hands, the pdf below provides a sample of his quips from his weekly emails. (Text in italics is from the editors of this collection – mainly my wife and her siblings.)
ishouldgetarealhobby 