Where do they come from . . . and why?

I'm amazed that each day there are visitors to RememberingLeif, from all over the world, even though I post only a couple of times a month now. I wonder about these visitors. How do they come upon this blog?
They didn't know Leif, or me, yet they arrive here. It must be through the keywords on the blog, and probably often they are looking for "Leif Garrett," the singer, not my son.

But what do they think when they click on this site? Do they stay? Do they read about him? Some do, as I've found from comments, but I wonder about all the others. Like so many questions having do do with Leif's life and death, we will never know, but it's still incredible how many people have seen the blog.

Just looking at the visits from the past 24 hours and seeing four foreign countries and four US states is fascinating, but the larger statistics show that there have been visitors from all fifty states and the District of Colombia, and 120 foreign countries. Well over 30,000 visits have been logged by Blogger since April 10, 2008.

I like coming to the blog page, and to Leif's Facebook page, to remember, to reflect, and to know he is remembered in the world.

I wonder how Leif would have viewed this presidential campaign. I would have liked to have one of our lively, rip-roaring discussions about it. He would have had strong feelings and expressed them well. I can't imagine him being wholeheartedly for either candidate, but he would take his right to vote seriously.

Family Ties - Memories and the Name "Alex"

Family Ties - Clip from Episode "Smoke Alarm"

Tonight Peter discovered Family Ties playing on the Clue Channel. That brought back so many happy memories.

We were living in Japan in 1982 when Family Ties made its debut. We saw it on AFN, the Armed Forces Network, and it quickly became a huge family favorite. We all enjoyed it, but especially the boys, and they were quite the fans of Michael J. Fox as Alex.

In fact, when we were going to move from Japan to Hawaii in the summer of 1983, Peter A. convinced Leif that it was the perfect time to change his name....to Alex, and that is why, for the next 15 years, Leif went by "Alex" and why some of his friends from those years will always call him and know him as Alex. It was even hard for us to switch to "Leif."

I wonder how Leif would see the show now, if he were alive to watch it again. Would he still laugh at the situations? What would he think of Alex's conservative politics? Or would he just switch to a more intense sci-fi drama?

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for this show that my boys loved, and that brought me an "Alex" into our house....though our Alex was not much like the one on the show.

There was a time he wanted to legally change his name to Lance Alexander, but he never did.

Memories on the Neckar River

When we were in Heidelberg in June, we had a lovely walk along the Neckar River and we passed this big ring fastened into the wall along the river path. There are several of them, used to tie up boats and barges, but this particular one stands straight out and I recognized it at once, though I hadn't seen it in over thirty years.

I remembered the beautiful April day in 1978 when we were visiting Heidelberg. It might have been Easter weekend or even Easter Sunday. It was a bit chilly and spring wasn't a little late, but it was still a beautiful time for a walk along the river. Our boys saw that ring and they just HAD to hang on it. Peter Anthony could just barely grasp it and then walk his feet up along the wall, but Leif was way too short for that, so his Dad had to hold him up.

On his head, Leif has a red visor with built-in flip-down sunglasses that he just loved. I think I have another photo or two of him wearing it, and I'd forgotten all about it until I saw this picture again.

In the spring of 1978 we were living in Nurnberg, or actually Furth, and it was about a two-and-a-half hour drive to get to Heidelberg so we didn't go often to visit Peter W.'s aunts, uncles and cousins there, but every visit was a joy.

Leif was three years old and Peter Anthony was nine in these photos. Hard to believe that was 34 years ago.

I'm glad I took these photos, so that I have more than just the memory of that place and time. And I'm glad I found them and scanned them. Time is not being good to many of our older color photos. They are fading or discoloring and there's only so much I can do with PhotoShop to improve them.

So Long Ago

Peter asked me today whether I ever posted this photo, and I don't think I have. It's a sweet one of Leif with his niece Madeleine, when she was only about 17 months old, long ago in 1997. She was quite fascinated with Leif. He still had hair then and was so slim. She wanted to touch his moustache. I don't know if she had ever seen one before.

Leif enjoyed his nieces and nephew on the rare occasions when he got to see them, and they liked to climb all over him until they got to big to do so. He was a great "tree."

I'll always wonder what Leif might have been like as a father, whether he had the patience. I know he would have had love.