A Photo of Baby Leif from Long Ago

He was so bright-eyed, so curious, so eager. He was so small here, and yet, for his age, so big. This was taken in the spring of 1975 when he was only about four or five months old. I don't think I've seen this photo since it was taken. I scanned it from an old slide that's been in a box for all those years. It's both a joy and a sorrow to see photos of him I didn't remember existed. So many memories. So hard to know he's been gone for over ten years.

Babies work so hard, trying to learn to control their muscles, raise the heads, roll over, crawl, walk, get things into their mouths. What ambition it takes. What makes them do it?

Leif did it all early. He walked at ten months. He talked early, especially for a boy. He grew fast. He took in his environment and figured things out at amazing speed.

Right now, I just want to look into those baby eyes and say, "I love you. How I wish I could tell you that again in person."

Leif's Political Views in 2004 Fit Today

From: "Leif Garretson"

Date: Wed Aug 18, 2004

My main concern with Bush, other than the fact that he is alienating our allies, [is that he] has made us even less secure by making even more of the world  hate us than already did. I considered myself a Republican previously because I am against big government and as a libertarian basically believe that the government that governs  least governs best. In past years I had a much greater fear that the Democrats would rob my freedom than the Republicans. But in the wake of the Patriot act I am far more concerned by the Republicans, which have become so radically right wing that it is beginning to resemble the beginnings of Fascism. If the Democrats  are allowed to get too much power we slip closer to becoming Soviet Russia. We have now tilted the other way and are leaning in the direction of Fascist Germany. Granted, we are not there yet, but the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance and if you wait till it gets 'too bad' it will be too late. It must be stopped now while it can still be done without a more dramatic measure.

I also find the war in Iraq unconscionable.  The idea that  we are protecting our selves by sending over a thousand Americans to die and 5 times that many to be wounded  along with 50,000 Iraqis at the expense of 4 billion with a B dollars a month to me is nothing short of criminal. Those man and woman, and those dollars, should be here at home improving the problems we have within our own borders. The war has accomplished nothing other than to make lot of Bush and Cheney cronies very rich and to get lot of far more deserving men killed.

This pattern is extremely disturbing, with our civil rights and privacy eroding to make way for a Government that more closely resembles the Mafia than a democracy. Combine that with laws that are nothing short of a prelude to Big Brother, a Republican media that tells us that to dissent is unAmerican and we should all just shut up and hail  the flag no matter how wrong those waving it are, and I am forced to conclude that the greatest enemy of American Freedom and Prosperity is not Al'Qaeda it is the Bush administration.

--------------------------------------

I was looking for another file on my computer this evening and came across this email he wrote in August 2018. He wrote it to his brother and me in response to questions from a BBC journalist about why some Republicans were leaving the party. I hadn't read it in the intervening 14 years, but I think he would have a lot to say about the current government and state of affairs. He was a PASSIONATE defender of civil rights, freedom of speech, and the Constitution. At this point, he had only been out of the Army for a little over a year, where he was a machine gunner in the infantry. He was a gun owner who thought the NRA had gone way too far. I think his comments are so apropos to our country today. He would have a lot to say, an IMPASSIONED lot to say, if he were still with us, and he would be defending Colin Kaepernick. I frequently find myself wishing he were here to talk with.

The photo was taken about two months after he wrote the email, in Kansas.

A little More Alex Silliness

I continue to find old photos I'd never seen before as I scan my mother's slides, and even ours, which I must have seen at least once years ago. This one was one my mother took at her house on Christmas Eve 1997. Leif took her fuzzy black winter hat and put it on and was acting silly, as he loved to do. That thing he is holding is one end of a Norwegian cookie called a "Krumkake" that we traditionally had for Christmas.

A month later, he enlisted in the army. Although we continued to share Christmases together, this was the last one before he was gone for several years. He had been married for a couple of years at this time, and is wearing his wedding ring. He is also wearing the silver double-sided ax necklace we brought him from Greece. It was a favorite of his, and I still have it.

I miss his silliness, his laugh, his smile, his jokes.