remembering charles evenson

 For a year during college I helped take care of an elderly couple: The Evensons. Charles Evenson needed full-time care due to Alzheimers disease, and his wife, Miriam, needed assistance after breaking her hip. They lived together in a house overlooking a golf course on Cascade Ave in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Charles was the founder of Michigan Wheel, a propeller manufacturer, and therefore had retired comfortably and could afford to hire full-time attendants and also take us out to fancy restaurants (spinnaker, et al)  and country clubs (peninsula club, cascade country club, english hills country club et al) for a meal 2 or 3 times per day. Good meals in a nice atmosphere were a bonus. After a year doing this work I went off on a "semester in Spain" and around the time I returned I heard Mr. Evenson had died, RIP. He was a nice old man...and had moments of brilliant lucidity. Other times due to the Alzheimers he couldn't remember what he had just eaten five minutes prior. One of the repeated "interactions" we had on a daily basis was a few minutes after he had eaten a cookie, he would suddenly say, "Can I have a cookie?" And we would say, "You just had one", and he would respond, "Did I ? Oh I'm just an old fart..." or something like that...and a few minutes later we would go thru the same thing again. He could never remember he just had a cookie. One thing he really liked to do was take a drive in his car with some old Frank Sinatra music playing. He knew the words to some of the songs and enjoyed the view. RIP, Charles & Miriam Evenson. God bless your souls.