Goodbye Grandpa

Last night we had the viewing for Grandpa Brunson, and nearly 300 people showed up to pay their respects. Even former Governor Bangerter, yes, the one the effed up highway is named after, came. He was the mission president in South Africa when my grandparents served thier senior mission about 12 years ago.

The funeral took place this morning and lasted almost two hours. They had eight children and all of them spoke. They also had the two oldest grandchildren, myself being the oldest boy, and my cousin Heidi who is the oldest girl do something. I spoke, and she did a lovely piano arrangement of my Grandpa's favorite church hymn that she had written herself.

My Grandpa fought with distinction in the Korean War, and he was given a military funeral even though it has been sixty years since his discharge, and it was very nice. His coffin was draped with an american flag, a bugler played taps over the gravsite, and a few guys from his old division folded the flag and gave it to my Grandma. There was no 21 gun salute, because he said tha Korea was the absolute worst time in his life and the last thing he wanted was men firing guns over his grave, but he got all the other military honors and that was pretty cool.

The world lost a great and loving man, and I will miss him greatly.

There is a song that he used to sing to his children, and all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren. If ever I have children of my own I hope to remember the words to it so that this wonderful song that I heard him sing all my life won't die with him. It's a bit of a morbid song to be singing children off to sleep with, but that was just his sense of humor.

Here are the words:

In the hills of Tennessee,
Sitting by the hickory tree,
Was an ornery rifle-shooting mountaineer.
Now this fellow loved to feud,
But he also loves good food,
So when he went home for dinner you would hear:

Pass the biscuits, Mirandy,
Pass them and tell me goodbye
Pass the biscuits, Mirandy,
I know they'll get me by and by.

Since nine o'clock, I've been sitting on a rock,
Shooting everone in sight.
I shot the Coys and a dozen Martin boys,
Shooting gives a man an appetite.

Pass the biscuits, Mirandy,
Pass them and tell me goodbye
Pass the biscuits, Mirandy,
I know they'll get me by and by.

Then they heard a rifle crack,
And a bullet hit the shack.
And another broke the dishes on the shelf.
So he grabbed his trusty gun, for the fight had just begun,
and he knew he would have to protect himself.

Pass the biscuits, Mirandy,
I'm gonna load up my gun.
I'll use your biscuits for bullets,
I'll put those varmints on the run!

So he poured a ton,
Of black powder in his gun,
Crammed the biscuits into place.
Took careful aim,
oh my golly, what a shame,
Bang! The gun blew up in his face!

Oh pass the bandages Mirandy,
Pass them and tell me goodbye.
Darn your biscuits Mirandy,
I knew they'd get me by and by.

We all sang it for him at the family dinner after the funeral. I made it through the whole day without crying, but the song got me in the end.