November 20, 2021
Mike Plahutnik Eulogy
We lived on a gravel road up a dirt driveway in a 1 bedroom, 1 bath house that couldn’t have been more than 450 square feet. Dad was an electrician and my mother was a stay at home mom. We didn’t have a lot of money when we were growing up. We didn’t get a TV until 1959, and we could only pull in two channels over the airwaves.. Our clothes were mainly “hand me downs” from our cousins. First, Ron and Bud got them new; then they were given to Johnny and Bobby, and then passed down to Frank and Mike at the end of the line. You can imagine what they looked like by the time Mike got them. But, back then everyone was from a large family, so we just looked like everybody else. Everyone wore hand me downs. So one of my earliest memories of my kid brother was wearing a ragged red flannel shirt all the time. He loved that shirt and it seemed like he never took it off. Seems like he even wore it to bed.
We are here to honor my brother’s life. Decades ago he was in two car accidents that injured his neck and back. In his later years he had a great deal of neck and back pain as well as heart trouble. It had a devastating effect on his quality of life. I prefer to remember wonderful things of the times we lived and the things we did together.
So let’s go back to a simpler time before computers, or the internet, before cell phones or TVs with screens bigger than 15”…a time before CDs, DVDs, or DVRs. Here are some of the fond memories my brother and I shared together:
-Playing hide and seek at dusk, or Playing red rover, red rover
-Playing Kick ball and Kick the can
-Laying in the grass and seeing shapes in the clouds
-Climbing trees, especially the big pine tree across the road
-Running through sprinklers and having double Ice popsicles with two sticks so that Mike and I could share
-Kool-Aid was the drink of summer or second best was a big swig from the garden hose
-Summer was also the time for picnics and running down sand dunes
-Listening to the crickets on hot summer nights
-Catching fireflies could take an entire evening and then watching them in jars at bedtime
-Having Mom and Dad say prayers with us, and kissing them good night every night faithfully
-Work meant taking out the garbage, weeding, cutting the lawn, feeding the dog, and doing the dishes
-Race issues for us meant arguing about who won the foot race or bicycle race
-Abilities were discovered because of “double-dog dares”
Those who remember will have lived in an era that no one else will ever experience. And it’s the memories and the things we did together that lessons the pain and loss. We come into this world with nothing and we leave the same way. It is only our memories and our legacy (sons and daughters) to carry on our name and remember us. So it is with Mike’s son, Michael Frank. Those who are passing on, like Mike, are gone like the era I just described. It was a great time to live. Make your memories, and make your era special for your generation.
I loved my brother. I tried to help him whenever I could. I wish we could have spent more time together the last few years, but we moved in different circles. So make an effort to see more of family, more of friends, and enjoy the time you have left with them.
