Candace Thompson Meade

My Dear Candace died on August 3, 2021. I first met her in the summer of 1962 when she was just 16 years old. We were together for 59 years. I miss her so. One of our favorite songs was by Sam Cooke "Only Sixteen." It starts:

She was only sixteen, only sixteen
But I loved her so
She was too young to fall in love
And I was too young to know

We'd laugh and we'd sing
And do silly things
That made my heart glow
But she was too young to fall in love
And I was too young to know

I added her picture from 1962 to her photos

Roger

My Life: Lake Bluff will always be my real home town. I recently took my 24 year-old granddaughter on a virtual visit using Google street view. I showed her the lake, woods, ravines, school, downtown, and my three houses. She wants to visit someday.

I met a Lake Bluff neighbor boy in the summer of 1962. Roger taught me how to drive a 4-speed. Mostly, we sat together on my front step at 630 Scranton Ave talking. My mom says we wore out that step.

I married Roger in 1965 and we headed to Texas with everything we owned stuffed in our Corvair. We spent a year and a half in College Station, Texas with me working and Roger in school at Texas A&M. In August 1967, we were now a family of three with a two-month old daughter. We again packed up our Corvair with everything we owned including a dog and headed west to California.

That trip was memorable and miserable. I think of it as a “Grapes of Wrath” journey. We drove at night to avoid the desert heat. The Corvair broke down in El Paso and struggled with overheating as we crossed the Colorado River to arrive in California. I pictured California as a paradise of ocean and orange groves. Instead, I found heat, crowds, and strangely brown air. Fortunately, my first impressions were my worst impressions and I grew to love California especially as the air quality improved. Next to Texas, California is my second home.

Since 1965, we have lived from north to south and from coast to coast and places in between. Along the way, we raised two children, Michelle born in Bryan, Texas in 1967 and Charles born in Los Gatos, California in 1969. The years flew by as I worked, wondered and worried with camping, soccer, and skiing filling in our weekends and short vacation times. I owned an antique and collectibles store in the Bay Area that I opened just in time for the 1989 earthquake, studied in London, and experienced the joy of my life when my first granddaughter Alexandra was born in 1992. Twin grandchildren, Brendan and Chloe, followed in 2004. My fourth grandchild, Addie, was born in 2009.

In 2002, we returned to Texas residing first in rural Nacogdoches and then Austin. We have been living a nomadic life roaming around avoiding airports by taking road trips whenever possible in North America and Europe. My most fun trip was Ireland. The most interesting trip was Israel. My favorite cities are New York and London with New Orleans and Santa Fe coming next. Between wandering, I love keeping up an eclectic California hillside garden which I share with many of God’s creatures great and small.

My life, like my travels, has gone in many directions. I have had good times and hard times, happy times and very sad times. Bittersweet comes to mind. The simple joys are the best and I am blessed to have had many of those. Think ice cream with grandchildren. My best to the class of 1964, and hi to some of the guys in the class of 1961.