Grandpa Ollie is a good sport

We are going home to Oman on Sunday, which means I am in a strange state of mind (to be specific, I am overly sentimental which I find very irritating).  It is always dangerous to post on days like this because once I hit the publish button, my external processing is there for the world to read and I prefer to be thought of as sarcastic and a bit tough (never mind that time I cried when Tommy's teacher told me her daughter (a girl I had never met) was going away to college).

Sigh.

Anyway.  All this to say that while I disapprove of too much gushing over ones spouse/partner on ye old internet, I do believe that you, my sweet and faithful readers, know that I married well and that I know it.  I happen to have the best husband of anyone I know.

What you may not know is that I also married into a pretty amazing family, and this post is about the tallest member of that family.

(But first, one more aside which is that my kids have such amazing grandparents and they are so lucky and I hope that they have them as long as I had my amazing grandmother.  The end.)

SO SENTIMENTAL.

My father-in-law retired from his post as the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Wyoming last month.  It is not appropriate to congratulate him because while he elected to retire at this time, he does not understand what exactly there is to congratulate.

He loved his job, and I also loved his job because let me tell you there is nothing in this world more fun than stories about university professors behaving badly and if I caught him in the right mood he would usually tell me one of these stories.  (And then I would feel like corporate America might not be so bad after all, for a brief moment.)

I'm certain that a Dean has many more responsibilities than convincing highly educated adults to share and be nice, and it is clear that my father-in-law was good at all of these other things as well.  Want to know why I'm so certain of this?  Because a (retired) US SENATOR wrote him a letter congratulating him on his retirement (this aversion to congratulations hasn't been widely publicized).  Isn't that impressive?  I was around when Ollie opened the letter, and I said something about how now I could never feel successful because there is such a minuscule chance that I will receive a letter from a senator upon my own retirement (and yes, I'm painfully aware that as of this moment, I have no career from which to retire) and you want to know what Ollie said?

"Wyoming is a small state."

But luckily he has a crazily enthusiastic daughter-in-law who wouldn't let him get away with that crap.  I mean, really.  Then I demanded permission to put the letter on my blog and he said, 'alright'.