Friends greeted us at Hilo Airport with these beautiful orchid leis

Charlie at the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo, April 2010

Charlie on the Waimoku Falls trail in Maui

Charlie at Boiling Pots, Hilo, 2010.  Our last trip.

Week 20

It has been 20 weeks since Charlie passed away.  I am so sad and lonely.  I don't think I am getting through this.   We took some of his ashes out on a boat and passed them into the sea about a  mile off the end of this street.  The Pride Committee honored him posthumously with a lifetime achievement award, I could not attend the presentation ceremony, too emotional.  Gloria & I rode in a car during the parade, I held up a picture of him so people could see it was him, not me or Gloria, being honored.

Things remind me of him.  A TV show about train rides, and there I am thinking of our two trips to Oakland, one so funny with the brownies & breaking down in the tunnel and seeing Coco's favorite mission from the club car & arriving later than the whole trip was supposed to take.  The other going off great, a very scenic and beautiful experience.  Just simple stuff I miss.  A simple drive up the coast.  A drive up I 5, it is a stressful road but somehow very fun to do with him, we'd trade off after a few hundred miles, always arrive in Oakland and stay at Steve & Pat's.

Flew to Seattle. Boy was that a great trip.  I knew it would be as soon as we took off from Oakland, the rice fields of No. Cal, then going just far enough west of the big volcanos that you could look down on their craters.  I recognized some mtn. that Charlie, Don & Don & I had stopped on near Medford years before.  Rental car in Seattle, on to Vancouver, on to the ferry to Nanaimo then motoring across Vancouver Island to Tofino on the rain coast which gave us beautiful clear warm sunny weather.  The restaurant on the national park, built onto a point of land jutting out into the sea, looking over Charlie's shoulder & seeing whales jumping from the sea.  Wow.  What a beautiful place.  Charlie didn't like the first place we had rented, he insisted on another and boy was he right, a billion dollar view off the deck of a modest little motel by a bay surrounded by mtns.  Wonderful trip.  Back in Vancouver he woke me, saying there was a bear on the deck, oh go back to sleep I said, but it WAS a bear, the size of a Volkswagen, he stared at us then went away.

On the ferry back I ran into a college chum, we contacted him & his gf in Seattle, they told us fun things to see & do in the NW.  Madison St. Beach, it was running very hot in Seattle, near 100 deg, everyone was at the beaches on Lake Washington, one Madison St. Beach made of grass, well populated with gay folk, Madison St. home to some very nice restaurants, everybody got take out and ate in the shade beside the lake.  So fun.  Mt. Rainier so majestic.  I will never get to do that with Charlie again.  They told us about the Cascade Loop, what a wonderful exquisite spectacular drive.  We took off on it after staying in a motel in Moclips on the coast, also wonderful.  4 days in the motel, just wonderful.

I watch a lot of TV, murder mystery shows.  I envy the dead.  We would be together again.  I miss him so much.  I was the luckiest guy in the world.  He got to be difficult with his disease but was paradise wonderful fun up til he got sick.

Saturday it will be 3 months since Charlie passed away.  Dealing with it still is not any easier.  I remain in shock, stunned, depressed.  Some of his ashes came home, on the mantel behind his high school graduation photo.  I can deal with that now, it freaked me out when BC brought his ashes to her home.

It still seems utterly unbelievable to me that he is gone.  He was so healthy, in my memory.  But I can bring back memories of him sick.  Sleeping 24 hours a day, losing weight getting skinny like Auschwitz.  I remember feeding him every bite of every meal for at least the last 2 years, feeding him from a medical eye dropper, him refusing to take his pills and spitting them out, spitting them in my face.  His mind was gone.  He could not walk, could not even stand.  But I chose not to remember that, not chose actually, my mind just remembers him as healthy.  Much more pleasant.  Infinitely so.

I took out all the entries with pictures.  Seems like a good idea not to put pictures of the self on the internet.  Unfortunately.

Some Comments From Stanford

Charlie was well loved in the Stanford In Germany group.  It was a semester in Germany back in 1963, I think.  I notified the group of his passing over the weekend and some comments have come in.

After graduation, Charlie and I both went to grad school at U.C. Berkeley.  We hung out a lot together.  I remember buying a Beatles album (Sergeant Pepper, I think) on Telegraph avenue and going back to his apartment to listen to the entire album non stop - except to flip it over, remember those days?  Charlie was always one of my favorite people to visit with at our reunions.  I hope Bob knows how much we will all miss him.  Laurie

Charlie was my first semester roommate in Trancos House at Wilbur Hall. He was bright, funny, and kind. He invited me to visit with him and his family over the Thanksgiving holiday in San Diego. It was a lovely holiday and they were wonderful hosts. It was just after the assassination of JFK, so I was thankful to be with such kind and friendly people.

So sorry to hear about Tuny’s passing.  I remember his buoyant presence in early reunions, and he will surely be missing in the coming one, as will Mike.  So Schade.  I agree with Jan about our paying tribute to  both during next autumn’s gathering.  Hertzlich, Dean

Thanks, Pat, for sending this. Laurie and I were just talking about "Tuny" two days ago, wondering how he was doing. What an awful coincidence to lose two of our  group so close together. We are all much too young to be losing our dear friends and colleagues. Love to everyone, and hope to see you in October. Lorna

Dear everyone,   Oh my God, I'm so sorry to have to be sending this on to you all. I will reply to Bob, thanking him for informing us and sending personal condolences. If any of you know him, you may want to send an email too.   I was doing some photo-therapy when Michael was in the ICU, hunting for photos of him. I found a couple of wonderful ones, which I will send on to you all once we are back in the city and have access to scanners and whatever technology is needed to turn slides into digital photos. I happened to find a great one of Charlie too, celebrating his birthday in Rome by kissing a line-up of us ladies.   Loving good-byes to Michael and Charlie, and please no more bad news for a long while.   Hello.  I am Bob, Charlie's partner of many years.  I am very sorry to have to inform you and the Stanford group of Charlie's passing on March 17 from posterior cortical atrophy.  He loved Stanford, he loved the Stanford In Germany group, he loved you many friends from those happy days.  He was not in pain, he did not suffer.  He was a wonderful man, I was incredibly lucky to have him as my partner for so many years.  There will never be another Charlie McKain.  A memorial service was held on May 11 at the San Diego Unitarian Universalist Church.  Could you please tell the other members of the group this news.  Thank you, Bob McWilliams

Back in the early '80's the clone look was popular in San Francisco.  Charlie decided to play the role, he dressed up in a tight green military style tank top, tight Levis, construction boots, and sauntered down Castro St.  People were coming out of the bars to check him out. He loved the looks!

Charlie's obituary from the SD Union today, April 23, 2012

Charles McKain 1947-2012

Democrat was pioneer delegate, advanced LGBT causes

Politics were the very life and breath of Charles McKain.  Active in many Democatic groups, he was one of San Diego's first openly gay delegates to the Democratic National Convention, and as head of an ad hoc coalition of gay and lesbian organizations, he was instrumental in helping craft the boundary lines for this city's LGBT-friendly 3rd City Council District.

"Charlie's contributions to the city and the Democratic Party here locally were very, very important over many decades," said Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego.  "In particular, he really designed a lot of the redistricting lines that were done in 1990 and consolidated LGBT voters into what became Council District 3 that I was, three years, able to run in and win.

"He was always thinking about how to make change within the system and how to strengthen the democratic voice here in San Diego.  His contributions were real and long lasting."

Mr. McKain died of posterior cortical atrophy, on March 17 at Kaiser Foundation Hospital.  He was 65.

"During those months working on developing the boundaries of District 3, he could recite facts and figures and census tracts and percentages of this goup and that group, " said Jeri Dilno, friend and past president of the San Diego Democratic Club.  "He was right on top of it.  He really was the driving force behind the boundaries."

Since 1976, Mr. Mc Kain was a member of the San Diego Democratic Club, now called San Diego Democrats for Equality.  He served as vice president, treasurer, and political action director, as well as the club's delegate to the former LIFE Lobby, a California advocacy federation of LGBT and AIDS organizations and individuals.  

For the California Democratic Party, Mr. McKain served on its executive, rules, and credentials committees.  He was a member of the San Diego Democratic Central Committee for 30 years, and the Point Loma, Pacific Beach, Uptown and La Jolla Democratic Clubs.  

In 1989, Mr. McKain was honored with the San Diego Democratic Club Political Action Award, the Club's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, and the Henry Auerbach Democrat of the Year award from the San Diego County Democratic Party in 1994.  The San Diego City Council declared July 8, 2008, as "Charles McKain Day."

Elected four times to be a delegate to national conventions, Mr. McKain's first convention was groundbreaking.  

"We were both Ted Kennedy delegates for the National Democratic Convention in 1980," said Gloria Johnson, friend and past president of the San Diego Democratic Club.  "It was the first time there was a lesbian-gay caucus at a democratic convention, and there might have been 25 delegates."

Charles Louis McKain III was born Feb. 8, 1947, in San Diego, the oldest of two children to Charles McKain Jr. and Mabel Robinson.  A graduate of Hoover High School, he earned his bachelor's degree at Stanford Univerity in 1967 and did his postgraduate work at UC Berkeley.

He graduagted from UCLA School of Law in 1974 and was admitted to the State Bar of California that year.  He worked as a staff attorney for California's 4th District Court of Appeal.

A hiker, gardener, and yoga enthusiast, Mr. McKain was also a globe-troter, traveling to Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Fiji and New Zealand, among other countries.  In addition to English, he spoke Spanish, German, French, Italian and Japanese.

But basketball was his passion.  He played in up to four leagues a week and was on the San Diego team in the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney, Australia.

"He was a great Stanford fan and a longtime season ticket holder for San Diego State Universsity's women's basketball," Dilno said.  "He was not the greatest basketball player, but he was a terriffic fan. " 

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. May 11 at the First Unitarian Univrsialist Church of San Diego in Hillcrest.  The family suggests donations to the American Civil Liberties Union.