Tribute

To Lauren From Daddy
I wrote this letter to my two-year old daughter Lauren, the youngest of Charles Prien's 13 grandchildren.

Dear Lauren, Unfortunately, you won't remember your Grandfather, Charles Prien. I want you to know a few things about him. In the course of my life, I have met many people, but I have never known anyone like your grandpa. He was an exceptional, unique human being. He was one of the most real, unpretentious and loving people you could ever meet. I met your Grandpa in 1984 after I was engaged to your mom. He and your grandma immediately accepted me into the family and treated me like one of their own. I felt comfortable in their home from the moment I met them.

Your grandfather had a lot of mannerisms and ways of speaking that reminded me of the cowboys that are seen in Westerns. He would have fit right in a movie like Lonesome Dove. In some ways, I thought of him as a holdover from the 1800's. He did not enter this world in a hospital. He was born in 1922 in a logging camp in the mountains somewhere along the Colorado/New Mexico border. Much less the town, he wasn't even certain as to which state he was born in. He grew up in a beautiful, small town near the Rio Grande River in Southern Colorado, called South Fork. He was raised by a hard-working, but financially strapped family. Although, he didn't have the comforts and conveniences that we take for granted today, he always spoke of his childhood and youth with great fondness and told many stories about his upbringing. His only Christmas presents were some fresh fruit and pieces of candy and he said that he was delighted to get that. He and his family hunted and fished for part of their subsistence.

When you look at the pictures of your grandpa as a young man, you will see a handsome, athletic, confident individual. His friends called him 'Red' because of his red hair and freckles. The nickname stuck even after his hair became black. He told some of his high school sports and pranks stories as if they had recently happened. He told about one game, where he had the ball and was running down the sidelines for a clear touchdown. A fan from the other team came onto the field, punched him in the face and knocked him out before he could score. That probably tells you as much about the time and place he lived in as anything. He had a circle of friends from high school with whom he kept in contact over the years.

He was part of what Tom Brokaw called 'America's Greatest Generation'. He left his little town in Southern Colorado and traveled to the other side of the world to serve his country in World War II. He spent some time on an Island in the Caribbean manning a radar post. There are pictures of him on the beach wearing nothing but a dark tan and some banana leaves. To him it was a great adventure. Later on he went to England and maintained fighter aircraft. He followed the advancing D-Day forces into France and Belgium. He told many fascinating stories about his experiences in the war. After the war, he met a pretty woman named Fern and they started their family in Denver.

Your grandpa was a hard worker, who owned his own business for many years. He made a good living for Grandma and their five children. Your mom told me that while growing up, she thought they were rich. When your mother and I were married, he took a few days off to go to our wedding in Utah and I was told that it was the first time he had ever taken more than a day off besides his weekends. He would consistently meet his commitments to his customers even if the weather was horrible or he was sick. He got up very early and was back home early in the day so that he could greet his children coming home from school. His customers loved him. Some of his customers were wealthy businessmen and they liked to talked shop with him. They gave him their Wall Street Journals which he liked to read. He always stopped the truck wherever he was at 12:10, pulled out a little food to nibble on and turned on the radio to listen to Paul Harvey and laugh at his jokes. I know this because I was able to spend a day with him on his job once.

our grandpa was a great story teller. He loved telling stories. Although he repeated them many times, we still liked to hear them. I'm glad he did that, because we will be able to share many of them with you as you grow older. He also loved telling jokes, lots of jokes. Those who knew him, got as much pleasure watching him tell the joke as hearing the jokes themselves. As he told the punch line, his eyes would widen and he would grab his forehead and laugh out loud at his own jokes. Some day I will tell you the one about the girl who was "geesed". He liked to make people laugh. In the winter, when we left their house, he would chase the car and throw snowballs at us. It was a ritual that your siblings loved. (The day before the funeral, one neighbor told us that your grandpa would toss pebbles at her while she worked in the yard and hide behind his van. At the viewing, another neighbor smiled at us and simply said, "no more rocks".)

He read the Denver Post every day and especially liked reading and discussing the editorials. He liked music. He liked dancing when he was younger.

Your grandpa was very innovative. He wanted to be an engineer, but the war interrupted his plans. I work with many engineers and I believe he would have been a good one. He learned to solve little problems with a little inventions. He was very resourceful. For example, he always liked to have toothpicks around. He usually had one or two behind his ear. If you look in his van, you will see an upside down pen cap attached to the door which acts as a tiny toothpick holder. If you were to look carefully around his van, house or garage, you would see numerous items that your grandpa created or modified. He was great at fixing things. He did most of the maintenance and repairs on his vehicles. There are lots of tools and machines in his garage.

Your grandpa loved nature. On Fridays, he worked a short day so that there was plenty of time to jump in his van or camper and head into the hills. He would drive at about 40 mph looking up the mountain sides and down into the canyons, wondering why everyone else was in such a hurry. He had a keen eye for detail. He and his family spent a lot of time in the mountains. Those who went camped with him, know how special it was to him to be in the woods, near water, under the stars. When he wasn't in the mountains, he couldn't keep his eyes off of Mount Evans and the Front Range.

He was a hunter and like Peter, a fisherman. He engineered a unique method of fly fishing and he loved telling about the traditionalists who criticized his method and then watched him outfish them. Although he loved fishing, he would patiently set up everyone else's line before he fished. When he caught a fish, he took lots of time reeling it in so he could savor the tugging of the fish. He didn't care if it fell off or broke the line. He especially loved fishing with children. He enjoyed getting a fish on the line and then handing it over to the child, not telling him or her that there was a fish on. He made whistles for the kids out of nearby willows.

He loved children. He adored you and all of his grandchildren. He loved being with all of your cousins and your siblings and he talked about all of them all the time. He knew what children liked. They will remember going to the mountains with him, or to the park, the store or hunting for night crawlers with him late at night in his back yard. It's telling tat he was at a park with your sister Shannon, when he injured his leg which he then lost.

He often said, "I had a great day. I earned $15 and Fern only spent $20". Of course he was kidding because he was totally unattached to money and material things and this is one of the things I most respected about him. Perhaps his childhood taught him that he didn't need much financially to be happy. As far as I could tell he never worried about it. He gave freely to others. He helped your mom and I out when we were first starting out. A Greek philosopher named Epicurus said, �Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.� Your grandpa didn't have a lot of wants. He was happy with whatever he had as long as it worked. If it didn't work he fixed it. His old battered, brown cowboy hat didn't look great, but it kept the sun off his head and he didn't feel compelled to run down to the store and buy a fancy new one. In this way he was rich and this is probably why your mother thought they were wealthy.

I have never known anyone who enjoyed life so much as your grandpa. He truly lived in the present. He found his joy in the eternal moment. He didn't worry about the past or live on dreams for tomorrow. He loved the simple things in life, the beautiful things, the things with substance, the things that money can't buy; trees, music, water, children, animals, snow, sunsets, family, friendships. He was famous for his eating habits�and he always had a can of Pepsi nearby. Pepsi was one of Brian's first words because he loved stealing drinks of Pepsi from Grandpa's cans. Your grandpa loved sweets. He was completely satisfied with a tiny dish of ice cream and an even tinier spoon. He savored his ice cream, tasting it and working on it long after everyone else had finished and had seconds. His family marveled to watch him eat crackers and cheese. He used his tiny pocket knife, which was always sharp, to carve off the tiniest pieces of cheese. He somehow turned a simple snack of cheese and crackers into a feast. He could take an hour to eat a candy bar by shaving little pieces off it.

He didn't fret and worry over all the little details of life. Like the birds of the air or the lilies of the field that Jesus spoke of, he took no thought of the morrow. At times, he did worry about the people he cared for and loved. I've seen him mad and irritated, but never angry. He complained about bad government and society's ills, but he didn't sit around worrying about his own lot in life. He was at peace. He somehow managed to avoid the pitfalls of an accelerated, frantic, materialistic world. Quite simply, he was happy and content. How does one achieve that? People search and grasp trying to find the kind of peace and satisfaction that your grandpa had and many come up empty. I've thought about him many times in my life. He is a role model to me. I've wished many times that I had the peace and contentment that he had. He truly had a gift. Our Lord said that the person who lost his life would find it. Your grandpa lived a rich, abundant life. The paradox is that he didn't consciously seek to build a great life for himself.

I felt a great deal of security when I was around him. It was incredibly comforting to be in the pretty little blue and white house on South Lafayette with your grandpa and grandma. Their home was a refuge from the cares and worries of life. When I was with your grandpa, I always had the sense that everything would be alright...that there was no real need to worry about the twists and turns of this life. In spite of all my worries and fears, he made me feel without words that everything would work out. He offered a haven to me that I will deeply miss.

He was fascinated by things that others would let pass by. I once took a trip with him to Oregon. I was driving late at night and I dozed off. Rather than scream at me and wake me up he simply watched me drive the car down the freeway at 75 miles per hour with my eyes closed. I awoke to see him staring at me. I apologized in horror, but he just laughed and said he couldn't figure out how a person could drive and sleep at the same time. It fascinated him. This became one of the stories that he liked to tell and one that I did not like to hear. On another occasion, he and I were driving down the coast. I was going very fast on the curves (later he said he could have reached out and struck a match on the cliffs to his right). At one point, he quietly asked me to pull over. He opened the door and threw up. He got back in the car with a puzzled look on his face and asked me, "what was that?". He wasn't mad at me, he simply had never been car sick in his life and was surprised by it. It was interesting to him that the motion of the car made him sick.

He was a man of faith who loved God, his family and his church. He treated your grandma with love and kindness. He had a moral code that he lived by. I don't remember him ever preaching or giving lots of advice. He taught by example. I love your grandpa. Many people love your grandpa. He was a friend to whoever he met. He would talk to the server at a restaurant or the teller at the bank as if they were an old friend, usually telling them a one liner or two. He moved from person to person at church, shaking hands, chatting and telling jokes. He looked like a politician working the crowd at a rally, only he was doing it out of the love in his heart that he had for people. He loved working in the temple because it allowed him to meet so many people from so many places. To an introvert like me, it was a marvelous thing to watch. I've heard many talk about unconditional love. I saw your grandpa and grandma live it. There was nothing you could do to make him not love you. He might be disappointed in some things, but he was always full of love.

There are so many traits that I admired in your grandpa. I hope you inherited some of them. I hope you inherited his love of people, or his love of life, or his patience or even a few of his freckles. I believe that your grandpa still lives and will watch over you and be with you throughout your life. I believe that you and all of his family will be reunited with him and our sweet Lord in another place and time. Until then, your grandma, your mom, your cousins, your aunts and uncles and I will do everything we can to help you know him as we knew him.

Love, Dad