THIS BLOG IS CONNIE'S AND HAS NO AFFILIATION WITH THE HIGH SCHOOL OR THE ALUMNI POW WOW LUNCHEON. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE HER OWN. THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG IS TO SHARE NEWS WITH ALUMNI OF FULLERTON UNION HIGH SCHOOL, FULLERTON, CALIFORNIA. TO SEE INFORMATION ABOUT THE CLASS OF '53, GO TO http://fuhs53.homestead.com/index.html (YOU HAVE TO COPY THE URL ADDRESS OR TYPE IT-IT IS NOT A HOT LINK.) MY PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS IS NOW CVANHORN@PACBELL.NET )
Sent in by Mike Johnson. Left-click to enlarge image. Click on "Back" arrow to return.
Click on "Comments" (below the post) to see what Carl's brother wrote about the memorial service.
posted by Connie @ 5:45 PM
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This was writen by Richard Gregory (FUHS '57), Carl Gregory's brother.
It was a lovely memorial with 700 to 800 in attendance, which spoke to Carl and Barb's wide impact on people, the respect he and Barb were held in in Fullerton and Orange Country and his capacity for friendship. The weather was perfect and the ceremonny was outside on a large lawn with about 700 chairs under tents on the grounds of the Muckenthaler Center. Harold Muchenthaler and his daughter, old family friends, were in attendance.
There was a NROTC honor guard headed by a reserve CDR (which Charlie would have appreciated), an American legion honor guard, a flag flown specially for Carl over the nations capitol provided by his congressman friend, and his sword and cap on display and given to the widow and kids. All ex military, covered or not, were invited to salute the flag at appropriate times.
There was a beautiful soloist, the daughter of one of our childhood friends, Tom King, who sang Ave Maria, Amazing Grace and What a Wonderful World. between the speeches.
I spoke first about his family history and childhood and the families perspective, and Ann, Barb and others seemed to like what I said. Not an easy task, but Ann had helped me hone the presentation and provided some of her professional speech tricks from her speech writer days.
Dr. Stu Shanfield followed me. He is a leading orthopedist who is on the Bank's board, had treated Carls broken bones during his cancer and was a real friend throughout. He spoke eloquently of Carl's service to the community and all the people he had helped. Mitch "Arky" Mitchell, a childhood and lifelong friend, spoke about how Carl had helped him and many others as well as describing humourously some of Carls more infamous childhood escapades.
Dr. Piro, Carl's very busy celebrity oncologist, asked to speak at the last minute, and came down from Santa Monica to attend. He movingly spoke of Carl's courage in the face of two terrible cancers and the real family values his kids and wife displayed in supporting him selflessly through out the ordeal.
Brenna and RJ did their father proud in talking about his impact on them and what he meant to them, including several humourous stories which only they would know. In all the tone was uplifting and the very different speaches gave a rounded picture of his life and impact on people.
For me, while obviously an emotional occasion, it was also an opportunity to see many old childhood and local friends, many of whom I had not seen for years. Afterwards, we spent about an hour greeting people and then returned to Carl's house with the family and about 120 close friends. Brenna had prepared several photo montages and a video of his life for people to see back at the house.
Barb's sister had come from Mississippi, my sister Nancy and her family had come down from Oregon, eight of RJ's Colgate Football friends had flown out from New York and Carl's good friends, the Nelsons daughter and son in law had come from Chicago. Brig Owens, the former Redskin star and now lawyer and developer in DC flew out to attend--Father and Carl, were long time friends of Brig (father enabled him to go away to college) and have supported the Owens family foundation and several of the Owen's were there.
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