Uncle Tony could make anything.  He made it better and stronger than any manufacturer ever could.  As a child, I loved playing tether tennis, but the bottom of the stake would wear and crack from the pole wobbling and wiggling in the ground as the tethered tennis ball spun around the pole.  My parents and I were siting around Aunt La and Uncle Tony's kitchen table, likely enjoying some delicious dessert and coffee, and I was telling Uncle Tony about my repeatedly broken tether tennis pole when he said, "I'll make you a pipe to put into the ground that will encase the bottom stake of your tether tennis pole."  Not long after, he made me a special tether tennis pole in-ground stake cover.  No one else could have ever come up with that idea and then create it.  No one but Uncle Tony.  How I am smiling at the memory of it!  To use it and play made everything right and perfect with my favorite childhood pasttime.  That pipe is stil in the ground in the backyard of my parents' home, a forever mark of the man that was innovative, talented, smart, and genuine.  He left an indellible impession on me, my childhood, my heart.  I value his skills, his distict laugh, his stories, and his love.  I share these memories with my husband and my children so that they, too, will know the wisdom and inventveness of Uncle Tony.  You are deeply loved and missed, Uncle Tony.  And I have a feeling that you are shining the brightests lights of love on your family right now...of course, there is no lamp that you can't fix.  

Love,

Tara and Greg and Dylan, Logan and Talon