Memorial Day weekend visit to "The Rock"

No, not The Rock, as in Alcatraz island, but "The Rock," as in the boulder where my father's ashes are interred at Oakmont Memorial Park in Pleasant Hill.

My father was a native of the Bay Area. He was born and raised in Mill Valley, back when it was a working-class logging town. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. He returned from the war and graduated from UC Berkeley and became a teacher and an administrator in the local schools. He went back to Berkeley to receive his PhD in Education and also continued to serve in the Navy Reserves, retiring with the rank of captain.

He died in March 2003 at the age of 80, on the day of the start of the war in Iraq. By the way, he was opposed to this war, thought it was a disastrous idea.

My mom's out of town, visiting her big sister for her 90th birthday party. My husband, son, and I went to The Rock. It's a boulder resting in a pretty spot in the upper part of Oakmont. It looks west over a valley and the hills of Briones Regional wilderness. Oakmont was kind enough to provide us with a flag that my son posted into the ground next to his grandfather's "Rock."

This was my second visit to Oakmont in a couple weeks, to visit the Rock, and a few other gravesites of interest. I wrote about my earlier visit in this post.