In Memoriam - Capt. Alan Lawrence Bates - 1923-2012

Here´s Alan´s obit in the Courier-Journal.

Carmen

Date set for Alan Bates' Wake

Friends,

I wanted to let you know that we have set the date for Alan Bates' Wake and Tall-Tale Telling. Please mark June 2, 2012 on your calendars. The event will take place on the Belle of Louisville and will run from 4pm - 7pm. The boat is staying dock-side, so people can come and go as they see fit. We will have light comestibles and possibly a birthday cake, as this would have been the weekend before his 89th birthday.

This will be a happy event and I expect lots of laughter, some tears and most of all, stories and rememberances that will make Granddaddy smile from above. I will glady tell the story of the silver nail polish that he loved to tell on our excursions.

I would like anyone who plans to attend to let me know via this blog or by email at [email protected] so we can get an idea on what amounts of food and beverage we will need to have on hand.

I want to say thank you to each of you for your compassion and friendship during this time of loss and that it helps immeasurably to know how much Granddaddy was loved. I also want to thank the members of the Belle of Louisville for aiding us in setting the venue for the Wake as it's a perfect place to recall a great Riverlorian and friend.

Alans ability with words came kind of naturally I suppose because his mother, whom I had the fortune of knowing, was what you could call a cross word puzzle fanatic. She wrote cross word puzzles and some of her puzzles were published in the New York Times.
Alans life may have gone off in another direction if it weren't for an incident that happened in his youth. Alan's dad was an electrician and he took Alan on as his apprentice. Alan's dad was up on a light pole doing something while Alan was on the ground handing him up tools, etc. Alan's dads screwdriver must have slipped or something and he muttered "son of a bitch". Alan thought he said "flip the switch" which Alan dutifully did. Well, Alan's dads hair stood straight up and he he came flying off the pole, after he picked himself up off the ground he looked at Alan and said "You're fired!" Thus ended Alan's electrician career.