Brian, I'll be flying from Ohio to Santa Cruz August 17-24. If you are in the area I would enjoy the opportunity to meet you.  LeBron 831-512-7444 On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 9:09 PM J. LeBron Rankins < jlrankins@gmail.com > wrote: Brian, The number I have for your parents house phone is no longer in service. I suppose throat was a landline.  I wanted to reach out to say I will not be traveling for the celebration of life that was planned for April 30. Know that I will be with you all in spirit.  I will be on the west coast sometime later this year. I'll drop you a note closer to that time. If you are still in CA, where your father always talked about you living, it would be an honor to meet you.  Please say hello to your mother for me.  LeBron Rankins

Brian, The number I have for your parents house phone is no longer in service. I suppose throat was a landline.  I wanted to reach out to say I will not be traveling for the celebration of life that was planned for April 30. Know that I will be with you all in spirit.  I will be on the west coast sometime later this year. I'll drop you a note closer to that time. If you are still in CA, where your father always talked about you living, it would be an honor to meet you.  Please say hello to your mother for me.  LeBron Rankins

Mike (Grandad) was my father-in-law and my friend. We shared many happy times and memories together for 32 years.  We spent many thanksgivings in his downstairs garage cooking the thanksgiving turkey(s) in the deep fat fryer. We would tell stories and laugh and have wonderful conversations about life. Darren would come down and join in and then Brian would show up with his guitar and serenade us while we kept an eye on the turkeys cooking.  Great memories and fun times.  Grandad and I made an annual trip to South Dakota to hunt pheasants at my college roommate's farmstead in Kimball, SD. We always had such a great weekend with the Smith family hunting birds, enjoying dinners together, laughing and telling stories over and over.  My folks live in Billing, MT and every year Grandad would make his trip north to Malta, MT to hunt and visit with his high school friend. He would always stop and spend the night with my parents in Billings. ...

There are several things that come to mind when I remember Grandad.  The first is his dry, witty humor and ornery grin. Half the people in the room or around the table missed his joke altogether - the delivery was so smooth, sharp, and timing was perfect - but if you did get it, you could always catch his eye after and share a sweet moment with him. I'll always remember that look; he was so tickled and pleased. The second is his sweet tooth. There's a story about Grandad as a little guy, no more than 3 or 4 years old I think, going door to door collecting warm cookies from all the neighborhood ladies. At some point, his mother taped a sheet of paper to his shirt that read, "Don't feed Mikey cookies". That was a long-standing joke in our family as Grandad's sweet tooth carried over well into his adult life. As a kid, I remember he always had a jar labeled "Cookies" on top of the fridge, and we could always count on it being full of homemade cookies. A...

My deepest condolences to Mrs. Strope, the entire Strope family and all those who knew and loved Mike. I came to know Col. Strope during my assignment to Frankfurt from 1987-1989, and more when I was transferred to work within the orthodontic clinic. One of my oldest memories of Col. Strope were his words to me following a two mile run we shared one day for physical training, or PT as we called it, which went something like this: "thanks for running with me, now you can go and get in a real run." Running at a slower pace with Col. Strope wasn't a sacrifice at all; he was a man I admired and I enjoyed his company more than he knew. Later, Mike and Mrs. Strope were to return to the States for a week to attend the wedding of one of their children (Kelly?).  Mike asked that I stay at his home with Darren for the week. Darren certainly did not need a babysitter, just an adult in the house - and getting to know Darren was a delight. That request cemented the foundation of what ...

Paul McCartney was on the radio recently. He's turning 80, and getting ready to release an album, "Paul McCartney III." It's also the 40th anniversary of John Lennon's death. Paul was asked what he was doing to memorialize John. He said he thought about him all the time. He would just sit and remember the things they did together... Like the time they went hitch hiking together and ended up in Paris. That was a fun trip. Mike lived in many places and got to interact with lots of people he loved. If you have the time, please add something to any or all of these: Send an email to:  bpstrope.mbstropepost@blogger.com  (and it will be an mbstrope blog post). Add a song to this playlist on spotify . Add a picture to this album on google photos . Leave a story in the comments below. All of these should be open for anyone to add things. Please forward the link for this page to anyone who might want to add something:  https://mbstrope.blogspot.com/2020/12/michael-b.html Th...