Ryan Kucera From Solon to Austin

My Grandpa Kucera:

As you may know or can see he was a great artist.  I would like to paint the picture of some of the fun things I remember about my Grandpa. 

• I remember cubs games. Trips at 4am with the children from 4Oaks. 
• I remember seeing plaster hands in his office. It was the office of an artist with sketches and hands pinned to the wall. 
• I remember getting to go have coffee in downtown cedar rapids with him and meet his friends. 
• I remember fishing trips to Potato Lake Minnesota with my sister and Kenny and June to cabins without TVs.  Where we would fish by day and cook and play Gin Rummy and scrabble at night.
• Everyone remembers the 4^th of July at the Kucera’s.   Get togethers in grandma and grandpa’s backyard off the Cedar River, we celebrated our independence and our family.  I learned how to play badmitton and croquet.  We would walk to Ellis Park and watch the fire works explode.  Clearly it was a blast.
• When I stayed at Grandmas and Grandpas it was similar to a night at the museum of Americana.  He had a whole wall of comics with Roy Rogers in space, Blondie and many more.  He had a telephone with no numbers. You just picked up the ear piece and spoke to the operator through the Mic on the wall. 
• His dog Denny would fetch the ball and bring it back to you and put it inside the circular donut.  How did Grandpa teach his dog that?  All amazing.  And as a kid a blast to be around. 
• I would ride my 7up bike and skateboard up and down his driveway 100 times. 
• I would look at his workshop behind the garage.  Grandpa had a house he parked his boat in above the river, a just for martins house 20 ft in the air.  Things only a grandpa could have.  Like a BBQ Grill made of stone in the outdoor patio and garden above the river and a train track to pull the boat up out of the water into the house. 
• Who here has any of these things?  Grandpa did. 
• Grandpa loved to draw comics or look at my sister and I’s art work.  He always told us how good it was.  And encouraged us to do more.
• Grandpa and I fished for croppies in Lake McBride, Walleyes in Minnisota, and “BIG Mouth Carp” in the Cedar River.  With a ball of Dough.  Known as a Big Mouth because when I would catch one I was hoping it was a large mouth bass.  I remember him giving me a brand new fishing pole and casting it out at lake Daeling in southern Iowa.  60 seconds later it was pulled out of the boat by a fish while I was baiting my second pole.  My dad was pissed.  I was pissed.  When I look out at the lake there goes my pole floating across the lake, it was my first pole with a floating handle.  We pulled up the anchors to the boat and pursued the pole.  I grabbed the pole to find a fish attached to it.  We reeled it in only to have the fish break the line the last second before we landed it because we did not have a fishing net.  –My dad and I thought Grandpa was never going to believe this. 
• In college I was able to travel to New York City and visit to the Intrepid museum on the Hudson River.  This was actually the air craft carrier Grandpa Kucera flew his hell diver planes off of. 

 I remember packing up Grandpas tools when he and grandma moved into their condo only to have my dad steal them from me. 

I remember telling him about the graphic design and web design I did on the computer.  As he was amazed because he used to have to draw it or block out the type for printing. 

I remember my sister walking over and visiting with Grandpa at their neighboring condos and her always having a funny story of something Grandpa had said to her. 

After I moved to Austin and had been single for over a year or even two Grandpa would ask me the same thing I talked about with my buddies, do you have a girlfriend yet?  He asked it every time I talked to him.  So I always called him if I had had a good date or was excited about a girl.  

I remember talking to him about my fantasy football league and him being shocked about how computers and the internet did all that.   He hoped for a better Bears season.  Only to find out my fantasy football team never included any Bears. 

I remember he always cared for us his family and especially grandma.  If his family was a painting it would be the master piece he is as an artist is the most proud of. 

Kucera, Alvin F. “Al”

Cedar Rapids Alvin F. “Al” Kucera, 84, of Cedar Rapids, passed away after a short illness March 12, 2008. Memorial services: 11 a.m. Saturday at Cedar Memorial Westside Chapel, with visitation preceding from 9 to 11 a.m.

Donations, in lieu of flowers, may be sent to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art or the Hospital Dentistry Institute at University Hospitals in Iowa City.