Three phrases immediately turn my attention to Sean and have for over 25 years. ‘The Kohlrabi Incident’, ‘There’s a full moon out tonight’, and ‘Grandma’s 80th’. My memories of Sean go back to his childhood days. I hate to say that I knew Sean better when he was a kid and unfortunately that seems to be how it works sometimes, especially when there are 20+ cousins to keep track of. As a child is where Sean learned the values that he lived his life by and during these years is when I spent the most time with Sean. The qualities that many of his friends and co-workers have identified were evident at a young age. He was always adventurous, caring, fun-loving, spontaneous, energetic and happy. The stories that resonate with me when Sean’s name comes up date back some 25 years.
The Kohlrabi Incident
The Kohlrabi Incident is something that rarely comes up, unless someone comments about the lack of vegetables on my Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner plate – which is just about every family function I’ve attended over the last 25 years. I was a year or so older than Sean’s oldest brother Brian and seemed to spend time each summer down at the Fleming place in Ojai. This was the location of Cathy’s infamous garden. I’d never seen, nor do I ever want to see, another like it but it certainly was a testament to Cathy and her capacity to not only raise 4 kids but grow vegetables that most people have never heard of, much less ever considered eating. In honor of Cathy, I’ve included a picture of Kohlrabi. From looking at the picture it is simple to imagine that when you cut into a kohlrabi, it actually looks like a potato, and there is the rub with this dastardly ‘vegetable’.

I’ve heard many stories about that garden and despite the rampant ‘bunny/coyote/cat/mouse/deer/oxen/horse’ sitings that stomped out the most vile of veggies (picture Sean at age 6 tossing eggplants into the stream while Cathy is out picking up the girls from track or soccer practice), Cathy always was able to put 2 fresh veggies from that garden on the dinner table every night. Now cousin Timmers and veggies don’t particularly get along very well but he was not above the Fleming dinner table rules that everyone must eat 2 veggies for dinner.
When I visited and we sat down for dinner, the entire Fleming clan would eagerly anticipate my attempts to consume Cathy’s veggies. Typically I had a tough time swallowing things I’d never heard of before. I took as little as Pete & Cathy would allow, dunked them in milk, cut them up real fine, drowned them in ketchup, whatever I could do to mute the nastiness of the taste. Then came the ‘Kohlrabi Incident’. The entire Fleming clan conspired against me and tried to convince me that they were potatoes. Cathy even had a hand in it as she cut them up in small cubes trying to pass them off as potatoes. As I started eating the Kholrabi cubes things were relatively OK (the Fleming clan will tell you I was swallowing them like they were chocolate cubes), then suddenly Sean could not contain his hysterics. ‘It’s not potatoes, it’s kohlrabi!’ he exclamed with pure joy. Needless to say, once it was determined that it was a vegetable, it took a lot of ketchup and milk to finish off the ‘potatoes’. Sean always remembered the Kholrabi Incident and could tell the story at family functions better than anyone – although he was the youngest, even at that age he enjoyed a good practical joke.
There’s a full moon out tonight
One night, as Brian, Sean and I were getting ready for bed, I ask Sean if there was a full moon out tonight. He was pretty young, probably 6 or 7, and wasn’t quite sure what I was getting at so I promptly yanked down my jammies and jumped right on Sean’s face. Suddenly Sean realized that indeed there was a full moon out tonight and he was on the business end of cousin Timmer’s full moon. He finally broke loose and cleaned the tip of his nose and instantly was a great sport about the situation. Seeing how hysterical Brian and I were when he finally came up for air, he took it surprisingly well. While he might have tattled to Pete and Cathy, I don’t think they bought it so he played along like the great sport that he was. Over the past 25 years, the full moon has been a running family joke and Sean vowed one day that payback was coming. I always believed that he was conspiring for the perfect payback and have always been eagerly awaiting what he would come up with for me to pay that debt.
Shots at Grandma’s 80th
The extended Fleming family can be quite intimidating, especially the first few times a new significant other is introduced to the family. Sean always made the effort to make everyone feel part of the family and comfortable in the intimidating environment. Sean took it upon himself to formally initiate my girlfriend at the time, Christina, to the family at Grandma’s 80th birthday party at Bob & Pat’s. It was getting late and Christina had known Eric from their high-school days and as the party for Grandma was winding down, the party in Sean’s mind was just starting.
While I was upstairs watching the end of a Notre Dame football game, I noticed Christina wasn’t around. Part of the initiation rule was to leave the significant other alone for a while to see how she adapted to the sheer force that is the Fleming family. I saw her earlier talking to Eric and the other cousins so I figured she was in good hands. While she may have been in good hands, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Finally, after an hour or so, I went down to find her and Sean, Eric, and Greg at the makeshift bar in the garage by the ping pong table. Sean and the other cousins made sure to make Christina feel comfortable to the point that shortly thereafter, she spent almost a half hour in the bathroom wondering how she was going to say happy birthday to grandma without falling down or yacking on her. She’s always been very thankful to Sean for making her feel comfortable and didn’t want to let Sean down by turning down his shots.

These two pictures I found in my archives are how I best remember Sean – as a younger cousin I’ll always remember him as a kid. Always with a smile on his face and hanging out with his cousins doing what he enjoyed and when he was done, finding a place to crash, even if it is under the foosball table after a rough day of snowboarding at Bob & Pat’s place in Mammoth.
As I listened to people speak about Sean at his service and read the posts on the website, I am saddened to realize that I didn’t know Sean as well as I should have. While it’s tough to know all 20+ cousins as well as you should Sean really made it easy to get to know him as he was extremely outgoing and personable. I am reminded of Sean often and I’m certain that will continue. It’s hard to believe that he is no longer with us but there are daily reminders of his life and what he meant to the extended family. He lives on when there is a full moon out, when family holiday discussion centers around the cousins shenanigans, and especially when we pull over for that fire truck to go by or I hear the sirens from my office going to the hospital across the street. He is missed and will certainly continue to always be missed. I remind my young boys of the great example Uncle Sean set while putting others in front of himself time and again without a second thought.
Cousin Timmers