“And, because of that – I put it into the memorial picture when I did the poster board with my girlfriend – they gave him a piece of metal from the moon when the Apollo 8 went there.

“It’s funny, in his little bag of stuff that he had when he would talk about what he did, he actually had one of the items from one of the – I believe that place had to make a urine bag for the space suits – he actually had a sample of one, which I thought was pretty funny. But, when you think about it, something as simple as that really has to be pretty complex, in a way, or, at least, extremely expensive.”

The loss of a loved one often shades how we think of them.  I asked Bruce if this memory of his dad was different from the one he had before his father passed away.

“In some ways.  We have a small family. My uncle Sy came out from New York.  There were times when things came up – just talking to the Rabbi a little bit about my Dad, I would say, ‘I didn’t know that!’, you know what I mean?

“So, a couple of pieces of the puzzle of my dad’s life had come together a little bit; more information about my grandparents. I guess, in some ways, I feel much more complete and, to be honest, I didn’t need to make any peace with my Dad right before he died. I was very close to him the last ten years they’ve been living out here in LA, and each year was like a blessing with him.  I was just always shocked that he kept hanging in there.  He had some difficult health issues and he was able to beat it.  It was always amazing.

Kulick continues, “I just guess that I have a little more complete picture.  And, doing that very large presentation with close to fifty items on there, of his life – photos and things – it was really nice to see that.  Obviously, it told a story from when he was a little child to grown up and even into his senior years. It was a great idea. My girlfriend did it when her father passed away about ten years ago and she suggested it. I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah!’ I already had a lot of vintage pictures on my computer already but now it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s scan some more and let’s go find some more at my mom’s.

“It was a nice a mission and I really appreciate my girlfriend doing it with me. That kind of really told his story and I was very glad to share it with my friends and, actually, the world by putting it up on the internet. My Dad wasn’t a public person like his son.  People didn’t really know much about him.”

Bruce shared what it was like growing up as a kid with Harry Kulick as his Dad.