I thought this was a really sweet rendition:

It comes from:  http://www.g33k-e.com/tv/he-taught-us-to-count-remembering-jerry-nelson/

This is a copy of a portrait of Jerry painted by Billy Evaul.  Jerry had the painting in his small computer room in Truro, on the wall over his computer.

Here's the second statement:

TO BE READ ON THE OCCASION OF MY MEMORIAL, IN THE EVENT AFORE-MENTIONED MEMORIAL, DOES TAKE PLACE:

 If this is being read, I must be dead, and that being said, lend me your head, or at least the part you listen with.

I am above all else a Professional, so I like to be on time ( or maybe even a little early ) and prepared.

Life was all I could hope for and more; There were lots of ups and more than a few downs. If you don’t have any bad parts, how are you going to recognize the good parts?

I made lots of mistakes and tripped over my own ego here and there, but hopefully all in the aid of learning to be closer to the enlightened potential of my being. 

I thank Jan for being the true love of my life and my best friend.

I thank Ramblin' Jack Elliot for introducing me to the I Ching, one morning on McDougal Street in Greenwich Village many years ago. Joe Bones for his gift of an easier translation of the I Ching to read.

I thank everyone I have ever known for the life lessons they have tried to teach me. They each had a lesson to impart even though I did not always understand it.

I especially thank those who made me laugh. You know who you are. Yes Jan, you are on this list too.

I thank my daughters Christine and Lovisa, for trying to teach me how to be a father and I apologize for the areas where I dropped the ball.

I thank Tolin for letting me be Grandfather and opening areas of my heart that had been  sealed and scarred when I was a little boy.

I thank the yin and yang of universal pulse that allows us to experience this life.and all of its wonders. 

Jerry asked for two things he had written to be read at his memorial.  The first was called, "Puppets ben berry berry good to me."  Here's the statement:

When I was eleven years old I saw a marionette in one of the display windows of Vandever’s Department Store, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, while visiting my grandparents for the Christmas Holidays. My mother noted my interest and it was one of my presents that year. It was a twelve to fourteen inch high policeman. I learned to manipulate this and the following year was given a clown marionette made by the same company. He had a barbell he could do several tricks with, provided the correct strings were pulled, in the right sequence. I played with these two puppets off and on for another year or so and  forgot about them.

My next real experience with puppets came from watching our first television set in 1950. There were lots of puppet shows on early TV. Bil Baird’s “The Whistling Wizard” and “Sparky and Heathcliff”, Burr Tillstrom’s “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” and The Bunin Brother’s “Pinhead and Foudini” are the ones I recall. Little did I realize at the time that fourteen years later, while in-between acting jobs I would audition for that same Bil Baird I watched as a fifteen year old and begin a career as a puppeteer that would span forty-six years and have me working with Jim Henson, one of the most creative innovators of modern puppetry.

Bil believed that puppets touch something in our primitive ancestral memory dating back to times when we huddled around fires in caves and hunters related how they put on animal skins and fooled the herd enough to make meat for the evening meal. He could well be correct in that but whatever else puppets do, they awake and delight the child that lives still within our heart of hearts.

As we say in my country, “Puppets ben berry, berry good to me”.

Jerry Nelson

Copyright 9/17/09, Dogstar

(thanks to Jan Nelson)

One time when Jerry was in London working on one of the Muppet movies Christine was sick and was in the hospital in New York.  Jerry flew home on the SST to see her.  When he got on the plane and got to his seat he thought the person sitting next to him looked familiar, but both of them were disheveled and the other guy seemed to be asleep.  Jerry was tired and fell asleep right away.  As the plane got closer to the U.S. they both woke up.  Jerry looked again and asked, "Aren't you Al Pacino?"  Al didn't recognize Jerry (he didn't look like a Muppet), but Jerry introduced himself and they started talking.  Eventually the conversation got around to the hassles connected with being a public figure.  Pacino said he couldn't go through an airport without someone stopping him.  Jerry didn't have that problem.  After the plane landed people started getting up from their seats and moving around.  Several of them recognized Pacino and headed toward them.  Jerry got his stuff, tapped Pacino on the shoulder with his knuckles, and said, "See you Al," and walked off the plane.

Here is a copy of the program for the memorial held for Jerry in Truro last Wednesday.  I hope you can read it.  Jerry wrote out very specific instructions and selected the poems, the songs, and the readings:

The first poem he selected, by e.e. cummings, dying is fine, is at:

http://www.eliteskills.com/analysis_poetry/dying_is_fine_but_Death_6_by_e_e_cummings_analysis.php

The second one, finis, is at:  http://library.crisischronicles.com/2009/08/12/finis-by-ee-cummings.aspx

The third one, when god lets my body be, which ends the program, is at: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/when-god-lets-my-body-be/

There's a very brief view of Jerry walking with his daughter Christine in this You Tube clip from The Great Muppet Caper:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsr3mElftNc  She asks if that's a bear and he says, "No Christine, bears wear hats."  (with thanks to Frank Oz.)  Christine's mother, Jacquie Gordon, wrote a book about Christine called Give Me One Wish.  The book quotes extensively from Christine's journals.  Christine is mentioned on the Muppet wiki:  http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Christine_Nelson