How to play tricks on kids if you are old

The prior post reminded my sisters, my cousins, and me of our Grandpa Ginny. Ginny was the original character.
For one thing, he never wore anything but overalls.
He tied those overall pant legs shut with baling twine in winter so the wind wouldn't blow up his legs.
He used to approach a meal surrounded by his seven children and wife and say "Well Wife, looks like I screwed myself out of a place at the table!".
Every morning he'd say "By God, it's a beautiful day!"
He told us not to swim in the stock tank because we'd catch cold, get polio, and come out like Humpy Kubichek.
Whenever he'd read his beloved Louis L'Amour books, he'd make a pot of coffee and a pan of beans.
He had arms like lead from milking herds of cows by hand all his life.
He caught his 5th child during a home delivery, while the Doc was hung up in a blizzard, and put the baby in a basket in the open oven door to keep it warm. That baby is my Uncle Sam.


ANYWAY . . . . I have a point. My sister wants me to tell you this story.
Grandpa Ginny and Gramma Gie had a log cabin/playhouse out back. They lived in a large hotel but that's a story for another day. One day prior to Halloween, Grandpa found a large stash of eggs. He knew that town kids were hiding their stash for mischief on Halloween. So Ginny brought them all carefully into the house, and he and Gie hard boiled each and every one of them, put them back in the cartons, and placed them carefully back in the playhouse.

That's my gene pool, and I'm HAPPY TO BE FROM IOWA!!!!

Grandma's Kitchen

Blogging funny-woman Sheletta reminded me of a story my cousin told.

She was shopping in one of those upscale candle shops - guess in that case it was "shoppes" - and started sniffing the merchandise. The sales person gushed "Oh, you just HAVE to smell this one, it smells exactly like it's name!! Grandma's Kitchen!!"

To which my cousin replied "How'd they get a candle to smell like cigarettes, bacon grease, and a little bit of Hi Lex bleach?"

Home Again

We're home after an emotional weekend. On one of the most beautiful June days I've ever seen, we celebrated my Grandma Gie and buried her ashes in the cemetery right next to my Grandpa Ginny. He's been gone 18 years and she missed him terribly. Now they are walking through the warm Iowa prairies together with three of their children by their side.

She was born and raised a Catholic who had the nerve to fall in love with a Baptist. Neither family supported the marriage, and both congregations shunned them. So the Methodist minister rode out to the farm in the 1930's and said they were welcome at his church. Therefore my mother was raised Methodist. All of her brothers married Catholic women, so we now have a family divided right smack down the middle between Liberal Protestants and Conservative Catholics. But we love each other all the same.

At her graveside I read an excerpt from "And what is so rare as a day in June?" by James Russell Lowell. One of her favorites. She could recite the entire text.

After the burial, we retired to my Uncle Sam's vacation cabin in the woods for cards, and camaraderie around the campfire stocked with Iowa white oak. This cabin isn't what you might expect - it's smack in the middle of the woods and used mostly for hunting. There is no lake, no beach, no dock, etc. Just a large iron bathtub in the yard where he cooks up a pig now and then. He left the next morning to wait for five feet of flood waters to leave his business and begin the clean up.

That night, my siblings, kids, spouses, etc gathered on my brother's porch to watch the sun set perfectly over the valley of Decorah, IA on the longest day of the year. I haven't yet cried for my Grandma. Instead I feel a profound sense of peace. She went home, and home is where she wanted to be.

This is what life is about: sunsets, children, loving old folks, celebrating the little moments, Iowa white oak in a campfire, a nice glass of wine, holding your spouse's hand, walking through prairies, laughing with loved ones, breaking bread together, and going home.

RIP Grandma Gie

This morning at 2:30am, my Grandma Gie went home. She was 96 years old. There just isn't enough blog space to tell you all how much she meant to me.

She was born Margaret Rose in a very small town in northern Iowa. She married young and raised seven children on a poor farm alongside the love of her life, my grandpa Lloyd, during the Great Depression. Both had high school educations, with a life-long love of learning and the written word. She could quote classic poetry and literature. She could play piano like a pro, and by ear. She could whip anyone's butt in poker, 500, and word games. She made food that would make the Pope weep. She lived to a ripe old age with all her mental faculties intact, and lived to see 22 grandchildren, and at last count about 100 great and great-great grandchildren. She smoked like a chimney and ate all the wrong foods. Her humor was legendary. I want to grow old just like her.

I'm going to miss her more than words can say. She's my hero. Walk with God Grandma.