My 3 Grandma's

~Grandma K, author, Grandma Robbie, and Grandma S...circa 1965

Every kid should have at least one grandma. I had 3! We probably don't fully appreciate our grandparents until their gone. All of my Grandmas passed away in the 1970's. I never got the chance to have an adult conversation with any of them. I was 11 when my Mom's Mom passed away, 16 when my Dad's Mom died, and 18 when my Great-Grandma's days came to a close. If I were able to have a conversation with any of them today, I'd like to hear them tell stories about their respective childhoods. I'd like to know what they remember about 1st grade, what they liked to do on Saturdays when there was no school, and how they spent their Summers when they were teenagers. I'd like to know what they remember about their childhood friends, how they met my Grandads, and what they remember about the first time they heard a radio broadcast or saw a TV. In general, I'd love to hear them tell about what it was like growing up in the early 1900's, or about raising families from around 1915 through the early 1970's.

I have a lot of memories of my Grandma's, all of them good. One of the earliest things I remember about my Grandma S was sitting on her lap in a rocking chair and asking her, "Grandma, why are you so fat?" She replied, "I prefer to think of it as pleasantly plump!" I remember giggling when she said that, while she hugged me and graciously chuckled at her Grandson's naive social incorrectness. She was the same Grandma who specialized in white coconut cake and always had orange flavored Hi-C on hand, back when it came in a can. She also had a black and white cat named Tippy, who aside from keeping the surrounding area free from mice and other small critters, was able to perform various circus style tricks upon command. I also fondly remember the activities that surrounded the  yellow metal glider that occupied the front porch of Grandma and Granddad's house. We used to sit on that old glider on Summer evenings as Granddad hand-rolled his cigarettes with tobacco from the red can of Prince Albert that he kept in the chest pocket of his overalls. We'd sit there and watch the cars and trucks that drove up and down the city street their home sat on, while Grandma smiled and waved and Granddad shared his knowledge of the occupants of the various vehicles (sometimes it was positive). This all took place in the same home our Mom and her three sisters grew up in during the 1940's through the very early 70's.

My Great-Grandma was famous for a number of reasons. Growing up in our rural route 1 home, we only had soda on special occasions for the most part, like payday Friday nights, birthdays and backyard ice cream making events. So the fact that she always had a good assortment of those little 6 oz bottles of Coca-Cola in the door of her white Frigidaire, was a big deal to her three Great-Grandson's from Rolla. Without fail, within the first 2 or 3 minutes of walking up the steps and into her little house, she'd ask, "You boys want a sodie?" My brother's and I would then hurry back to the kitchen and grab up 3 bottles of Coke, before opening each of them with that yellow handled bottle opener she kept on a string tied to the cabinet next to the "fridge". We'd quickly guzzle them down in hopes of getting a second bottle to be savored over a longer period of time. My memory is that she also always had a bag of barbecue flavored Kitty Clover potato chips on the table by the back window of her kitchen-the same window you could open when no one was looking and climb out onto her screened in back porch, that contained a number of trinkets from days gone by that we found somewhat fascinating. I could go on about her famous back porch, the basement that was hand-dug by "Paw-Paw" and friends sometime in the 1930's, and the attic; but I'll save all that for maybe some other time.

All the years we were growing up, our Grandma "Robbie" lived in the same house my Dad did most of his growing up in. Her little white house was situated in a tiny little burg a few miles east of California, Missouri; a mile or so off the beaten path. I don't ever recall visiting Grandma Robbie when she didn't have an ample supply of Nehi grape and orange soda in her kitchen. She always kept a few in her fridge for emergencies and a back-up stash on the floor between the "icebox" and the side kitchen door. I've mentioned the big pear tree before and the old backyard tool shed that we liked to mess around in, so I'll try not to repeat myself. On our summer visits to Grandma Robbie's house, we'd sometimes volunteer to mow her yard with the old-fashioned push reel mower she stored in her tool shed. Mowing her yard was a lot of fun for about 30 seconds or so, before quickly becoming work and not nearly as desirable an activity for young lads. Grandma also had a pink candy dish full of orange marshmallow "Circus Peanuts" that she kept on the lower shelf of her china cabinet, situated to the left of her front door as you entered the kitchen. We'd grab up a handful of those babies as soon as the opportunity presented itself before going back for seconds.

I suppose I could write a small book about the mostly non-earth shattering events that took place at the home's of my 3 Grandma's while I was a kid. Maybe I'll do that some day and title it, "My 3 Grandma's": like "My 3 Son's", only different...I'll keep you posted.

Where's Waldo?

-Mitch and Vicki's Pittsburg, Kansas home

Apologies to both of my faithful readers for my lapse this past couple of weeks. I'll get back on a tighter writing schedule the latter part of this week. In the meantime, here are a few more pictures taken during the Pittsburg log home set the week before last.

Log set crew L-R Patrick, Ryan, Ryno, Ken, Jason, Russ, Sam and Dave

-Sam Peterson and Andre Chevigy the second day of the Pittsburg set

Premonition

The other day I ran into a Goomer in the post office, and I thought to myself, "I bet this guy is a piece of work." 30 minutes later after I'd finished mailing my letter, I walked out and saw him sitting in this vehicle. Turned out I was right.

Messing With Whom?

I like messing with folks. I especially like messing with folks who aren't used to getting messed with. My good friend Tony D. falls face first into that category. This picture (taken a few years ago) is a result of that process.

Tony-TD as I call him-is a big and "impo' tant" company executive. He spends a significant deal of his time traveling all over the country, and even the world, on business. Over the years, he's found himself more than once scheduled to be out of town during key child/school related functions. I've been honored to be called upon to be his personal "fill-in Dad" on a few of those occasions. It was of course my pleasure and honor to do so.

The second time I found myself filling in for TD at his children's elementary school's "Dad's Day", I thought it would be appropriate to once again mess with my friend. At that time, TD was with the Pepsico company and had sworn off anything to do with products from competing organizations (as he always does)--especially products from the Coca-Cola company. Now that you know the backstory, you'll understand this picture.

Fast forward to today, the little guy on the left, George, is doing an internship with a local organization, and is staying with my bride and me (and Max) for the next 8 weeks. He begins his freshman year at Wash-U in St. Louis this Fall.
The young lad in the middle, Henry, just completed his "Dean's list" sophomore year at Miami University, where he's majoring in finance with a likely double in either supply chain or entrepreneurship and econ; and Sweet Madeline is about a year away from having her degree in Occupational Therapy from St. Louis University. Soon after she'll be on her way to much fame and fortune in the world of Occupational Therapy--just like Hollywood, only different.

My whole point in sharing this is: I feel the folks at Jack's Links owe me substantially for giving them the idea for their "Messing With Sasquatch" commercials: c'mon man!

Sometimes 1 Is Better

Sometimes one is better than three or eight. One is simple and easy to keep track of. Five and nine are much more difficult to manage. Coordinating one is easy and requires little or no effort, while trying to coordinate seven can be difficult and cumbersome.
This law of nature applies to everything from hats, fishing poles and shoes, to people. It's of course much simpler and less stressful to coordinate 1 person than it is to coordinate 2 or more.

With this in mind, I'll use hats as an example:
If you own more than one hat, you put yourself in the position of having to make a choice about which one to wear each time you go to put a hat on. You'll have to keep track of all the various hats you own and manage the space where you keep the hats. There's also no doubt that over time, you'll end up having a favorite hat and that hat will be the one you'll always want to wear; even though you have several other hats. You'll now feel somewhat obligated to wear the other hats even though you really don't want to. But since you have all these other hats you feel like you should wear each of them at least every now and then. At some point, you'll start resenting the other hats because you have to wear them sometimes when you really just want to wear your one favorite hat. Additionally, these other hats will require at least some level of maintenance and upkeep, and that's just your hats. Throw boots, purses and guitars into the equation and you could spend half your day trying to decide which of your many personal items to wear, use, or take with you. The net affect of having too much stuff is, it complicates life. How much simpler would it be if you only had one hat to worry about.

Note: This is not meant to be a parable: I'm actually talking about simplifying life by reducing redundancy.

Dramatically BC

Two Cavemen having a Saturday morning conversation:

Obe: Hey, what was all the commotion over ar Gorp's hole last night?
Donk: Gorp invented another gadget and he and some of the guys were trying it out.
Obe: What kind of gadget?
Donk: It's basically a big block of stone only it doesn't have corners.
Obe: What kind of a block doesn't have corners?
Donk: He calls it a wee-ull
Obe: What the snot is a wee-ull?
Donk: It's a block of stone without corners on it and it has a hole in the middle...for some reason.
Obe: What in the "h" is he going to do with that darn thing?
Donk: He's not sure, but for now he's just kind of pushing it around. The Dretch brothers were absolutely hammered by the time it was their turn to push and the darn thing got away from them. Once it really got going, it took off like a bolt of lightening and rolled all the way down Jackbutt hill. Ol' caveman Cleve was standing outside his cave airing out his shorts and by the time he saw the darn thing coming at him, it was too late. It smashed him flatter than carp dung.
Obe: Dang! How's Cleve?
Donk: Dead...so they ate him.

Now That's Funny

You'll rarely hear about a crow being released on bail, once they've been arrested: most judges consider them a flight risk....ba da bing!

I think I made that up.  There's no way of knowing for sure, but I'm pretty sure I made that up. My bride rolls her eyes when I come up with this kind of stuff, but I think it's funny. My guess is there's an endless supply of this kind of material inside the average head. You just have to look at things from the right point of view. I've ran across a few folks in my life who seemingly don't have a sense of humor--none. Up front I usually judge them as someone I don't want to be around. But usually after giving it some thought, I typically end up just feeling bad for them. I can't imagine going through life without the ability to laugh--especially at myself. If you can laugh at yourself, you'll never have to worry about someone laughing at you--they'll just be laughing with you.

PS. If you don't think the crow line is funny, close your eyes and imagine George telling it to Jerry and Kramer. Jerry doesn't think it's funny, but Kramer laughs so hard he stumbles all over Jerry's apartment, eventually falling out the window to the sidewalk below, landing on Newman, who of course breaks his fall and then gets 6 months off work from his mail route by faking a neck injury...now that's funny!

Welcome To NYC

The last time we were in New York, I took this picture...as soon as I stopped laughing. When the owner of this wheel returned, I bet he screamed out, "*%#!" That's a bad day if a bike is your primary mode of transportation. Darn those New York City 3/4 bike thieves!

Slow Down!

My bride and I recently picked up our daughter and son-in-law at the airport. We weren't familiar with this particular airport so we arrived a little early to get the lay of the land. As we followed the signs to the terminal I came around the corner and saw a flashing speed limit sign showing how fast each passing vehicle was going. It was an obvious attempt to get cars to slow down inside the airport. According to the sign we were going 22 mph and I was somewhat surprised to see the speed limit was "5": that's right 5. I immediately slowed down figuring the sign would stop flashing once I was under 20 or so (which seemed reasonable), but it didn't stop. 19, 16, 14, 11 etc. as I was thinking, "Surely it'll stop soon--at least before we've completely stopped. It kept flashing 9, 8, 7 and then finally it stopped when I got it down to 5. I told Sue, "Seriously, 5...did I see that sign right, did it really say 5?" She confirmed I wasn't seeing things: it said 5. I told her, "They must really be serious about this 5 mile an hour speed limit--I don't think I've ever seen a 5 mile per hour speed limit sign, and if I have I bet it wasn't flashing. I've seen flashing mph signs in highway work zones where the speed limit is 50 or 60, but never 5 that I can recall. 5 seemed out there to me.

Once I got our rig "fully under control" I realized how difficult it is to keep a motor vehicle at 5 mph or less. Without even trying I was quickly back up over the limit and I nearly had to keep my foot on the break to stay at 5 or even in the vicinity of 5. I looked at Sue and said, "I don't think I've ever tried to intentionally go 5 miles an hour. I figured I better keep it at the limit, as I wasn't sure how stiff the fines for speeding might be in this particular locality. 

As we very slowly crept around the corner, "I'll be danged"....there was a police car sitting there. Apparently the TSA had set up a speed trap inside the airport. The cop who occupied the cruiser was looking at us through dark sunglasses, as if he were daring us to go over the speed limit. I told Sue, "I wonder how far over the speed limit we'd have to be going before this guy hit the lights and started pursing us in a low speed chase?" I said to her, "I wonder if we got stopped by this police officer would it go like this:

Cop: Good afternoon sir, could I see your license and registration please?

Me: Yes officer, what seems to be the problem?

Cop: Well uh Mrrrrrrrrr.....Robertson?

Me: Yes sir....

Cop: ...are you aware there's a posted speed limit inside the airport sir?

Me: Yes sir, I saw the sign about 3 minutes ago, around 75 feet back.

Cop: Did you happen to make note of the limit sir?

Me: Yes officer, I believe it's around 5.

Cop: Actually Mr. Robertson, it's not "around" 5, it IS 5.

Me: Oh.

Cop: Mr. Robertson, do you have any idea how fast you were going?

Me: Well, as soon as I saw you I looked down at the speedometer and I believe I was going right at 6.

Cop: Actually Mr. Robertson, I clocked you at 7!

Me: Uh, 7?

Cop: Thats right 7.

Me: I'm so embarrassed officer: I had absolutely no idea I was going that fast.

Cop: Actually sir, the gun said 7.3, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and we'll just call it 7.

Me: Uh, thank you sir?

Cop: (looking over at my bride) Good afternoon ma'am, are you Mrs. Robertson?

My bride: (with a nervous quiver in her voice) Yes sir, I-I am.

Cop: Mr. Robertson, may I ask what's the big hurry?

Me: Well uh, I uh, I mean we...my wife Sparkles and I were just....I mean...our daughter and her husband, Stinger, are due in on one of the next flights and we're here to pick them up.

Cop: Well Mr. Robertson (looking at my bride), Mrs. Robertson, I'm sure your daughter and son-in-law would like you to arrive at the terminal ALIVE, so I think all of us would really appreciate it if you'd slow it down a little bit--we want you to get there in one piece. 

Sue and I in unison: Yes sir, absolutely sir!

Cop: If you give me your word you'll keep it at the speed limit, I'll let you off this time with a warning.

Me: Yes officer....absolutely!

As Sue and I were actually laughing out loud at the prospects of this scenario, I must have taken my foot off the accelerator because an old truck being driven by a guy who looked like he must be at least 90 years old, blew by us like we were standing still. I looked at Sue and said, "Did you see that guy...he had to be going at least 8!