Christmas I Remember

The Christmas I Remember most is when we were really broke. Dad found some old toy trucks, fixed them up for my brother. Made a kitchen set from salvaged parts making cabinets for it. I remember helping him, what little I could as a young child, dad did not have the patience to work slow enough for kids to help. I know from experience that a kid helping is often more work than doing it yourself. I don't remember what I got that year I just remember working with him.  

One year we got so excited about what we might get that we opened everything on the 23rd, made Christmas day a let down. 

Hope you all had a good holiday.

Things I Remember

I remember a barn raising after a storm took the roof off.  A cattle drive to get our just bought cows from a few miles away.  A crop harvest for a farmer who was ill.  A wall phone that requires you to crank a certain way to get the person you want (one long crank, two short sort of thing). AN ice house where you put the ice you cut off the lake in the winter.  A time when calling on the phone to someone out side your town often required an operator and cost according to the distance.  A one room school house where I had first grade.  No emergency services so going to the ER ment driving fast.  Single pane windows so the frost could get to be a quarter inch or more thick.  Winters that are sooo could, I remember a winter with a wind chill hit -59 degrees.  The DNR had an orange truck that someone had to go out and run every hour, they forgot and slammed the truck door shut, hear a crack, looked out to see the snow turned orange....make truck.😉

Trips

Growing up my family took trips, mostly to see the extended family. Grandparents and cousins in Wisconsin and Minnesota, had reunions on both mom and dad's sides. I remember dad miscounting how many ice cream cones to get, shorting himself. Once he didn't realize the drivers window was up and smashed the cones I to it.  One time we could find an ice cream place but found a place that had milk in bottles like soda pop, we thought that was cool so got lots of chocolate milk.  Visiting dad's sister's in southern Minnesota we lost my brother out the car door when we did a quick turnaround, boy did he look surprised sitting there on the ground.  We lost mom's purse on this trip going down the road.  When dad got the new van he got home late on Friday and we walked down the driveway through the snow just to ride around in it.  We wanted to show it off to the grand parents and dad in his worked all day then drove two hours home drove the four hours to see them.  

I was suspected of murder

We moved into our first house in 1978, after we moved in the giant elm tree in the front yard was marked for removal by the city.  Dutch elm disease was spending across the country, ours had it and removal was the only way to stop the spread.

One day I came home from work work and the tree was gone, leaving a big stump.  A few days later I came home to find a huge pile of saw dust and wood chips. Julia had hired a guy with a stump grinder to take care of the stump.  My day off job was now to clean up all the grindings.  After I got them shoveled up I noticed that the roots were still there just below the surface, going down lower.  Julia went to work in the back yard while I started to dig. I had a nice two foot wide about six feet long trench with me standing in it up to my knees.  I noticed that people going by were looking at me weird.  I finally caught them looking down the driveway into the back yard then looking at me and taking off. Julia was laying on the ground, her back was bothering her from all the yard work.  My words to Julia "you can't lay in the yard, people think I killed you and are burying you in the front yard".  

Mom

Stories of our mom.  

Mom once wanted to walk from the front of the property to the back through the woods. She figured it would be cool as it was out of the sun but it also out of any breeze. It became a phrase that you don't go walking with mom or riding with dad.  When I went to school in Superior WI mom went up to talk to the financial officer, his last day in that office.  When he got to Spooner Wi mom was the first person there, so I got the aid.  

We had a Plymouth with a push button transmission so she would let  my sister drive us to the lake to swim. 

I don't know how she managed the chaos in the winter with us playing in the house. Sometimes we would chase around the middle of the house on little trikes. When we got older dad had brought home a pool table that we set up in the living room, got pretty good at it.

Once we were going somewhere in Roseville MN, following mom's direction she had me take a right on this country road then left on the that road. This had me going through a bank drive through back out on the street we stared from, all she said was that's the way we went before. I wonder why dad would get upset on trips.  Mom like to have extra people around, she would take her friend along when they went to a reunion by Brainerd to be dropped off 100+ miles southwest of there. I don't think she understood distance. I did this run once just to find out when we got to where she wanted to be that the people where not home they were in the second town we passed through on this trip.  Yeah like I really wanted to drive an extra few hundred miles out of the way. 

Bert Stories

Dad was going to take Don and Laura for ice cream in Mankato MN, before it was built up on top of the hill.  He was flying up and down the hills and Don says, "you don't have to be in hurry".  Dad replied, "I not, I just don't have any brakes".  Don told me this story, I guess he never forgot it.  

One day on the Lake Crystal farm dad had to take a trailer for the car to go get something but he didn't have a license for it. He cut an inch off all the boards front and back, sure the police pulled him over. He told him he just made it and didn't have time to get a license, officer bought it and dad was free to go.  

Once an officer pulled him over for speeding, officer said, "if you weren't speeding you would be a lot farther down the road", dad says "yeah but I wouldn't of had the pleasure of meeting you".  Officer laughed, says, "oh get out of here" and gave him back his license.

Dad bought the 67 Chevy Van, got him very late after a snow storm and couldn't get up the driveway. All of us wadded through the snow down our long driveway, went for a ride around a little. Some how the conversation got to going to Madelia to see the grandparents and show the new vehicle. Got to Madelia in the wee hours of the morning, always admired dad's stamina, driving two hours home then four hours to Madelia after working all day.

My cousin thought the van was cool, dad had put a seat on the front for one kid to sit up front, and a TV on the back of the engine housing. The engine was between the two front seats under what they called a dog house. When we traveled we had a mattress behind the back seat so we could play around or sleep, great times. 

Dad would find deals on things, like bananas or portatoes (150 pound bag) and fill the van with people's orders. One time dad had to hit the brakes hard and a huge sack of potatoes went through the passenger side of the windshield, police asked where the body was, dad pointed to the potatoes. 

One time dad bought a chicken coup, had to move it himself, he built a brace across the inside, put a whole in the bottom for his feet and walked it down the road. A car saw this chicken coup slowly moving by it self, pull over, driver went over and looked in the door, started to laugh, said, "I should have known". 

When living in Staples dad had a nik name of speedy, and not for his driving, because he chased down a fox on foot.

That's it for now.

Dad without the war

Dad had quit school after the eighth grade to and went to work to provide for the family.  The family moved into a house that had been occupied by people that had the 1918 flu. Notice I don't call it the Spanish flu as it was everywhere but Spain was the only one to report how bad it was, everybody else was afraid the reports would make their country look weak. World War one was going on. Everybody got sick and dad's father died, working to take care of fourteen kids wore him down.  Dad would work, bring the money home and take a little for himself.  He would go to the junk yard every week and buy pieces to build a motorcycle. He would use it to get to jobs around southern Minnesota. The bad thing about this is he liked to go fast and would over shoot the turns on the road, remember the roads were just paths through the country.  His ability to see something them go copy it kept him out of at least one demonstration, which he thought was funny.  They told him he couldn't come in because "he would just go home and build his own".  

I remember a cattle drive when we first got to Webster, Dad deciding he was going to put in a road through the woods, the time he bought all of us an ice cream cone but forgot himself, the story behind the new van and the four hour trip, taking care a robin and her nest, his lawn mower trying to pass us going down the highway, etc.... Will have to do these stories later, I'm short on time today.

Power door system

I have been working on the front door system for a couple of weeks, work isn't hard, reading Chinese is.  The maker of this unit provided lots of stuff, motion sensors, badge reader, badges, remote Fobbs, and a basic instruction book with bad English and mistakes in the diagrams.  Had to reinstall it after I realized the instructions don't show an offset hings.  Putting in the 110 volt power wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Now it is set with the wall switch, badge reader, and fob, still have to put in the power lock and create a code to buzz in or use the card reader. 

It is so nice to be able to come in and out with out a lot of trouble, Julia likes the ease and I keep watch for Chip the Monk to make sure we don't have a visitor.

Have the railing on the wherechair ramp painted, touched up the planters, chase Chip the monk away alot. Chip has a pal we call Bobby, has a short tail. 

Next big project outside is to rebuild the arbor, years have been tuff on it.

Memories of Dad

I once met dad's Army buddy, we were going into Webster.  I was in the middle seat, the buddy says this is like driving truck in the war...only we couldn't use lights and we had to find the road by hanging out the window and the Germans were shooting at us. Dad once had to dig seven fox holes in one night as the shelling kept getting close.  One shell landed in the front of his six ton truck with him in a fox hole behind it.  Any wonder he ended up deaf.  

He used to scavage parts to make generators to supply his company  electricity. He would tell everyone what size bulb they could use so they wouldn't overload the system. Of course they had a smart ass lutenant that put in a hundred watt bulb because he wanted, this would always blow the breakers.  When dad finally found the bad bulb he march into the guys tent and smashed the bulb, told the guy if ever did it again dad would make sure he wouldn't get any electricity.  End of problem!  He was in a fox hole once when a luey threw a match in on him, dad jumped out, stuck his rifle in the guys gut and told him. Next time you try to kill me again I will kill you first....guy looked surprised.  Dad said gas tends to acqumilate in the bottom of fox holes and you were trying to burn me to death.   He got an apology and a promise that it wouldn't happen again.   He was once hunting generator parts, was stopped by M.P.'s.  They told him he couldn't go into that town as it was still occupied by the Germans. 

He made deals with the locals for eggs and milk and made five gallons of ice cream, then found out that all but three guys were given leave that night...they had to sleep with four blankets on the bed and still froze.  His helmet fries sounded interesting.  He bent the visor over and sharpened it so he could just scrap the potato over it and it would peal it off and into the cooking grease in the helmet. 

Fighting in the mud, his rifle got jammed and blew up, took off some fingers that they put back on.  This is when he met Jimmy Cagney the actor.  In his life he had nine finger blown off or chopped off and put back on, one he just put in place put bag balm on it and bandaged it as he couldn't get to a Dr.