Sammy: The Tiny Pistol With A Kick

All grandchildren have their own personalities. Jack is a gentle giant, who experiments with words. It's happened since he was old enough to talk. He'd ask what a word meant, and then he'd spend a week using it. And Jack does jokes. He kept preschool teachers laughing hysterically. They once told me Jack was a three-year-old walking about in a 55 year old body.

Tommy has these organizational issues like I do. He always had a way he liked to design things. One thing that began a series of disagreements with Jack was Tommy's watching Jack move something from where it once was. Sometimes I get the impression Jack did it purposely just to tease. Tommy's passion is sports.

Now Anna was once feisty, but now she's the gentle one. She, like Tommy and Jack, is highly intelligent, but she has a shyness that a person has to understand. Anna knows the answer. You can tell by her grin, but she will never say it. It reminds me of her mom.

No Sammy is an enigma. She makes me laugh, and I love her passion for life. And unlike the other grandchildren, she listens to grandma and Pop Pop driving in traffic or encountering frustration, and the tiny one picked up unsavory vocabulary. It isn't too bad, unless you realize you have a two-year-old running about saying the words "shit" and "damn." Thank goodness grandma's favorite one has not become noticeable.

I love each of them dearly, and they all make me smile. It's been a pleasure to enjoy each one. But most of all, it's a nice feeling to think that they will always remember me.

When Lydia arrived a week ago, I heard Sammy come in the door. "I want my Pop Pop!" The little voice attracted my attention immediately.  It's what makes life worth living. It's what makes life so "damn" good.

What is so fantastic about this picture is how much it reminds me of specific things.

Lydia loves donuts. Sammy does too.

Lydia's cookies are fantastic, so her kids have developed a love for a good chocolate chip cookie, like the one she grips in her hand.

Now the 44 ounce drink is something that is especially funny. Lydia couldn't leave a large fountain drink of Diet Coke on a counter or table. Sammy would find it, whether it required sliding a chair to reach it or not, and then she'd grip it with both hands, and after taking a big sip, she sigh like this: "Aaaahhhhhh!"
Sammy eyes would sparkle like starlight. Mischief would spread across her face.

A Wonderful Place To Learn About Life

The old elevator was something my family built a very long time ago. It was a time, when the country was at war, a time, when the country needed metal for ships and tanks and other military vehicles.

This top picture shows the new large grain bins placed around the old elevator.

A major flaw was the soil our family left there. Dad cussed the situation for a long time, and I'm sure my grandfather did too, although I think they did it incorrectly.

There was always so much spoilage in the bigs that were there, and at the bottom of the elevator, it was a mess as well.

There was heavy clay soil there, which would trap moisture at the base of the granaries. The porous nature of cement meant that eventually it would rise through and effect some grain at the bottom.

Usually a pre-harvest job was shovel away spoiled grain out of the bins, after we had carefully emptied all of them. We used a scoop shovel, and the spoil varied from a few inches on sections of the shed floors to as much six to eight inches. There was massive amounts, but it wasn't like the other jobs we did later.

Dad dozed away much of the clay and set a base of gravel, which we packed to avoid future problems. That layer would allow moisture to sink instead of rise.

A bit of spoil often happens, but the new bins just didn't show the really bad mistake made much earlier. That what happens in projects like this: you learn how to do things better. And dad was a perfectionist.

The tall elevator was also something I hated. Grandpa Cles would climb to the top, which was about 35-40 yards in the air, about the height of a five or six-story building I suppose. Dad told me how his dad would grease parts on that elevator each year, sometimes twice. Dad did it as well, at least on the side where he could reach it.

Grandpa would straddle the top and lean over the back, his legs gripped about the steel and grease the other parts dad could never reach.

Like my father and his mom, I had a fear of heights, but unlike dad, it was a problem for me to get to the top to do the "easy" part. Eventually I made it, but the ladder leading to the apex of the elevator was a leaning thing, and although secure, you looked down at nothing but the ground--about 60 feet or more below.

Another bad part about that elevator was cleaning the bottom. Again the clay made things miserable. There was a section at the bottom called the pit. For years, dad would descend and sweep and scrap spoilage into a five gallon bucket. Much was still very wet. I lifted the bucket with a rope, and if it hit against the side, dad let me know from the bottom. Slop would spill on him, and there was nowhere to go down there. You sat and basically just scrapped the horrible stuff. I did the honors the last years we were on the farm. Dad was doing something else to prepare for harvest.

The last time was the worst. I cleaned the pit. While working, I noticed a dry snakeskin down there, which is something you see in late summer when snakes become blind after losing that layer of old skin.

Days later, I swept the grain shed and cleaned the grates. In one corner, I reached down for a bucket, and six inches from my hand I spotted a rattlesnake. I killed it immediately, just like we did anytime we found one, but I realized immediately that my little coiled friend had been down in the pit. There I would have had no chance to get out of the way before it struck at me.

This last picture shows the bins we discarded. As I remember there were three. The metal was poor, and the construction was equally bad. It was all my family could get in that time when the world was at war.

When we moved the three bins, we spent a week digging the soil away from the base. Dad purchased a long thick cable we wrapped around the very bottom. Several times we tried to pull them away with our large four wheel drive Steiger. The massive machine had over 400 horses, so engine power was not a problem, but the tires would just spin.

We spent more time digging around the base.

"Let's try it one more time. I climbed into the tractor, put it in gear and started, but unlike other times, I gave it full throttle. Dad motioned frantically for a moment to shut it down, but after a slight spin, the granary jerked free and slid along the grass.

Dad jumped joyfully. I pulled the discarded bin far away from the grain shed. Dad ran alongside the tractor, and I could hear him saying something. When I stopped and let the tractor idle, I heard what he said: "Jonie the Miracle Worker."

It's how I remember my dad. It was the ultimate compliment. Dad knew what I did, and after I had to move my family north to a better teaching job, he paid me another compliment. "I never realized how much I relied upon you," he said to me over the phone.

I still came back summers to help dad for a couple of years, but then dad became sick with cancer again.

We have a special bond. He was my mentor, my teacher, my friend. I learned things that made me very successful in everything I did. When I received Foreign Language Teacher of the Year honors for the state of Idaho in the mid 90's, they used the term miracle worker too, describing how I took a tiny program with 30 students and made it a full-scheduled curricular spot with over 160 students in one year.

I wish my dad could have been there, when my former professor Dr. Cervantes presented me with that honor. She called me a miracle worker too, but she didn't call me Jonie. That was only something for my dad.

Dad's Feeder

Dad was a builder. He would never write things down, but he could see the plans in his mind. At the right side of this old piece of machinery, you can see the wooden remnant of the feeder dad built. 

It had a heavy floor, and everything was set up like other jobs he did. Just like his message to me was set this post correctly and make sure the fence is done the same way, and then you'll never have to worry about it. 

Your son and his son will have that job to do.

I was in the sixth or seventh grade, when dad built that feeder, mostly in the old quonset during the winter months. I helped him on Saturdays and holidays, when I didn't have school.

Although made of wood, it still stands there. The second picture shows it clearly. You couldn't use it at this point in time, but we threw bales of hay into it for a very long time. It served a purpose on the farm, and now it is a symbol of the paradigm the land teaches us: something worth doing is worth doing well.

The feeder was something we used for over 20 years.

It's only flaw was how heavy it was. My dad and I had a lot of physical strength, but it wouldn't budge. Moving it meant using the old Allis Chalmers tractor.

Rusty Reminders of the Farm

From the ranch house, you can look toward Cedar Mountain, and the furthest fields were those we plowed and began to till in the early 80's. 

At that time, dad had a plan to do things like he and his dad had done before him. The old rake below is something that rested in a rusty heap for a long time. I had never see it hooked to any tractor. In fact, I'm pretty sure that no one used it since my grandfather stopped using draft horses for the farm work.

The plan was going to go like this. Dad had gone over the land with a brush beater, leaving pieces of wood and branches of sage brush strewn across the new fields. Dad planed to hook this old piece of equipment behind a tractor. I would sit on the old seat on the chair, using the rake to gather a larger pile of brush. As soon as the bunch was large enough, I would use a lever to raise the teeth of the rake up, letting the pile pass behind the equipment.  A week was dad's guess at how long it would take to finish.

It was a job that would be dusty, so much so, that it would be difficult for me to see the tractor ahead of me. There was no moisture in the new ground, parched by the hot summer sun and the heavy stands of brush and native grasses, that sapped the water from the soil. The dust automatically made me not want to do the job, but I would have done it. 

The ground was very rough, so sitting on the rust-covered seat was not going to be an easy job, but the worst part was this: snakes. We lived in snake country, and dad told me that the piles of brush would most likely gather some rattlesnakes too, and that I would have to watch closely.

That's when I decided this job was something I wouldn't do. That didn't happen very often, and it wasn't as if I hadn't had close calls with rattlesnakes before that moment, but with the noise of the tractor and the rake dragging brush and with the dust, there was no way I thought I would be able to watch for snakes.

With our newest tractor called a Steiger, there was a large disk plow. We used it once, and as heavy as it was, it broke up the branches into smaller sections. We didn't have to gather anything. We didn't have to use the old rake.

At one time, there was an old thrashing machine that my grandfather and his brothers used in the very early years of farming on our family's properties. This wagon would have been something they used. They collected the grain in sacks, and then they transported those sacks back to grain sheds, where they emptied them into the granary. 

They then emptied the sacks, returned to the harvesting field and filled the wagon again.

My Great-Grandfather had mules, and one story I remember having heard from my Uncle Merle is how he motivated a mule.

Uncle Merle was in Malad, and they rode in a wagon to Crowther's Mill to empty the grain. The mule stopped in the road and refused to go forward. Uncle Merle jumped on the back of the animal, climbed forward, took a long ear into his mouth and bit down hard. It was a motivational tool. 

I remember my dad and uncle laughing about the story.

The old equipment still rests in heaps in the yard. They are only memories now, and even then, most have disappeared. I worked hard, but it was nothing like what my grandfather and his brothers did every day.

Above the discarded pieces of metal and wooden wheel rims lies the Big Pasture. In the bottom of the small valley was the family spring. The water was sweet and always cold. I still miss its taste, its refreshment. Indians once camped in that area. Until a large storm sent piles of rocks down the mountain, we found arrowheads often on the ranch, especially near the spring.

I remember meeting a government trapper, who once spent time on the ranch killing coyotes. He told me how he too craved that water.

From that spot in this picture, my grandfather and his brothers dammed the water. They would let it run down the hill in a ditch, and after it soaked the ground, they would use shovels and picks. They dug a trench that stretched two to three miles to a spot our family called the Water Lane, where the cattle watered every day.

Dad and I replaced that line with plastic pipe in the late 70's and throughout the early 80's. It was a job, a difficult job. But we had a backhoe dig the trench. We only had to glue the pipe together.

The two old mowers also lay near the fence. At one time, there was hay in the piece of ground called the bottoms. Water often gathered there, so it makes sense to me, that my family planted the spot in hay.

First gathering the piles of alfalfa into large piles, they used machinery to stack it in a "loose stack," which means it didn't use bales. I remember seeing a large hay knife. It's something family members would have used to cut sections of the stack before pitching the layers of alfalfa onto a hay wagon during winter. 

The fact that lucern was in the bottom near The Water Lane is another story. Dad told me how Grandpa Cles would call his brothers after deer grazed some time on the family field of alfalfa. They would tell the uncles that "the wild horses were in."

This meant it was time to meet that night with rifles. The family arrived and everyone went deer hunting. They stood in the back of a grain truck and used the lights to see their prey. It's the type of pasture and the right season to get meat, that you could actually put on a table.

Other than that, deer meat on our farm was so "gamey," a person couldn't eat it. At least I couldn't have, and I like venison. However, it has to be good meat, and most importantly, the animal has to have been taken care of properly--dressed, skinned and aged.

A Potential Still Life

Cles took a picture of this large can, although as I remember, it was a fifty gallon drum.

This type of spray was extremely expensive, so much so, that it made it impossible to use on range ground to eliminate sage brush. Fire was the best way to deal with it.

We had some neighbors on the other side of our ranch. Their farm was over 80 sections of land. At one time, wild horses ran wild there.

It was from that herd that my grandfather roped, caught and broke many wild horses to ride. One of the last ones he caught was buckskin mare. It had a US Government brand on the hip, which meant it was one of the ones that soldiers let join the wild herd, when they abandoned the practice of having horses.

We used her as a broodmare, and she provided our ranch with some of the finest horses. One buckskin colt was fast.

A cousin used it in chariot races in Southeastern Idaho and Northern Utah. He never found another animal, that could run with it, so he had many pictures of the buckskin pulling well ahead of the team.

That horse was one, who threw my cousin. That happened rarely, and when it did, my cousin was injured. It was a while before he could ride again. He never really rode that horse much after that. Chariot racing, however, was the colt's forte.

Dad rode a black horse colt from that mare, and "Old Black" became an animal that few, except my father, could ride. He was an excellent cutting horse, and he ran full gallop through rocky terrain and brush. The horse turned so quickly as it reacted to a cow being herded, that on occasion it "threw my father's back out." For me personally, I just would hang onto the saddle horn.

You didn't have to use reins. The horse knew what you wanted to do, and he did the thinking. "Old Black" knew what needed to be done.

Our neighbors with the large tract of land and wild horses also had "bad luck" with lightening fires, at least that's how they described it, but no one complained. It was a way to rid the range of brush. Ironically, most started on clear nights.

This picture would have been a great still life shot, because around this empty container was a thick stand of sage. Cles laughed about it. I found it funny too.

But it brought back memories of more than just a couple of stories on the ranch.

The Old Quonset Shed

There was a shed, that although it offered no heat, it still was a break from cold wind on winter days when we had to do something inside. I remember building gates inside this shed with my dad on Saturdays, when the day began with my preparing to go to basketball practice. Dad left that happen. He saw it as something important to me, as I learned how to get along with classmates, and even more importantly, as I learned to develop some skills that also applied to life. To this day, I'm not sure what "life skills" I developed in sports. I learned the satisfaction of winning, but unfortunately, I also had the notion that you won at all costs.

Saturday found me climbing into dad's white '63 Chevrolet pick-up truck. Sometimes he loaded the hay from the haylands by himself. That was when it involved alfalfa. Meadow hay was something else entirely. I wasn't allergic to it, and dad liked my company.

Saturday mornings were beautiful in those meadow areas of Malad Valley. Wells flowed year round. They were the type of artesian flows that didn't need a pump. 

We loaded the truck high, and sometimes roped it down, so that hay didn't tip to one side.

The first task on the ranch was feeding cows. Then we did odd jobs for the rest of the day, which included building gates. I remember one year doing that all winter long.

In the background near the grinder, a press is still there. Dad had a large electric drill we used for metal, but for these gates, dad had one that you used manually.

Dad used long bolts to secure everything in place. We worked together, and the best part is that it was here that I learned some basics.

When I did my Eagle Scout Project, I built livestock panels. It took me two weeks in the late spring and early summer of my sophomore year of high school, but I finished it. Ann's dad Stan oversaw the job I did and really liked the quality of my work.

It took me a few extra days to do some extra things. Stan asked me to finish using the wood by making sure that I used all the scraps. Ann and I share something in common. We come from families that didn't waste anything.

In the top "window" picture, if you look closely, there is a two-inch chunk of glass broken out of a pane. I did that. I think I threw a bolt at a rat, but I can't remember exactly.

During summers, the shed was quite warm, but we worked on farm equipment often there, although during late July or early August, we pulled the combine under the trees below the house. 

By then, it was too hot to work in a metal shed like that.

We all worked hard. Mom took care of us too, and besides cooking meals and doing other odd jobs for us, she also brought us quart Mason jars full of the soft drink of our choice. 

Dad preferred Pepsi. I, on the other hand, didn't get a caffeinated drink like that. It annoyed her that I drank a small paper cup of Coke at the movies or purchased a can at school during government class, when our teacher had a film for us to see.

She didn't like to see me drinking it. I'm the same way with my own grandchildren.

The View from the Shed At The Old Place Which Looked Out Toward The Big Pasture

The corral closest in this picture was a fence with poles my father set with his dad. I helped dad replace the poles and posts in the corrals a bit further up the hill.

Everything seems to be there, although I'm sure an occasional pole needs replacement.

My dad always told me to work hard and do things so well, that I wouldn't have to do the job again.

His words basically said that my son and his son would have to do the job, and they, if they followed dad's advice about doing a good job, wouldn't ever have to worry about it again for the same period of time.

The farm needed constant care, something that didn't happen after the passing of my father. I still have memories of the work we did together.

It consisted of setting posts, hauling rocks, spraying weeds, herding cows, building fences, fixing fences, repairing farm equipment. That's what you did on the farm. It wasn't about just driving a truck or a tractor, and those who knew me and my dad understood that fact.

That's the thing about city folk, who mark themselves by spending their childhood watching the equivalent of I Love Lucy reruns. When you actually get out of a chair to do something away from a TV or put down knitting needles, suddenly you become aware of the work dad and I did.

I mention the two of us, but the reality of the situation was that age was the only thing, that disqualified a person from helping. My youngest sister was only a fourth grader in my last year of being on the farm, before I went to college. But she knew exactly how hard we worked and what we did.

There are no regrets for me--just pleasant memories of having known my dad and having been able to work by him for so many years.

The Old Greasecart

This old trailer had was a wagon built on an old frame. Once the tires weathered and became flat, the thing was finally obsolete.

That was a term very interesting in the days I helped my dad on the farm. From the wooden spokes, it basically shows the trailer was from the 20's or 30's.

A lid from a grease bucket is still visible on the top.

At the left are barrels we once used to treat railroad ties, huge posts we placed in holes and tamped into place to secure fences and ensure the wires remained tight to keep our livestock in our pastures and prevent other cattle from getting into our land.

The sage brush and grasses were always there, but things now appear overgrown.

The Back of the Old Grease Shed

Grandpa Cles purchased grain sheds during the war. It was a time, when quality metal products were for the war effort, and that was if you could get anything at all.

This old shed was one I never remember being used to store grain.

There were wooden floors, and the entire inside was full the barrels of different oils--transmission and engine.

There was never a time we didn't check the oil in an engine before starting it. And we greased the machinery every morning too.

You had what we called a grease gun, which we used to do that. You unscrewed the top of the unit, stuck the metal column into the grease, and then pulled a lever on the back until it locked into place. Suction filled the gun. That was something we did almost every day, usually early in the morning.

There was no light on the inside of the shed, so we did it mornings. You wanted to do that when there was plenty of light to see what was inside on the floor.

On the northern side was once a 500 gallon fuel tank. When our tractor only held a small amount of diesel, it worked well, but eventually our large tractor had a 500 gallon tank. By then, it was something that necessitated the use of an electric pump, but most importantly, we had to expand things, which included the purchase of a 5000 gallon fuel tank.

The Dilly Ranch

The back of the old house was once a spot, where my dad and I fed cattle during the winter. Dad had the theory, that after using it for three or four years, the thick stand of sage brush would eventually begin to disappear.

It worked.

The storm that hit during the 80's bringing large mounds of rocks down the canyon near the spring helped too.

At one time, there were a small bunch of rocks, which was a section marker. During my life, dad showed me several sites where they existed, just like his dad did before him. From my earliest memory, knowing I would someday have to know those things by heart was important.

Plans change, just like the effects of time on this old farmhouse, where I grew up during the summer.

It's been so long since I saw some of the parts of this house, that I've almost forgotten the rooms, but I remember the old pink chair.

One leg, as I remember, was missing, so we leaned it against a wall. No one sat in it anyway. There must have been some sentimental connection with that chair, but no one ever said anything about it, so I really have no idea about it.

The green paint was the wall of that back bedroom. The door led to the back yard, but for years, nails prevented anyone from opening it. Either antique hunters or who knows what forced their way through it. There was nothing in the house worth taking.

However, the square-headed nails were more than interesting. They basically held the old part of the house together, a section that existed long before my family arrived in the mid 20's.

One of dad's discarded shoes lie in the corner. I don't recognize the other one, but I figure it was most likely an old pair of mom's.

The cabinet in the center of the photograph had spices in the drawer at the left. The right top drawer was for knives and forks. A bottom drawer, as I remember, was a bread drawer.


Two larger doors were on the left side. Pots and a few pans were below it.

A lone window at the left was one we opened at night to get a cool breeze going through the house.

The two large front windows were where the kitchen table once stood. I will always remember eating breakfast and watching kitchens play in the front yard.

At the left is the back of a large wooden stove.

Dad always wanted to remove it, but it was extremely heavy. Someone slid it away from the center house. If thieves did it, I'm sure they found it was heavier than they figured. I helped lift one of those stoves once, and it took four strong men to lift it, and it wasn't an easy job.

Whoever moved the stove did it just in time to save it from any damage from the chimney falling through the ceiling to the floor of the old kitchen.

Outside is interesting as well. a section of what once was cabinetry from the old cellar lies in the yard.

Old fruit jars still contain things my grandmother did in the 40's and early 50's.

I remember finding a jar of raspberry jam. It was my favorite type, and I opened it and began making sandwiches.

That was during the mid 60's, so the bottle was at least 15-20 years old.

A layer of wax was at the top of the jar, which wives once used to seal fruit jars. The jam tasted great. My parents were upset when they determined I had found an old bottle in the cellar, but they did let me use it--especially since I didn't get sick.

The funny thing about that is that I once had an experience in Germany, where a family gave us old bottles of jam. The smell of fermentation was so strong in the jam, that we had to toss it into the trash.

Grandma Liza's jam, though very old, didn't have that problem.

At one time, the outdoor plumbing was an issue for me. I was ashamed of the fact that we had an outhouse in the backyard.

It doesn't bother me now. To be completely honest, it actually shows an important philosophy. Our farm was highly productive, because all the money went first into machinery and farming supplies and sheds. My grandpa and my dad saw to it that we had what we needed to produce exceptional crops, so the outhouse isn't really an issue.

It was once in the front yard. Dad moved it into the back, after digging a deep hole.

It was a "twin-seater" like most of them were. I have a difficult time understanding why you wanted conversation in times that required such seclusion.

I can't bring myself to think I could ever be that lonely.

It is my hope that one of the pathetic wretches, who keep stealing things from the farm, will one day choose to sit it it.

Given the condition, they will definitely find themselves dropping into a mass of karma.

It's a dream of mine, but justice never happens like that. People never get what they really deserve.

For me, it's sad to see the place look like this. Grandma Liza planted trees around the house, and some already existed. It provided shade during the summer, but without water, the large trees eventually died, and winds brought them down into the yard.

The picture below shows the back door. That was what we called the entrance. We were always on the lookout for anyone dropping in for a visit, because the shower was in that entrance. It was mostly a safe situation, because you only took a shower like that late at night, so it wasn't a problem.

There was only a screen door on the outside of the entrance. When no one was there, we usually propped something against it, to prevent the door from breaking from wind gusts slamming it back and forth. On the inside, there was a large wooden door near the kitchen sink, which locked from the inside.

In front of the house was an old chicken coop my grandfather built.

He designed it well. The door above not only provided some storage, but there were also a number of old batteries.

At one time, a wind mill was in the front yard. It generated some power, but my dad always said how unreliable it was.

Technology has come a long way.

There was also a way of dumping grain or feed for chickens at the top.

I never had any experience of raising chickens, so the whole thing about mash and how to feed them is something I really don't know. Grandpa had a couple of problems.

First, he built a chicken run. The neighbor's pig somehow was able to get through the wire a number of times. After fair warning, grandpa took a club and hit the hog over the head. The animal dropped to its side. I think grandpa though it meant some hams and sausage for the neighbors, if they came and retrieved the damn thing, but suddenly, the pig became conscious and ran through the run and tore everything apart.

A second event involved a coyote. Grandpa heard the chickens making a horrible commotion. He ran with the .25/20 rifle, and after cornering the animal, he shot it.

The old chicken coop eventually became a spot to store some machinery. The John Deere Deep Furrow Drills were once there. Then we began storing sacks of seed wheat on planks between barrels. Only the barrels remain. The planks like scattered about on the floor.

I have so many memories of this old house. It was here, where I lived in the years before my mission in Germany. Dad bought the ranch north of us with a better house in the fall, after I was at the university. Dad had me meet with him with the lawyers.

That land was to become my ranch. Plans change. It's what happens in life. It's like John Lennon once said: "Life is what happens, after you've made plans."

Regardless what happened, I have incredible memories. When I was in high school, the roof began to leak. Dad bought tar and round rolls of tarpaper and large rolls of a type of roofing. It looked like shingles, but it unrolled. We spent an afternoon replacing that roof.

I think my dad's picture happened near the back door of the house. It had to be when he was six or seven, so that would have been in the late 30's or 40's.

The house is a memory now.

It's what we learned in that house and on that farm that is so important.

A Couple Of Days After My Mom's Funeral

I am so proud of my children, all of whom sacrificed to pay their respects to their grandmother. Lydia drove from Reno with two of her children. Tommy couldn't make the trip, because state testing was during that brief period of time.

My son-in-law also was unable to attend. It's important to note how difficult it has been for him and my daughter during all the years of medical school. They have lived basically on a pair of shoe strings during years of additional training.

Finally Jeff finished, applied and secured a job. The beginning months were difficult, because it's what happens when you begin. At last that's how it appears to me. It's like anything you do as a career.

Although I hoped the funeral would be on the weekend to lessen the difficult time I knew my children would have, the planning centered on some other situations. Due to the date, Jeff and Tommy were unable to attend.


Everyone else traveled and made the trip. But for Jeff, he visited my mom, when we most needed his advice. In the fall after the stroke, I hoped he could give us different news about my mom's potential recovery.

In spite of the financial sacrifice he and Lydia made, in a time when they weren't earning a lot of money, they made the trip to see my mom.

Jeff's news was not optimistic. The truth of the situation basically said what would actually happen, and having heard it from Jeff made the tragedy somehow easier to prepare for inevitable in the next few months.

One thing for sure is that mom was so happy with the visit. She enjoyed seeing the grandchildren. She seemed to feel motivation to work harder during physical therapy.

During that stay, we spent the night at a hotel in Layton we always enjoy. A young man, whose name is David Thomas, is the manager there.

Ironically, each visit seemed timed perfectly, always happening when he was at the desk. He knew us each time we visited--either on a trip south or on a visit to see my mother.

The funeral happened this past week, and Cles and Leslie were to fly out early Saturday morning. Lydia also planed on staying through Friday. She would spend one more day before driving to the spot, where Jeff''s brother lives.

As long as I remember, the highlight of traveling for Jack is about swimming in the pool.

It was nice that Lydia and Cles and Leslie were still there. I was sick after the funeral, so it gave me a day to recuperate before returning home. Jack loved the swim. He loved being with Anna and Sammy.

What I find so fun about grandchildren is the fact they never notice how small a pool is. They have fun in spite of the conditions.

They savor the moment.

Now it's important to note that I had uncles--some who were fun, but no one has an uncle like Uncle Cles.

He is childlike, so kids love to be around him. It's also important to note that childlike is not childish.

Believe me, I have childish relatives, and I know the difference. I think everyone does.

The excuse doesn't make miserable wretches easier to stomach, but one thing for sure, Uncle Cles and Aunt Leslie are fun.

Being childlike means knowing what little ones find funny. For example, Cles says something like this to all of them: "Where's your buttfer?"

Automatically, one will ask the inevitable. What's a buttfer?

"Poopin'." Cles has this trademark laugh and his brown eyes sparkle each time he uses a joke like that. Little ones laugh, but more importantly, I laugh and smile days after the fact.

I still am smiling as I type it into my blog.

Each one finds it difficult not to climb into his lap, in spite of teasing, tickling, joking.

Cles brightens the day.

When I look and Cles and my daughter-in-law Leslie, I am excited, because I know they will make great parents.

I know they will raise their "dragon baby" to be successful and magnetic and intelligent.

It's what you do for children, when you truly love them.

The stay was a number of days, but it all passed so quickly. Things change.

It once was a situation, where Cles and Leslie could travel to see us, would travel to see nieces and nephews, but now they begin a transition: one all parents eventually find in front of them.

In late June or early July, they will have their own little one.

And at that time, Cles will have learned more fun things to do to tease and cradle his own little guy in a home, where children feel the warmth and love they need.

It's what all my grandchildren have experienced.

And this weekend, in spite of tragic times and a serious event, was one that allowed us to have moments of fun.

Plans change. The weather seemed threatening, so Lydia left for home early Friday, but not before taking some incredible pictures and a few movies. The moments we spent in Layton this past weekend were great times. They were things that distracted us from sadness and loss.