2 of my favorite things

Sitting in my “Cave” I looked around and a couple things stuck out.  Not the Big Ten Helmets or Hawkeye Big Ten Championship caps or bobble heads.  2 of my favorite possessions are within 3 feet of me from where I sit on the futon and watch Hawkeye sports of NFL football and they have nothing to do with sports, but more my childhood.  They are a teddy bear made from my grandmother’s (on my dad’s side) favorite coat she got in Germany when visiting my parents back during the Vietnam war when my dad was stationed there.  The other is old box with rubber bands around it, but inside is the best cribbage board EVER that belonged to my grandfather (on my mom’s side)

 

The teddy bear is kind of an outlier in the room that has a lot of sports memorabilia.  It’s stuck on the second shelf of my book shelf, sitting right by my books on the shelf.  My aunt had 7 teddy bears made from the coat after my grandmother passed, one for her and my dad, and each grandchild.  It’s the softest black teddy bear I’ve ever felt.  My kids have tried to play with it but its just not a play toy and when they are older (well my oldest knows of it) but they’ll understand how special that bear is to me.  I was lucky that all of my grandparents were within 2 blocks of me growing up.  I saw them if not every day in the summer growing up, every other day growing up, and spent most of the time with this grandmother.  I skipped Friday Night High School football games to sit at her house in the corner chair eating supper, watching Wheel of Fortune, Dukes of Hazard, and the opening sequence of Dallas (just so I could see Texas Stadium in the opening).  Then playing with play dough or checkers or eating kit kats.  She passed away 2 days before my 21^stbirthday.  She had already signed a birthday card for me (which I still have too).

 

The cribbage board is special too, and it’s a sweet board.  Smooth and shiny and wooden pegs.  My grandpa and I, as with my cousins and dad, would play cribbage over any other card game growing up.  My dad and I had a mythical house championship that we’d hand off between each other depending how the cards were dealt.  One of the greatest games I think I’ve ever played (and lost) was with my grandpa.  After about 6-7 hands or so I’m rolling and ready to finish the game with a skunk my grandpa, then what seemed like 2-3 hands later I’m stuck 3 pegs from the end and my grandpa lays down his cards to start counting.  I already knew how many he needed to win after the first 2 hands had made it closer than it should be, and just looking at his hand that had 4, 5, 5, 6, and a 5 flipped over, I knew it was game over.  Put my head down as I heard his voice counting and when he counted off the pegs saying “hey hey, look at that!”  That’s probably my favorite memory with my grandpa, so getting the board after he passed away and my grandmother moved out of the house was special to me.  I can’t wait till my kids are old enough to understand the rules and get some games in with them.

 

Just sitting here in my basement in the quiet with kids sleeping and looking around those 2 things just stuck out to me.  I hope I can pass something special on like that to my kids and grand kids as special as those 2 items are to me.

Looking back at the Big Wheel!

So today I was in my boss's office and somehow we got talking about bikes and I mentioned how in my hometown at the first house I grew up in, we used to ride our bikes down the hill and jump the culvert from the neighbor's driveway into our ditch and up it to the front deck.

Looking back that was so much fun.  First off it was cool to seem like we got that much air when we jumped it.  I think sometimes we may have got a little bit.  If you have been reading this or follow me on facebook or twitter, I miss my small town growing up. I loved it.  I hate the big city and that my kids won't experience in Des Moines what I had in Garwin.  All of us who grew up there were lucky.

But after we got done talking about bikes, I mentioned that I had a big wheel too.  Not just any big wheel, a Dukes of Hazzard Big Wheel.  (somewhat like the one pictured, but more orange) I got it from my grandparents for Christmas one year.  I used to watch the Dukes every Friday night with my grandma, and even skip my brothers football and basketball games to do so.  It was my thing with my grandma.  So it was an awesome gift.  I remember going to their basement to ride it that night since I couldn't outdoors.  That spring/summer I tore that thing up!

As you can see the whole thing is mostly plastic and on the right side there was a lever that was your brake.  You could get that thing going fast enough down hill and then hit the break and turn the wheel and get some nice black tire marks on the side walk.  All I need was a bow and I was a real Duke!  What was even cooler is that our neighbor had a custom horn that had the Dukes General Lee horn!  We'd get that played for us when we drove by.  We also had the town cop living at the top of the hill.  You'd get him to sit out there with his cop car, or even just see it parked and it was like running from Roscoe P Coltrane, add in the horn and it was one heck of a ride for a 5-7 year old.

I rode that thing everywhere, all over the neighbor hood, sidewalks, driveway and even rode it to church one Sunday.  The pastor at children's time even made note to mention about the Big Wheel parked out front.

Got to say it was a great conversation with my boss and made me smile a lot and brought back a lot of great memories from my past.

Now all I need now is my real General Lee!

Grandma

So today as I was cleaning stuff out and up for my daughter's new bedroom I ran across a few things. One was my last birthday card from my grandma nielsen. She wrote it 2 days before she passed away, which was 2 days before my 21st birthday. She gave me money the last few years or so and wrote "to a special grandson, go get something you really like." I still remember that morning mom came to my room (yes i was living at home going to community college) and woke me up and said grandma had passed. That was a rough birthday and spring break.

Then I came across a program from my other grandma's funeral. She passed away from a long battle with Alzheimer's last October. That was a rough one for me too, cried a lot at the visitation and funeral. Some of it was the pictures I saw of my childhood, with my grandma and grandpa at Clear Lake and on holidays. Some of it was life hitting me in the face that I've lost really a piece of my childhood and my life. As I grow older and have kids, more of that gets to me. And finally what got to me was the poem on the back of the program. I wanted to blog this earlier but never did, so I will leave you with this.

God saw she was getting tired
And a cure was not to be.
So He put His arms around her
And whispered, come with Me.
With tearful eyes we watched her suffer
And saw her fade away.
Although we loved her dearly,
We could not maker her stay.
A golden heart stopped beating,
Hard working hands to rest.
God broke our hearts to prove to us
He only takes the best.

-Author unknown.


Well he has 2 of the very bests!

Don't Get No Respect

So I grilled steak, tators/onions/carrots/beans, and corn on the cob. While eating, Addyson says "Mom, you made a good supper!" Shawnna stated that she didn't cook it, daddy did...."Mommy, Grandma brought us good corn."

Like Rodney Dangerfield used to say, "I don't get no respect."