Category: My Family and Friends

Posted on

God Bless The Cowgirls

Hearing aids are a staple in my family. Nearly all of us need them.  How do you know when it’s time? Here is a story my brother, Bob, told me.  He swears it’s true.

Bob was a dentist in downtown St. Paul for forty years. Forty years of hearing his dental drill constantly buzzing in his ear. At least fifteen years of asking his wife, Sandy, to repeat herself because he couldn’t quite catch what she was saying. His girls began to raise their voices to a low shout, in order to have a conversation with him.

A few years ago, Bob and Sandy were invited to the wedding of a close friend. The bride, a native of Alaska, wanted a “cowboy wedding.” The cake was topped with a cowboy bride and groom. Flowers were placed in mason jars on the tables. The music was loud and there was laughter, clinking glasses, and plenty of dancing.

Some of the guests dressed for the occasion in cowboy clothes but Bob and Sandy were dressed as they normally would for a wedding. They don’t own any cowboy clothes.

Suddenly Sandy spotted a friend, the mother of the bride.

Sandy turned to Bob and said, “Here comes Diane. She had her boobs done.”

“Really?” my brother answered. “That’s news to me. Why did she have her boobs done?  I thought they looked fine the way they were.”

“Bob! I didn’t say she had her boobs done.” Sandy shouted above the noise. “I said, Here comes Diann with her boots on!”

Bob made an appointment with an audiologist the following Monday.

Posted on

Chance Takes On The World

Chance, my middle grandson, is trading his tree house for a dorm room at the end of the summer. He is leaving the mountains of Winter Park and moving to downtown Salem, Oregon to attend Willamette University. His life will never be the same. Either will mine.

Chance is an only child. He has been with most of the same kids since preschool. It hasn’t always been easy.

When other kids were chasing each other up and down the playground, Chance was playing elaborate games of make-believe. When his classmates were thinking of ways to get in trouble, Chance was reading books.

I loved spending time with Chance in the summers, when he came to Denver for enrichment classes. He was an eager student in Grandma’s Cooking School. We toured Aurora and Boulder together. We went to the zoo, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and a lot of swimming pools.

Being with Chance is to experience magic, first-hand. He is a cross between a leprechaun and a medieval knight. He loves to have fun and play games. He is handsome and charming, quiet and shy, but mostly ~ he is a good boy.

This is my letter to Chance on this last summer before he takes on the world:

Dear Chance ~I am so grateful to have you in my life! You are an amazing grandson. Every day I spend with you, every phone call, every text and email, every time I think about you brings me joy. Pure joy! 

I appreciate your kind heart and your grace under pressure. You are polite, considerate and respectful, in a world in which those qualities are more important than ever. Others can learn from your example. That is your message to share.

I appreciate that you are exceptional in so many ways. You are a reader and a writer, an athlete and a scholar, a computer wizard and a theater geek. You passed all of your classes with “A’s” and earned the respect of your teachers for your hard work and natural talent. Your ability to memorize Magic Cards blows me away. College will be easier than you think. Have fun.

I especially appreciate your creativity and your vivid imagination. Your mind travels to far-away places where dragons live and pirates fly their boats in the the skies. Hold on to your creativity and your wonderful imagination. They will take you to places that others can only dream about.

Other people appreciate your beautiful smile and the twinkle in your eyes. I do, too. But most of all, I appreciate the light in your heart, the breadth of your soul, the sharpness of your mind, and your keen understanding of what’s truly important.

Baby, you are the best. I am so very proud of you. Vaya con Dios!

I will always love you!

Grandma

Posted on

Welcome To The Neighborhood

I made a major move in January when I bought a unit in an Active 55+ condominium community, two miles from my previous home. I loved where I lived before but I needed to find a place with fewer stairs. A place with an elevator. I definitely wanted a place with an indoor pool.

I found a unit I loved, with two master bedrooms and an oversized balcony that looks over a golf course. I knew it needed a lot of work, but every place I ever buy needs a lot of work. I was ready for a challenge. At least I thought I was.

I sold my other home for a bunch of money. It was all tricked out and there were a lot of people who wanted to live there. On the other hand, I was the only person who wanted to buy my new home. It had been on the market for 125 days and, thanks to my son, Jason, I bought it for a song. I moved into my new home on March 3rd. The next day I broke my leg.

I hire people to work for me because my only remodeling skill is writing checks. I have a crew of people who have worked for me before and I felt secure that the work would be done quickly with  impeccable workmanship. I was wrong.

Now, more than six weeks after moving, my two main workers, two middle-aged roosters from Mexico, are sparring with each other. “Supply chain issues” have held up materials that must be coming from the moon. I feel like I’m camping out.

My interior doors were delivered last week, six weeks after their estimated delivery date. Half of the doors were fitted with frosted glass, which someone at the factory painted over before sending them to me.  The paint needs to be scraped off by hand, using a razor blade and a lot of patience.

Half of the cupboards in my kitchen have been installed. The other half are sitting in boxes in my living room. Appliances stand like soldiers in the middle of the kitchen, waiting for orders to take their place next to cupboards not yet in place. 

In the meantime, I’m meeting my new neighbors as I maneuver my walker up and down the hallway. Only women live on the third floor with me. I feel like a nun, living  in a convent without habits. My closest neighbors are two sets of identical twins, a woman who has been totally deaf since birth, a woman who walks 20,000 steps/day to ward off dementia, and a beautiful young woman who is hiding out from a stalker. 

Gradually I meet other people from the other floors when I go downstairs to fetch my mail. One of my favorites is a 100-year-old woman, who looks better than I do. She walks 10,000 steps/day with her little white circus dog. Her name is Jeri and she’s one of my favorites.

Jeri has been robbed a bunch of times by people who, she believes, are “just messing” with her. While she is out walking the dog, people break into her unit and take things. Sometimes they bring the things back but some things never return. The robbers take things like her big soup kettle and all the food in her refrigerator. They took her rollers, but not the picks.

Jeri’s daughters, as well as half the people who live here, think she is delusional. The police and the community security force no longer respond to her calls. It’s strange. She’s changed her locks, and still the robbers get in. She doesn’t have a computer or internet, so technology is no help. I don’t know if Jeri is delusional or not. When my sweet, mother-in-law was ninety-five, she was convinced that a sheik sat on her countertop and talked to her. There were children who continually ran up and down her stairs, making a terrible racket.

Maybe Jeri’s imagination is running away from her. Or maybe someone really is watching for when she’s out walking the dog and come inside to steal her hair-rollers. What I do know for sure is the Jeri is smart and feisty. If I live to be 100, I want to be like her.

Posted on

My Encounter With A Bear

Here is another story from long ago. A story that I haven’t told very many people. 

It was August, 1964. I had spent another wonderful summer living in the woods of eastern Iowa. working as a camp counselor at Camp Hitaga. It was an idyllic experience ~ with great friends, horses, a swimming pool, and canoeing on the river. I was stationed in the nature cabin although, in truth, I knew very little about nature. I was there because I knew even less about horses and canoeing. 

At the end of the season every year a few counselors traveled to Ely, Minnesota, at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area for five days of camping and canoeing.

I talked my way onto the upcoming trip because my family was willing to host the group at my house in North St. Paul, about halfway between Cedar Rapids and Ely. I had never canoed before but I loved being outdoors. I was excited about being part of the group.

There were six of us, all together. My friend, Jymie, who spent the summer operating the camp store was also part of the trip. She had never been canoeing either. Luckily, the other four counselors knew what they were doing. They were experienced canoeists and had taken this trip before. They were strong and hardy. They knew about scientific phenomenon like weather and currents. Most importantly, they knew how to read a map.

Our first stop was to find an outfitter in Ely to sell us enough food to last the entire time we would be away. We rented three large canoes, a big tent, and six sleeping bags. The outfitter drove us to the drop off point. We climbed into our canoes and paddled out into the water.

The Boundary Waters is a series of lakes, along the Minnesota-Canada border. Canoeist paddle from lake to lake, and portage (carry) their canoes and equipment along trails that go from one lake to another. Portaging is hard work. Although the trails are well marked, sometimes they are long and steep.

A few counselors were able to put a canoe on their shoulders, and meander down the path. Jymie and I, both skinny back then, usually carried bags of equipment. Often it took several trips, back and forth along the path before we were able to drop our canoes back in the water and paddle for an hour or more before it was time to either portage again, or stop and set up camp for the night. 

Not only had Jymie and I never been canoeing, we had never camped before. Setting up camp meant putting up the tent, building a fire, and deciding what to cook for dinner.  After dinner we tied our cooking utensils and remaining food in waterproof bags, and hung them high in the trees so bears couldn’t reach them. We hadn’t seen any bears while we were canoeing, but one counselor pointed out a pile of bear poop along the trail as we were setting up camp. We knew we had to be careful.

We bedded down for the night, snug in our tent and our sleeping bags. About midnight, we heard a horrible racket outside. 

“It’s a bear,” someone whispered.

“What’s it doing?” I asked.

“Shhh… I think it found our food.”

And then we heard rustling outside our tent. Accompanied by heavy breathing. Heavy bear breathing! The bear was right outside our tent, brushing up against our sleeping bags  as it circled the tent.

As a group, six young women stopped breathing. I was terrified. The bear was right outside. It looked in the window of the tent and took a long look at us before finally ambling off into the woods. 

The next morning we checked for damages. The bear had eaten everything we had. It ate whole loaves of bread. It ripped open a can of peas, and guzzled it down. The bear ate our eggs, cans of tomato paste, and opened packages of pasta. Everything was gone! Coffee and sugar. Oatmeal and lunch meat. There was nothing left.

One of the experienced counselors knew there was a small frontier store somewhere along our route. We stopped another group of canoeists to ask for directions. We had enough money with us to buy more supplies ~ mostly bread and peanut butter. Maybe a package of cookies.

From then on, we tied our provisions even higher in the trees. We continued our trip, grateful to be back on the water. And now, more than sixty-five years later, I am especially grateful that I am here to tell you the story of how I survived. How I was almost eaten by a bear.

Posted on

Dia de Los Muertos

November 2nd, Dia de Los Muertos, Day of the Dead, is a major national holiday in Mexico. It incorporates Aztec traditions and coincides with All Souls Day in the Catholic religion.

Unlike people in the United States who avoid talking about death, Mexicans often joke about dying to demonstrate that they are not afraid. They are determined not to let death stand in the way of their joy of living.

In the days leading up to November 2, bakeries (panaderias) prepare bread in the shape of skulls. In Mazatlán, people put together elaborate skeleton costumes and participate in a raucous nighttime parade throughout downtown.

In small towns, families decorate their homes with altars covered in marigolds, photographs, and articles that remind them of family members who have died. It is a day to remember and celebrate loved ones, to share joy and tears, laughter, stories and plenty of cerveza and tequilla.

Marigolds Are Everywhere

In recognition of Dia de Los Muertos, I share this tribute to my father, Robert Jones, who died in 1996. 

My earliest memory of my father happened when I was about four years old. My family lived upstairs, above my grandparents, in a small home across from the local Catholic church. I sat on the floor, watching my father sleep on the sofa next to me. My brother and I were eating an orange and we methodically put the orange seeds in my father’s ear.

By the time he woke up, my father’s ear was over-flowing with discarded orange seeds. That event is significant for two reasons. It established that my father could sleep through anything and that he allowed us children tremendous leeway.

Adults in my family have always claimed that the ability to sleep anywhere is the sign of a clear conscience. In my father’s case, that was certainly true.

I miss my father tremendously. He taught me to fully appreciate comic books, holidays, gardening, Alfred E. Newman, horse-racing and music. He was the only father I knew who could click his heels and wiggle his ears. Who would play Sousa marches on his trumpet on the Fourth of July and Taps at night.

The last piece of music I heard him play was Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I never heard him play so well, or so sweetly. He died four months later. He was the most honorable, kind, gentle man I’ve ever know.

Adios, Papí. 

 

Posted on

An Artist, A Writer, and A Businesswoman

I first met Tyler when she was five years old. My son was dating her mother and they brought Tyler and her sister, Devon, to meet me.

“What darling, sweet, smart girls,” I said to myself. “I hope they are here to stay.”

And they were. My son and Kortnee were married, and Tyler and Devon became my first grandchildren. My only grand-daughters.

On that first day, I asked Tyler my usual dumb question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

“I’m going to be a writer and an artist,” was Tyler’s answer. She could have added, “and a businesswoman.”

When Tyler was six, she went around the neighborhood, selling writing and artwork to her neighbors. She passed out the following flyer, which I discovered as I was going through my Tyler file:

“Hello! I’m Tyler Conway. I’ve been a great writer sense 1996. (Note: She was born in 1992.) And I’m also a great artist. These are my favorite things to do. Trust me, you will love my pictures. So I’m having a writing and art sale. The pictures and writing cost 1.00$. If your just like me, you can join the job. The phone number is 303-368-1311. Its called the good kids work. The ages are 4-14. Heres where you will find it. Dam East Townhomes, 2854 So. Vaughn Way.”

Tyler was seven years old when Jason and Kortnee decided to get married, and she was excited.. She drew a poster and presented it to her parents.

“Congratulations on your engagement. You must be really excited! I’ve always been impressed by the mutual respect and understanding you have for each other, so I’m so happy to hear that you are taking your relationship to the next level of commitment. I’m already looking forward to the wedding. Love, Tyler”

Tyler is a sweet, quiet, young woman. She’s always been that way. She attended Challenge School, a magnet school for gifted kids, through eighth grade,  and then Overland High School, a rough and tumble high school that was a total shock.

Tyler was a leader on her school newspaper staff during all four years at Overland. In her typical fashion, she never missed a deadline. For the final issue of the newspaper before graduation, Tyler wrote the following description of her first day of school:

“Coming from Challenge school, I had never seen a fight, had a ton of friends, had never seen a person ditch class, and was used to everyone following the rules and keeping out of trouble. And that was the way I wanted it.

“So coming to Overland wasn’t exactly a dream coming true. At Overland, on the first day of school, I witnessed a fight, saw people ditching class and smoking, and was laughed at for my overly preppy dress.”

As she reflected, “I had only three goals for high school: To make the best of it, to get into a fantastic college, and to look back with no regrets. Done, done, and done.”

Tyler attended Cornell University and now works in AT&T’s corporate office in Dallas, writing and producing beautiful digital media for the marketing department. She plans events and training sessions. In her spare time (just kidding ~ she has no spare time) Tyler was my chief party planner this summer. She designed the invitations and the People Bingo game. She made my bookmarks and gave me the best possible advice, including: “You have to have balloons…and gift bags … and ice breakers.”  I couldn’t have had a great launch party without her. Tyler is a young woman who makes things happen. 

Happy Birthday, Tyler. You are an awesome artist, writer and businesswoman.  Done, done, and done!

Posted on

Jason Turns Forty-Eight

This week is Jason’s 48th birthday. I love remembering the day he was born. He was such a tiny baby, the doctor assumed he was going to be a girl. This was before the days of ultra-sound or amniocentesis. Back in 1973, no one knew what color to paint the nursery or knit the baby blankets until the baby was born. I was happy to have a girl. But when the doctor announced that he was a little boy, I was over the moon. I remember thinking, “another little boy in blue jeans” and laughing out loud at the thought of having two little boys to love.

That was also back in the day when mothers got to stay in the hospital for a long time after the baby was born. Jason and I hung out at St. Joseph’s Hospital for five days before we agreed to go home. In the meantime, Jim took care of Garth and together they painted the nursery blue.

More than anything, Jason has always been outgoing, cheerful, patient and kind. He makes friends quickly and still has many of his friends from high school. He’s a great dad to Devon, Tyler, Connor and Max. And to Kirby, their turtle, and Polaris, their dog.

Jason loves animals. When he was nine years old, he spent the first six weeks of summer vacation trying to grow tadpoles in a jar at home. Unfortunately, they all died (croaked?) before we left for Minnesota to pick up Garth. As soon as we got to my parents’ house, I realized that Jason was still thinking mostly about frogs. Every bait store we went into, he stood longingly over the frogs. When we went to my uncle’s cabin, Jason tried to catch frogs that lived by the dock. One morning I got up and overheard him calling all the pet stores in St. Paul to find out if they had frogs and how much they cost.

In one of those moves that mothers always regret, I agreed we could buy a frog, on the condition that he take good care of it. Jason took excellent care of it. And also of the salamander my cousin’s daughter found for him just before we left for Colorado.. 

We drove back to Denver with the frog and the salamander in an ice cream carton in the back seat. Jason took care of his frog then, and he took care of it later when the salamander ate the frog’s foot off. He called my dad to find out what kind of medicine he should put on the wound. He carefully rubbed an antibiotic on the frog’s front foot twice a day for a week until the infection was gone and the frog could again climb out of his terrarium every time the lid was left slightly ajar.

Next to his family, his friends, and his pets, Jason’s the greatest love is sports. When he was nine, he was addicted to watching All-Star Wrestling and the Roller Derby. He knew the life stories of the Road Warriors, the Fabulous Freebirds and Moon Dog Spot. Each week he could hardly wait to see if Gwen Miller would body-check Georgia Hasse over the railing and then stomp on her with her roller skates.

Jason wrestled in middle school and played baseball from the time he was seven until he was out of  high school. Being the youngest and smallest member of the team, Jason didn’t get to play a lot, but he never lost his enthusiasm for center field.

My most telling story about Jason, however, happened when he was in first grade and learning how rough the real world can he. He came home one night with a story about Dearmon, a boy in his class, who cried every morning. Finally, in exasperation, the teacher called a class meeting. Dearmon sobbed through the meeting and finally blurted out that he had no friends. He never had anyone to sit with at lunch or play with on the playground. Dearmon knew that absolutely no one in school liked him. At that point, Kiki, a most sympathetic and tactful girl, put her arm around Dearmon, looked anxiously around the room, and then told him, with much relief, he could stop crying ~ because Jason liked him.

Happy Birthday, Jason. Thank you for forty-eight wonderful years!

 

Posted on

An Olympic Adventure

It all started in late February, 1980. I was working in a four-track, year-round elementary school. One of my favorite families, a single father with three boys, didn’t return to school in January and everyone wondered where the children were. The teachers wanted me, the school social worker, to find out if everything was ok. I called their house. There was no answer. I knocked on their door. It looked as if they still lived there, but no one answered. I asked other students from the neighborhood  if they knew anything. No one seemed to know where they were. I decided not to panic. I wanted to wait and see.

At the end of February, the three boys came back to school with their father. They looked fine.

“Where have you been?” We all wanted to know.

“We were in Lake Placid, New York. We went to the Olympics.” The boys were excited. Their father was proud of what he’d done. The teachers were aghast.

“How could he take them out of school for such a long time? Doesn’t he know how important it is for them to be in school?”

I had a completely different reaction. I went home that night and couldn’t wait to talk to Garth and Jason over dinner. They were eleven and seven years old. 

“Guess what we’re going to do!” I announced. “We’re going to the Olympics.” 

I told them we needed to save our money because the 1984 Olympics would be in Los Angeles and we were going to be there. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

We saved our money. We bought tickets in advance. Jim’s sister, Kathy, and her husband graciously agreed that we could stay with them so we could go to ten days worth of Olympic events. 

In 1984, Garth was fifteen and Jason was almost eleven. We were psyched! I bought a new car, a red 1984 Subaru , to drive from Denver to L.A. and back. I mapped our route and we started out. I’d been having a lot of back pain, but there was no stopping us. Or, so I thought. 

By the time we got to Vail, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to drive all the way to L.A. I turned to Garth, who had recently gotten his learner’s permit, and told him he was going to have to drive. He didn’t hesitate. He climbed into the driver’s seat, with me in the passenger seat, and logged 1000 miles of driving in two days. I still think the best part of the Olympics for Garth was not the events. It was driving all the way California and back.

The 1984 Olympics was pure magic. We went to as many of the events as we could afford, which included watching endless field hockey games because the tickets were $5.00. We skipped the opening and closing ceremonies. Much too expensive! We watch one day of track and field. One day of diving. One day of baseball. We saw the end of the marathon. 

Mostly we soaked up the California sun and the Olympic culture. We ate our lunch in the park outside the Colosseum, surrounded by people from every country in the world. People were exchanging pins and a few were just giving them away. We said “thank you” in English to people who smiled and answered us in their language. Smiles are universal!

I drove while we were in LA, but Garth took the wheel again for the trip back. Jason slept in the back seat. We stopped at the Grand Canyon on the way home and spent our last night in Durango, CO. We talked about all we had seen and done on our two week vacation to California. Before eating our last restaurant meal, we drank a toast:

“To us!! Because we said we were going to go to the Olympics. And we did!”

Posted on

A Minnesota Fourth of July

I checked with my brother to make sure that my memories of the Fourth of July, growing up in Minnesota, were true ~ not some made-up Norman Rockwell picture in my mind. While I had some of the basic facts straight, Bob’s memory for details was razor sharp, as usual.

The Fourth of July was an all-town celebration in North St. Paul, a town of 2000 people that covered one square mile when I lived there. Early in the morning, while my parents were drinking multiple cups of coffee and smoking cigarettes, we kids washed our bikes and decorated them with crepe paper. We wove crepe paper through the spokes and tied streamers onto the handle bars. The boys put playing cards on clothespins and pinned them to their wheels. Riding up and down the block, the noise from the playing cards sounded like motorcycles. Or at least the boys thought they did. We didn’t organize an actual parade. We just rode up and down the street, until our parents were moving and something more exciting happened.

One year there was an actual parade down main street, that included the North St. Paul High School marching band, a group of men from the VFW and the American Legion, and a float made by the Silver Lake Store. Because Leo Fortier’s uncle owned the store, Leo got to ride on the back of the float. He wore a straw hat and dangled a paper fish from the end of stick. My brother and other neighborhood boys walked beside the float, along the two-block parade route that stretched from the VFW club to Sandberg’s Mortuary. Bob remembers being exhausted by the time the parade was finished.

The family picnic began at lunch time. Before Highway 36 cut the town in half, the picnic was held in a large, beautiful park next to the railroad tracks. Later, the picnic moved to Silver Lake where, if you went early in the day, you could snag a picnic table. My mother packed a lunch of potato salad, coleslaw, jello, potato chips and brownies. Men from the American Legion grilled hamburgers for sale in the parking lot. Our cooler was filled with bottles of soda “pop” for the kids and lots of beer for the adults. 

Sometimes my grandmother joined us at the picnic table. Adults visited with one another while we swam, chased each other in the sand, and fought over trivial matters. So much for Norman Rockwell. 

VFW members sold raffle tickets as they walked through the crowd of families. Hal Norgard stood in the back of a truck and, in his booming basketball-coach voice, announced the winners of the hourly drawings.

At 3:00 the Bald Eagle Water Ski Club put on a spectacular show of beautiful girls in modest bathing suits, performing all sorts of amazing tricks on water skis. Since we didn’t know anyone with a boat, I never learned to water ski. Given my athletic ability, it’s probably just as well.

As the sun went down, we pulled out a bucket of worms and tried fishing off one of the docks until it was time for fireworks. Huge, loud, booming, once-a-year fireworks! Maybe they pale by comparison to today’s pyrotechnics, but to us they were absolutely magical.

Later, sometime in the 1960s, the Fourth of July picnic became an Ice Cream Social in August. My Dad’s Dixieland band, the Polar Bearcats, played for the crowd from a platform on the side of a truck, as the Ladies Auxiliary sold ice cream cones. By August the lake had turned green from algae and “dog days” had arrived. Gone was the smell of hamburgers on the grill. . Like most things, the Fourth of July would never be as much fun again.

Posted on

Identical Uncles ~ Double Trouble

I loved all of my uncles, my mother’s brothers, and especially my twin uncles, Ray and Len Hunt. They were devious tricksters. Always full of mischief and seldom thinking of the consequenses. Everyone said they were “full of the devil.” It was an apt description. They teased my mother and her brother, Bob, unmercifully and my mother adored them. 

Ray and Len were identical, “mirror twins.” It was impossible to tell them apart, without looking to see which hand they used. Uncle Ray was right-handed and Uncle Len was left-handed. They got their names before their hand-dominance was established, but it certainly worked out well for those of us who knew them.

Beginning in first grade, Ray and Len often switched seats in school and the nuns couldn’t tell them apart. They walked the mile and a half to school each day, dreaming up tricks to play on their teacher and their only classmate, a boy they named, “Rabbit Tracks.”

One morning they came to school, excited to  tell their classmate they had captured rabbit tracks in their hands.. Their classmate, naturally, was eager to see such an unusual sight and only after they opened their empty hands did he realize he’d been tricked again.  The poor boy was known as Rabbit Tracks for the rest of his life.

The twins were thirteen years older than my mother. They called her “Dolly,” but treated her more like a rag doll that the china variety.  My grandmother told me she didn’t think my mother would live to be six years old, with those two brothers around. They liked to hold her upside down by the ankles and listen to her scream as the blood ran to her head. They taught Bob to steer a car when he was five years old and my mother, the passenger, was three. 

When they were older, Ray and Len took my mother and Uncle Bob all over the farm with them ~ milking cows, inspecting their traps, delivering eggs and working in the field. They named the cows after their girlfriends. They taught Uncle Bob to drive the hay wagon, pulled by two big draft horses, Duke and Nellie, while they rode alongside in the Model T.

On one terrifying occasion, Bob was driving the team of horses, when he lost his grip on the reins and fell between the two horses. My mother hung onto the side of the wagon, screaming, while Bob wrapped his arms and legs around the single tree between the two horses. The twins saw what happened and turned the Model T around in time to stop the horses. Of course, my grandparents never knew about any of those antics. My mother and her brother were threatened and bribed, and never said a word.

By the time I was old enough to recognize my uncles, Uncle Len had a son, Dick Hunt, who was as mischievous as Ray and Len. For a long time I thought they were triplets. Dick died young, but before he died, he helped the twins carry out one last mad caper. 

Uncle Ray had knee surgery and was recovering in the hospital. Len and Dick went to visit him. They wheeled Ray into the bathroom and undressed him down to his underwear. Len put on Ray’s hospital gown, and climbed into the bed, leaving Ray sitting in the bathroom. Dick went to fetch the head nurse and insisted she come to see the surgery, 

“I’ve always heard that the surgeon was a miracle-worker, but you have to see this. That doctor didn’t even leave a scar,” Dick told her.

When the nurse pulled back the sheet to inspect Ray’s surgery, she saw Len’s knee with no stitches or any sign of surgery whatsoever. Only after she went back to the nurse’s station, did the two brothers and my cousin, Dick, find her and explain how they had tricked her. 

By the time they died, Ray had lost his wife, Betty, and a daughter, Joan. Len lost his wife, Mary, and his son, Dick. But my uncles, Ray and Len, never lost their sense of humor or their playful spirit.