house
My Uncle Bill is a man of many talents. He hates to see something be thrown away or junked out if it could have some value. Now, I’m not saying that he is a hoarder, because that just wouldn’t be accurate. He just sees value in things that others don’t…such as an old bus. Uncle Bill came into possession of an old bus, and spent some time fixing it up to be used as a camper for his family. And it worked quite well.
They did a lot of traveling in it, coming out many times to visit us here in Casper. We took trips around Wyoming in that bus, and it was also a favorite hang out when they were here. Uncle Bill and I used to go out there and play Cribbage, while some of the other kids played in the bus. My little sisters liked to play house, because it was a separate “house” from my family’s home. And Of course, there was the various kids who wanted to play “driving” in the bus. I remember one time when my cousin Billy was “driving” and he found out that if you take the bus out of gear on a slope, the bus will roll. Thankfully, Uncle Bill and I were playing Cribbage at the time. I never saw my uncle move so fast. He ran to the front of the bus, and put it back in gear. Then, when he stopped shaking, he calmly backed the bus back to it parking place with a boys will be boys attitude. Thankfully there were no other cars in front of us. Looking back now, it’s easy to laugh, but it wasn’t very funny then.
The trips we took in the bus were so much fun. No one had to be tied down, you could sit and the table and talk or play games, and just enjoy the freedom to move around. It was 
much like traveling in a train…and we all loved it. I remember Uncle Bill teasing us kids about having to lick up our ice cream if we spilled, and then when his son Jimmy did spill, and started to get down to lick it up, Uncle Bill laughed heartily and said, “Don’t lick it up!! I was just kidding!!” The relief on Jimmy’s face was just hilarious!!
The memories I have of that old bus are varied and many, too many to put here. It was a great old bus, and my Uncle Bill did an amazing job on creating a great travel bus, but more importantly he created memories. I know I will never forget them, nor will my sisters. Those were such good times.
When Barry was a little kid, he liked to ride motorcycles. Like a lot of boys, the ability to drive…even if it is only on dirt…makes them feel like men. So, if given the chance, they will ride the motorcycle or four wheeler. And if their dad is into bikes, the boys are even more likely to want to ride one. These days there are tracks with cool jumps for the kids and lots of ways to make it a family outing, but back then, Barry rode around the dirt roads north of Casper, where his grandparents lived.
Barry thought anything that had to do with motorcycles was cool back then. In fact, he would sit on the parked bike, just 
to be on the bike. But, riding was the most fun, of course. Barry was always a kid who liked tractors, motorcycles, four wheelers, and even riding lawn mowers. Anything that was mechanical, so it made sense that he would want to ride non-stop.
What was really kind of cute though was that when he got his helmet, he didn’t want to take it off. I think that kid would have slept in it if he could have. Every time you saw him, he had that helmet on. He wore it in the house, and out to play, and of course, riding. It’s a natural thing for a kid to do. It always 
seemed to Barry that he was having to wait on others to ride, and that was a bummer. He always felt like he had to fight for his turn to ride.
These days Barry is all grown up and has his own toys. He doesn’t have to ask permission now. He can get out there on his riding lawn mower and ride to his hearts content. Boys never really outgrow their toys, the toys just get bigger and more expensive, right? Well Barry, now you can have any toy you want…as long as you want to pay for it, so enjoy. I don’t think anyone will fight you over this one. Happy unbirthday Barry!!
My mother-in-law and father-in-law have known each other for a lifetime. Their mothers, Nettie and Vina were friends when the kids, Walt and Joann were just toddlers. Nettie and Vina became friends and spent time together while their husbands worked on the ranch. At that time Walt was 3 and Joann was 1. When nap time rolled around, they would put both babies in the same crib, and so years before they would marry, Walt and Joann slept together, a fact which has been laughed about by their family members ever since, much to the chagrin of Joann, who was never sure she thought that type of teasing was very funny.
My father-in-law speaks proudly of the years of marriage that they have mastered…63 years today. All those years of working together, raising a family, weathering the storms of life and loss, and making the journey toward growing old together. So many plans, so many dreams. A lifetime of making plans. For most of those years, my mother-in-law kept the house, and my father-in-law worked. It was the way many it was back in the late 40’s and early 50’s…before women’s lib and feminism came into being and so many women turned to careers. I’m not saying it was better or worse then…just a different time. And it was the way my in-laws wanted their life to be.
As with many things in life, sometimes things don’t turn out just exactly as you had planned. My mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in about 2004, and since that time her abilities have deteriorated…but not the love that has endured through all the trials, all the difficult times, the loss of daughter, and granddaughter, and parents. The love has endured. Now that my mother-in-law is no longer able to do the cooking and washing, my father-in-law has taken over those duties.
People never know how they will react to the illness of a loved one…especially long term illness. Some people leave, but most long term marriage partners stay. Still, not all people with an illness like Alzheimer’s Disease can expect to be living at home with the one they love. So many partners feel like they have already lost their loved one, so a nursing home won’t matter. And so many people have no other options, because there is not enough help. And even though they love their spouse, there are no other choices. It is a difficult 
decision to make and one that could still be in my in-laws’ future. There is no right or wrong choice…just no other choice.
No matter what the future holds for my mother-in-law and father-in-law, I know that their love will endure. When she no longer knows who he is or who her children are…the love will endure. He will still go see her as often as he can get someone to take him, because she is the other half of him…she is the heart of him. When she is ill, he worries, when she is difficult, he sweet talks her (after he fights with her a little), when she is having a good day, he praises her…because after all these years, the love endures.
Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate the woman who nurtured you from birth to adulthood, and I have been so blessed by the woman God gave me to be my mom. She is sweet and kind, and always tries to keep the sunshine in our lives. Every day for as long as I can remember, she would remind us of the same things as we left her house. She would always tell us to “Keep on the sunny side.” and “Jesus takes care of you.” It was a beautiful send off to our day, and showed us the love she felt for each of us.
I don’t suppose it was easy to raise 5 daughters, with all of their moods. I know there was more than one drama queen among us, so it was quite a job. And I know that we probably drove her half crazy more than once. I can’t say our house was a quiet place, but it was always interesting. Between the giggling and the arguing, quiet was…well, non-existent. In fact, as a mother and grandmother myself, I wonder how she ever kept her sanity…much less raise 5 good, Christian daughters…but, she and my dad did just that.
When I got married, I gained a mother-in-law and father-in-law. Many people don’t like their in-laws, but I can say that God blessed me with wonderful in-laws. My mother-in-law became like a second mom to me. She had lived a very different kind of life that my mom had, being raised on ranches and out in the country. She canned most of their vegetables, 
and did a lot of home baking, things my mom didn’t always have time for with her job. So I was able to learn some new skills.
Being a city girl, I’m sure that I was something new for my mother-in-law, but she was always good to me, and she became my second mom. Now, 37 years later, I take care of her, due to her Alzheimer’s Disease, and I hope that she knows how much I love her. As time goes by, I know she will remember me less and less, but I hope that somehow she will always know that she was loved, by all of her family. I pray that both of my moms know how much they are loved. Happy Mother’s Day to you both.
When my nephew, Barry was just a little boy, he and his mom lived with her parents. As far as Barry was concerned, his grandpa was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Barry was determined to be just like his grandpa!! My father-in-law was building a house on their land when Barry was just about 1 year old… just old enough to want to help. When my father-in-law was doing the preparatory work Barry wanted to be with him. He wanted to know all about the cool things his grandpa was doing, especially since he had no intention of going to school or anything like that. He was going too be far to busy being Grandpa’s partner.
In building a house, you have to have the right tools for the job. You can’t expect to build a house with a nail file, or paint with a toothbrush. The right tools are vital to the success of the entire project. A good carpenter has tools that are well fitted to his hands and to his 
way of working. He has a team of workers who know their job and work together to get the job done. Each person helps the others to do the job right. That said, Barry had his own tools. He had the little wooden hammer he used on one of his toys, and since some of his other toys included tools, I’m sure he had a little toy saw, shovel, pliers, wrench, and many other tools that he figured might come in handy in this endeavour. Barry put his tools to work whenever he could find someone to lift him up to the work area so he could get at it.
The home plans will always include plenty of storage space, because everyone knows that storage space is vital. Barry considered himself the Foreman of the storage areas, I think. He had to make sure they were the right size, because a storage area that couldn’t hold it’s foreman was…well, simply too small. There are lots of times that a guy needs to get into those cupboards, and cramped space in there is just not acceptable. So Barry was the 
Foreman and also the Inspector of the storage areas.
Yes, building a home is a big job. Being the foreman on such a job usually means plenty of stress, so one final thing that Barry learned from his grandpa about the right way to be a carpenter, was that you have to take time out for occasional breaks. So, every once in a while, Barry would find a cupboard to hide out in for a while, and the most important item to have in that space was the thing we all know helps with the stress of any job…the Folger’s Coffee!! It can be the only thing that lies between a man and his sanity.
For as long as I can remember, going to my grandmother’s house brought the smell of potato milk soup or oyster stew. Now, don’t get me wrong, my grandmother made other foods, and was an excellent cook, so maybe that is just the memory that makes me think of her. I was never very fond of oyster stew as a child, although I like it now, but potato milk soup was always a yummy favorite. Grandma always had the oyster crackers too, and I thought those were always fun. Grandma’s kitchen was always full of great smells and plenty of food.
Grandma loved having her family come for visits. The more the merrier. And all of her grandkids would have to agree with that. We always had a great time playing at grandma’s house. She had a huge back bedroom where her kids had slept, and while I always that it was scary at night, it was a great place to play. It had lots of room and plenty of beds when it was time to put the babies down for their naps. Playing house back there was always great fun, and since my grandparents had 9 kids, there were always plenty of cousins to play house with.
I think my grandmother must have been a Popsicle person like me, because her house was warm. I was always cold, so it was nice to go to grandma’s house, because it was always warm and cozy. As a kid, it seemed like I could never get warm enough…except at grandma’s house. I suppose many people wouldn’t think that was much of a memory, but to me, it was a great memory. It never seemed to matter how warm it was in the house, I still wanted to snuggle up in a warm blanket, but at grandma’s house, I never had to get a blanket…Grandma understood.
When my grandparents moved from their old home to the new one on 3rd Street, I remember playing in the basement. It was a great place for a haunted house when we 
were kids, and the pool table in the rec room was a definite plus…if you could get a chance to play. It was definitely a first come first served basis, and the older the kids were, the quicker they got there, and somehow it always seemed to me that the boys got there quicker than the girls.
I didn’t really matter what we were doing when it came to going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, we always had a good time. Whether we were playing in one of the many rooms in her house, or playing hide-and-seek outside, it was always fun…mostly I suppose because we were at Grandma’s house.
When my girls were about 4 and 3, my in-laws sold their place west of Casper and bought a place north of Casper, because the old place was becoming more and more a part of town, and they wanted to live in the country. We had moved our mobile home to their old place while we got our new place east of Casper ready, so when they sold the old place, we moved with them. The new place had a 14 X 60 mobile home on it, which would definitely not be big enough for the family. So began a family project. We would build them a house, and everyone was going to help. It was rather exciting for me, since this was something I had never done before…much less ever thought I would do.
I had the initial job of running the tractor while one of the guys went behind me with a scoop to move the dirt and level the site. This was a big job since the home was to be built into the side of a hill to help with insulation. I had never run a tractor before, much less with a person hooked up behind it, so I was a little bit nervous, but in time, I became an expert through repetition. Finally the site was ready for the home to be built. The foundation was laid, and the next step of the family project would begin.
The home was to be built out of cinder blocks. For those who don’t know, cinder blocks are like a very large, usually gray, brick. My father-in-law, it seemed, could build just about anything he put his mind to, and I don’t know if he had laid bricks before, but he did this job with the skill of an expert. This was to be a big home with a huge garage attached. The family would no longer be cramped for space.
Everyone helped, right down to the little kids. Barry, my nephew, was just about 1 or 2 when we were doing some of the finishing touches to the house, and he helped too…even if someone had to lift him up so he could reach. Every family member had a hand in the building of the house, and we can all take pride in the accomplishment.
While my in-laws have long since moved to town, my brother-in-law, Ron bought the land next door to the house, and still lives out there with his family. The home that was our family project is still there, of course, and houses a different family now. Whether they know it or not, the house they live in has quite a unique history…and they are very blessed to be living in it.
Most of our family lives here in Casper, so traveling over the holidays was never something we did very much. Living near family is something I have always loved and not having to travel over the holidays is something I will never regret. There was one certain Christmas that was…unusual, however. That Christmas week began with a storm and some very cold weather.
Our Christmas traditions meant going to my in-laws house on Christmas eve, since they opened presents on Christmas eve, and my family opened presents on Christmas day. That, along with our house first thing in the morning, made for a busy day with lots of stops…and it looked like the weather might be planning to severely hamper that. My in-laws lived out in the country on a dirt road that tended to become a lake after a rain storm, and get drifted if the snow was deep enough, or the wind blew much.
Such was that Christmas in the early 1980’s and we were going to have to figure out what to do about it, because our car was not going to make it down that dirt road that was drifted in. So, that Christmas was going to be one for breaking with some of our traditions. We packed up the girls, their gifts from under our tree, and the food we would bring to my in-laws house, along with our pajamas, because we would be spending the night at their house.
We went as far as we could, which was where the blacktop ended, and they met us with their 4 wheel drive Bronco. We couldn’t make it in on the road, so we would be going cross country. We got in with no problems, and for once we opened all of our Christmas 
gifts on Christmas eve, like my in-laws do. We had a wonderful and cozy evening at their house, and then the next morning my father-in-law took us back to our car so we could get back to town for Christmas morning at my parents house.
The roads into town were not the best, in fact, we thought for a while that we might be snowed in at my in-laws house, but the snow had let up over night, and we made it in. It was an unusual Christmas for us, but it turned out well. I guess that when you persevere, you can make a great Christmas, even if it means a break from tradition, and even if a Christmas storm threatens to ruin all your plans.
My great grandmother lived next door to my grandparents for all the years I knew her. She was my mother’s dad’s mother, and all of us kids loved her very much. Whenever we were at my grandparent’s house, we would always go over to Little Great Grandma’s house. She would always have cookies for us to eat, and she would sit with us at the table and talk a little. We didn’t go over often, because there was always something going on at my grandparents house…always lots of kids there to play with.
Whenever we got to go over, I loved seeing Little Great Grandma. I don’t know who started calling her that, but I don’t remember ever calling her anything else. When I think about my own grandchildren and all the nicknames they have come up with for me though, my guess is that one of the great grandsons got taller than her, and decided that she was now Little Great Grandma. My grandsons, who are all taller than I am now, are always calling me Little Grandma, so it stands to reason that, since my great grandmother wasn’t a tall woman, she would eventually be given that name.
I used to think it was unique to this generation or my family, since my sister’s grandchildren have those nicknames for her too, but when I got to thinking about my great grandmother, and the nickname we always called her, I think it is something that crosses the generational lines. I suppose my great grandmother would have cringed at some of my nicknames, but as times change, so do the nicknames.
I also think it is a form of endearment. Kids call ’em as they see ’em. My grandchildren used to call me the fingernail grandma (I believe Christopher thought of that one) when they were little and trying to figure out a way to distinguish which grandma they were talking about. I do love to paint my nails and they are always long, so I guess it stands to reason. As the years have gone by, I have been Gma, G (came from Josh, it was easier), Gram, Gramama (definitely from my granddaughter, 
Shai), G-pickle (Caalab, my joker, came up with that one), as well as several others that didn’t have a very long life, and so don’t come quickly to mind.
Endearing nicknames are only given to those we love, and since I know my grandchildren love me very much, I can look at the silly nicknames I have acquired over the years, and know that funny as they are…they are my own, given to me by grandchildren who love me with all their heart, and they show me that every day. I love each and every nickname, almost as much as I love each and every grandchild.
This past week, my family reconnected with my Aunt Ruth’s family. We had lost touch with them over the years, but a chance connection on Ancestry.com and one phone call were all it took to melt away the years, and now we are back in touch with them again. We have friended each other on Facebook, and looked over the pictures each of us has. I have seen the faces of children who look so much like their parents that it’s like they were looking in a mirror. That got me to thinking back on something I have know about myself almost all my life.
I too, look a lot like someone else in my family…my dad’s sister, my Aunt Ruth. I am built like her and my facial features are a lot like hers. Aunt Ruth and her family used to live here when I was a kid, and we got to see a lot of her and her family. She was a slender, tiny woman with delicate features, and dark wavy hair. But, the thing that is the easiest for me to remember, is her laugh…because it is mine. Often when I laugh, I sound so much like her that it brings her face to mind. It is one way to never forget your aunt, who passed away in 1992. She had a beautiful laugh. She could light up a room with it, and I guess that is why it is always with a mixture of sadness and happiness that her face comes to mind when I laugh.
My Aunt Ruth’s family used to live here in Casper, and we got to see their family a lot. My cousins, my sisters, and I got to see a lot of each other. Oh, the times we had. We would play 
out in the front yard for hours, or out in the yard at their house. It was great. Our lives were intertwined…the closeness of families…the love.
It’s always sad when families are separated by time and miles, and then by the passing of loved ones. I can only rejoice in the reconnection that has now taken place, and know the those who have gone before us would be very happy and proud. And I think of Aunt Ruth, and know that in Heaven she laughs often, so I will hear that laugh from her and not just from me, and since my dad and her son, Larry are both there too, along with parents and grandparents, I know they have had a great reunion too.
