This picture of This picture of Grandma and Pop (French) was taken in the 1950's and really hasn't anything to do with what I'm going to write, but I am going to talk a bit about Pop.

I looked in the mirror yesterday and thought that if Pop were here, he would say: "There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." When I was growing up, it seemed like every time I asked him a question, he would answer with either a poem or a song. Many times that would irritate me, but I've found myself many times answering one of my kids or grandkids the very same way.

He left home when he was a teenager and I understand it was because of a terrible fight he had with one of his brothers. They never did reconcile, but after that he could not stand squabbling at all. If any of us kids got into an argument when he was at our place, he would threaten to leave. Since we all loved both of them so much, we always settled right down. To the best of my knowledge, he and Grandma French never had an argument in their long marriage. They were both pretty strong-minded so I'm sure they had their disagreements, but my mother (Grandma Jeanne) said she never heard them argue and I never did either. (We all know Grandma Jeanne never inherited that trait.)

Pop was diabetic and had to have his little toe amputated. That kept him in bed for several weeks--today I'm sure it would be day surgery. They lived with Anna May and Elsie at the time and I remember one time Grandma F. telling me how badly I had hurt his feelings because when I would go there to visit, I didn't go into their bedroom to visit him. I really felt bad about that because he was a very special and wonderful person, but I was only about 12 and had never seen anyone who had to stay in bed because of an operation, so I didn't know how to act around him. Well, I found out that you act around a sick person the same way you do around a healthy person--be yourself and let them do at least some of the talking ;)

We moved to the farm outside of Sumner when I was 5 and he told me that the front teats on a cow gave fresh milk and the back ones gave buttermilk. (I always liked homemade buttermilk but have never like the cultured stuff except to bake with.) Sure enough the first time I saw my dad milk the cow, I was very upset because he put the milk from all 4 teats in the same bucket!

This is a  picture of Uncle Bill and Aunt Alta (Pop's aunt and uncle) taken on their 50th wedding anniversary. I think they lived in the same place their entire married life and to the best of my knowledge only had one son whose name was Ancil. My mother never liked him so you will have to figure out for yourself what she called him (kinda like a small place in N. Idaho) I have a pitcher in the corner cabinet that belonged to them. I met them when Vic was a baby, Pop and Grandma came to visit us in Illinois and we drove to eastern Indiana. There were 2 or 3 men in their 70's in front of a small store in the town (I think) of Poneto. Anyway, we stopped, Pop got out of the car, walked over to the men and all of them wept openly. I truly don't know how they recognized each other after all those years, but somehow they did and were grateful for the reunion.

I sure got my comeuppance this weekend. At last week's youth auction, you may remember that one of my lemon pies raised $300. Well that sure wasn't so at the RFL auction. The auctioneer decided that there would not be any food items in the life portion of the auction--the most one of my pies brought was $25! A friend of mind donated a beautiful chocolate cake that has about $20 worth of ingredients in it and takes almost an entire day to make and it raised $30! In the live auction a pair of 18-speed mountain bikes went for $250 and a flat screen tv worth nearly $1000 sold for $450. This particular auctioneer is the only one I've ever seen that starts the prices high and then works down. He'll start something at $1000, work down to $100 and then try to get people to go back up. This is the second year we've had him and I hope we have a different one next year. I know I certainly won't be donating any pies if he's back! Another friend had 2 large oval laundry baskets, one filled with baked goods and homemade candy and the other filled with homemade pickles, jellies, etc. and the pair of them sold in silent auction for $39! She had way more than that invested! It is all for a good cause, but would be easier to donate the money!

I had my eyes examined the other day; the doctor says I need new glasses because I can't read the fine print as well as I did 3 years ago--who needs fine print if you're not reading contracts?! They also told me to get some artificial tears and use them when I sit down at the computer and again when I get up; so far I haven't remembered to buy them, but I can tell they're right about that part--my eyes start to itch and burn after I've been here awhile. sooo, that's it for now. As you can see, I still haven't figured out how to wrap the text nor figure out how to correct the line spacing around a picture, so rather than go crazy (ier) trying to figure out how to do it, I'm going to let it go...