Three Story Day: A grandson, nephew and uncle.

After arriving home late yesterday afternoon, from visiting w/my mom in my home state, the good wife told me the following story about one of our grandsons. Our middle daughter professionally cleans houses, and one of the ladies who she was scheduled to clean house for called and told her that her husband wasn't feeling well and would be home that day, and that they would like my daughter to bring her young son so he could play with their puppy [I guess that puppy was too energetic for them], so my daughter took her son with her and he played with the puppy. Matter of fact my grandson wore the puppy out. With nothing to do my daughter asked the husband if there was anything they needed done. 'WEll, he replied, my wife and I have been missing our cat for the last couple days and it has really bothered her, I'll give your son $10 if he can find that cat?' WEll, it took my grandson less than 1/2 hour to return to the house with lost cat cradled in his arms ... 'wow, where did you find him the man asked, in your barn in the backyard,' replied my grandson. That was far too easy for $10 replied my daughter, let him do something else also. WEll, I have a bushel of peaches that need to have their cores removed, replied the man, however for a whole bushel I will need to give him at least $2. So he took my grandson to the back porch and showed him how to decore peaches. It wasn't long when my daughter saw my grandson back in the house just sitting there. 'Have you finished taking the core out of that bushel of peaches already, that was fast?' 'No, he replied, I decided I didn't need the $2 that much. This story has all kinds of applications, especially in our world of the fast buck, and how much energy and time one has spend to earn money.

While visiting with my mom and grandma yesterday we were rejoicing in the much needed rainstorms that had serenaded our sleep and brought a new green hue to their yards, and undoubtedly given growth to the crops that will feed us in the year ahead. Grandma [as she always seems to be doing lately, she's 97yrs. old] told us a story about my nephew that not even my mom had ever heard. Its seems that my nephew didn't like to wear raincoats to school, and when my sister heard it was going to rain she tell him he'd have to wear his raincoat. Now his young fertile mind recalled that in past adult conversations he had heard Great-Grandma B say that her rheumatism was a better indicator of rain than the tv weathermen. So when his mom told him he would need to wear a raincoat to school, he would call Grandma and ask her if her rheumatism was acting up - and if Grandma replied, 'not at all' he would report back to his mom that there was no need for a raincoat because Grandma felt fine! And of course to go ahead and demand he wear a raincoat would have, at least to him, meant that his mother didn't believe his great grandma. So for far more times than not it was off to school without a raincoat ... and far more times Grandma was more right than the weather forecasters. Grandma even got to laughing as she told the story, and of course we did to; a window to our past has been opened, and as though Grandmas just telling the story had a magic component to it, the sun was coming out in all its radiance, as though to say, 'she's right you know!!
There's a cloud of mystery in this story.

One of the things I had accomplished in my visit home was that I inherited a number of old documents [some wills, a death certificate, a couple of birth certificates and a wedding certificate, not bad for one days work]. I was reading through them and came to the Will of one of my uncles. This was an uncle that was a minister, yet
it was also an open family secret that he loved, far too much, the sweetness of the vine, and was predisposed unfavorably often towards the fairer sex. He could be cantankerous to say the least. I really didn't know him that much although I still use his 'portable communion set' from time to time. He had mixed relationships with his family members to say the least. My father, one of the few people his paranoia trusted, and a brother were his executioners[haw, now that's a misspelling, but probably one with more accuracy from time to time than we know about], I mean executors. Now in his Will he left my father, another brother[not the co-executor] and a sister, and four nephews $100 apiece. Now bear in mind that my uncle had quite an inheritance from his wife who died earlier, so a $100 is not much of a gift for him to give. However, to his other brothers [including the one who was co-executor] and his sisters he left them $10 each. For my mother, who really took care of his finances, although he thought it was my father, he left nothing .... and I don't think he thought Dad would be sharing the $100 with her, or Dad's gift might have been less. My mother was always kind to my uncle, even though for some unknown reason he didn't reciprocate with the same kindnesses. When I thought about it the two brothers and one sister he gave the larger gifts too were younger, and the rest, three brothers and three sister, who inherited the smaller gifts were all older; I don't know if there's a link or not? But I do know this, a few years earlier my grandpa had died and a terrible fight broke out among the siblings, this in a supposedly Christian family, and perhaps that might have had something to do with my uncle's Will. I will probably never know, but I won't quite searching.

I am currently reading 'People of the Book,' which I would place in the genre of Anne Frank's Diary, The Cellist of Sarajevo, Sarah's Key and The Book Thief.