Quote:
Originally Posted by Patti
Good you remembered the pocket watches! I thought those were special. Holding watch and chain was a good feeling. The ones I saw could have either belonged to my Grandfather or Great-Grandfather. Sorry you didn't get to meet your Grandfather. I remember my Dad's Dad walking with a cane. He used to work in a fire-tower, but one day he had a stroke and fell. After that he had to use a cane and he couldn't talk. I remember he used to make bullets, and sometimes guys would get together for target practice, and of course us kids had to staying the house until they were done. His wife grew up in that house with the desk drawers. The things could have belonged to her father. Don't know, now. When I looked around, no one was living in the house anymore.
That is really alright that they 'found' the desk! Wow. Have a treasured weekend.  |
Thank you , Patti. Something about pocket watches - hard to define. I think its that they were always held in their hand when they would make use of it I 'spose. Yes, I sure wish I could have met my paternal grandfather - you may not believe this, but its true. Dad told me, and confirmed it when I was an adult and he still had a lucid mind.
His father was born in Park City Utah, before it was a ski haven of course. He (my grandfather) lived in his father's miner's shack. There was no school there for some reason, and he self-taught himself up to about 12th grade level - and had his own affinity self-taught for math..... He grew up to be first a mule-skinner for the mines (true, I never knew what that was before Dad explained) and then progressed to be the first unofficial school-teacher there. He then met my grandma , she lived in a shack on the hillside too, she had two dresses, one to wear, one for Sundays, or when she was doing the wash.
Then he formally taught algebra and trig in a real High School. And Married my Grandma. She went from a small shack to when my grandpa died, a fine, fine house he had built after WWII, everything just beautiful in it - the way she always dreamed of. I managed that believe it or not for Merry, until her health and all went south and she died. But I was proud to have provided for her and my daughter, in what I remembered my Dad saying that it was not the trappings and house that mattered, it was the heart inside that made the home- mom would finish that statement.... Well, we had a home.
Then Grandpa started with the Postal Service, and went cradle-to-grave with them almost... he made all the way to, first: a Postal line worker, then a Postal Inspector through a seriesof promotions over a few years,then into the war and through WWII intelligence, then said (by Dad)to have re-instituted the postal service in Japan after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki sort of took the breeze out of theirs....but his real assignment was to set it up so there would be tight handling of illegal trade in the mail, Dad said.
Another thing I did not understand 'til Dad explained - Postal Inspectors were pistol-packing 'cops' - like earlier Elliot-Nesses-type raids on waregouses, etc, They used to bust illegal shipments of any nature, and set-up snags, and stake-outs etc.- and got some pretty big-time crime-ring leaders. Then he made it to Deputy U.S. Postal Inspector, no. 2 man.
Pretty impressive for a self-taught mule-skinner ! It was said when he died at 56 - at the office - said to cough once, then thunk, head down on the desk - heat-attack. Packing heat on a chest-draw holster at his last gasp. They made my Grandma feel bad by telling her it was all the 'famous in the family' raised cinnamon roles - I can taste 'em now. She never could forgive herself from that thoughtless crack someone made. Anyway...yes - i wish I could have met the one-step from a frontiersman !
Parkinson's had not set in on Dad yet, he was all about smokin his pipe on the deck, and invariably, tapping the ashes out against his boot sole lol.. The fiddle, fill, light, smoke, relight, tamper, relight, smoke....lol. He said one time after the characteristic pause when you asked him a deeper question, allmost any , really, like the pause in CRT (when newbies clap alone) if you did not know Dad - you'd ask him a question 'where the answer needed to be right', and he would characteristically pause, up to a
full minute, puff on his pipe, looking straight at you, a quality in itself he said you could define a man by sometimes -unless they were nuts, he said- if he'd look you straight in the eye ( w/o the 'evil eye' lol). If you knew him, you'd wait that full minute, while Swiss-crafted-like mental components with Scots stubborness and perfectionism would give pause..... most who did not know him would throw their hands up and depart.. but family and friends knew.... sit... wait.. puff puff, eyeing you, then an ever-so-perceptably smile, and he'd answer you're question.
Never forget that stolid, scots, sometimes sanguine temperament - I don't believe he ever shouted at me in his LIFE. A quiet man. A genius - I say w/o bragging, him, not me.. And a good judge of character. He liked my wife
immediately in the first 'bring her home for dinner'. She was scared stiff, she thought he was like a legend or something - the way I talked him up to her, and my mother - always impeccably dressed, hair ..?..cuoffed ? is that it ? Well they told her to dress casual for the 'steak cookout' - one of Dad's defining activites - cookouts. Best pictures of him looking sideways and smiling... He wore everyday jeans and his everyday chamois shirt, suspenders, and his vest.... guess where I got my dressing habits from ? lol. I guess you guys have never seen a pic of me. Fashion be da88ed ! But Mom - woops - she put on Mrs. Ward Cleaver outfit -full-dress (?), pearls, gold earrings etc.
Merry gets there and in slacks and a ...?..printed blowse ?.... flowers anyway, she had a cow when she met Mom, she actually curtsied ever so slightly.....and then asked where the 'washroom' was , and almost ran for it... I followed, Mom knew immediately what she had (my mother) done wrong upon seeing her, Merry was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.... and she wanted to make a good impression so bad she was sick... Mom changed in to pants and a sweater I think for Merry, and when Dad yelled in his usual "Lois, have you burned the F.F.'s - and said to Merry rounding the corner by the dining wing we built on together - Oh! er... Hi there MmMerry (he stuttered as a kid, and when he got embarrased he would still ever-so-slightly)
He didn't get embarrassed at work too much. And she was fine with Dad right away - He hugged her....rare for him...I had told him she was the
one.....anyway - FF's buned yet ? lol... That meant he was done on the steaks, and she (Mom) was forgetful as usual and yes burned the fries.....lol.. At that point Merry laughed and she was fine... just fine... Fine as Fine Can Be......
I better stop there, Patti - didn't cover everything, but I don't think I can take more good memories lol...