Memory Monday

I was looking (not hard enough) for old photos in the winter and gave up.  Instead I will introduce you to my paternal grandfather Harold, known to everyone as Pop. 

He was born in 1901 to Maud and Lewis. Lewis would pass away before Pop's second birthday (ruptured appendix) and Maud would die in the Influenza Epidemic when he was a teenager. Pop lived with his maternal grandmother Isabell until he got married, then Isabell lived with Pop and his first wife until she died. 

I learned all this information by researching genealogy. I was one of the three youngest grandchildren and I do not ever remember having a conversation with him.  He was a huge man and very stern with a great deep voice.  I was terrified of him. He passed away when I was in middle school. 

This was labeled with his name so I will take someone's word for it. But I don't think it resembles anyone I ever knew.

This is my dad's family picture with his two much older brothers, mother Mary Loretta and Pop on the far right. 

My grandfather and two uncles were long distance truck drivers. Pop is pictured on the left and my two wild and crazy uncles on the right. 

I have lots of stories about the uncles but they aren't fit to share on the internet.  

As a grownup grandparent myself I have a very different opinion of my grandfather than I did as a child. I can't imagine the hardships and sadness of his early life. His grandfather also died in the influenza epidemic and the grief of his grandmother and himself must have been so great. 

I also learned his mother had remarried and he had two sisters who remained with their father.  I do not remember any contact or even knowing of their existence. 

There is No Going Back - This is between us, the Wizard and Me.

Holy Guacamole I left the house on New Year's Eve.  My granddaughter has wanted to see the new Wicked Movie, Part 2 (even though I don't think she understands anything but the pink dresses). Their household is finally over the flu and her mother found a 9:50 am showing in another city and off we went.

We bought tickets and popcorn and paid the extra for the pink and green sprinkles.  The ladies told me the pink tasted like candy and the green tasted like spinach. 

Yes. This movie is TWO HOURS and SEVENTEEN MINUTES long. But that did not count the 30 minutes of previews. It was a long movie but kept our attention.

The city we traveled to has a wide variety of restaurants for lunch. The ladies voted on Bob Evans and chose their favorite "Piggy Pancakes". 

They decided they wanted ice cream sundaes for dessert and my daughter the math teacher told them they would need to solve a problem to earn it. 

They worked as a team and earned the sundaes! 

We were home by 2 p.m. and the snow started at 3 p.m. The Merrys spent a quiet night eating snacks and watching PBS shows as I renewed our subscription for Christmas. Somehow I had let it expire.  I started with season one of the Frankie Drake mysteries. I have seen at least the first season before, but wanted to start at the beginning.  

Today Mr Merry has been out with his snowblower doing the sidewalks in the neighborhood and clearing off vehicles for people he likes, lol.  I have been sitting in my recliner with a blanket since breathing outdoor air has brought my cough back.  

Happy New Year! 
 

Memory Monday

For this edition of Memory Monday my daughter provided the inspiration.

I posted this photo in a collection on Facebook. We moved a lot when I was a child and were living in this "modern" split level on Christmas 1968. This would be a posed snapshot of me writing in a new diary. I would not have done this in real life with an audience. 

I would like you to ignore my green mini dress and fishnet stockings, the gift boxes from Lazarus Department Store in Columbus that I still use to store ornaments and my favorite suitcase of all time and notice the little elves on the windowsill behind me.  My mother always decorated with them. 

She gave them to my youngest daughter a year or so before she died. Here they are on a shelf at her house this Christmas. 

My daughter saw the elves on the windowsill behind me and alerted me and reminded me that they are her elves now!

And - drum roll - I wrote my Christmas cards yesterday and took them to the post office. 

 

Christmas or Bah Humbug

Christmas 2025.

I have been playing the malingerer with this respiratory flu virus since Dec 1 & never even put up a tree. As the Sunday before Christmas, the day I had scheduled my family Christmas approached, my wonderful children all stepped up offered to host in their clean, decorated houses!! We switched up from one house to another because the grandchildren have been bouncing the virus around, too, but it worked out that everyone was healthy enough to attend in the end.

My oldest daughter makes charcuterie boards. I tried to hire a caterer but it turns out you have to call them in October. I ended up baking a ham, making cheesy potatoes and heating a family sized tub of Stauffer's Mac and Cheese which was a big hit. Note for next year: Oct 1, put up a tree and call a caterer. 

I started early on the stockings and brought them with me. They were a little more sparse than usual. 

Instead of a gift exchange Grampa and I go to a warehouse where they sell Amazon boxes full of miscellaneous stuff. They are always an interesting assortment of items. This year the winner was a box with hundreds of dollars of Oil of Olay products, $25 a bottle eye creams and about 50 bottles of some $10 acne product.  One box had security cameras that matched a different family's system. One box was women's underwear and one box had used books and a bottle of soap.  

The OG's. 

The grandkids

People who chose to marry into this wacky family. 

It was fun and exhausting. I was home by 3 pm and fell asleep. Today (two days later) I have a temperature again, a splitting headache and my cold is back. The temperatures reached almost 50 this evening and we were going to do our yearly walk on Main Street to see the store windows. We also skipped the Christmas hotel, the visit to the nearby village that turns into Whoville and even driving around to see lights. I have boxes of Christmas cards I have not addressed yet. 

I never went to the doctor. Out of those who did seek medical help, half tested positive for Influenza A (I think) and half were negative. Everyone was told to take Tylenol and drink plenty of fluids. So I did. And I am.  The best was the littlest who ran the highest temperatures, tested positive and then contracted pink eye from visiting the doctor's office.  I was vaccinated so I feel cheated with this bug.

We have decided our New Year's Resolution is to get over the flu. 

Merry Christmas and I hope you all are doing well.