And yet again? Will it never end??

I just LOVED getting together with my cousin, Diane Foster, and my brother Mickey in Platte. Mickey was two years younger than I and Diane was in between. It was a simpler time if one forgets about the Korean War (or police action as the exalted leaders would rather call it). This period in my life ran from about 1948 through 1957 0r thereabouts.
During this time I aged from seven to sixteen and then there were more important things to do in the Summertime like work and save for college; and it was farther to travel; and Grandpa Jobe and Grandma Leola were "getting on" as they say.
We had free rein of the entire town which was quite tiny by anyone's standards, but to us it was a magical, mystical wonderland. No worries. No jobs other than helping our Grandma in her fantastic half-acre vegetable and flower garden. At one time she was in THREE garden clubs in Platte though I don't know how come there were so many women in that small town that they really needed so many clubs. Possibly many of the same ladies (NO MEN ALLOWED!!!) were overlappers and each club took on a specific type of gardening. Not sure, but our Grandma had the best of everything in her garden. I loved being there in August to help (?) pick the red ripe huge strawberries. Some of them even made it into the basket and into the house!
Our Grandpa was rather odd about food we thought. He actually put SUGAR on his sliced tomatos. I found out later that some other folks did this, too, but it seemed weird at the time when we ate ours warm from the bushes and only put salt on then if we could sneak the shaker outdoors.
One day Mickey glanced over at me and Diane as we were picking tomato bugs off the bushes. Grandma was way ahead of her time ecologically. No "darn poisons" for her garden---just hard work and plenty of nice warm free vitanin D from the sunshine. Mickey waited until Grandma had her back turned, winked at me and tossed a tomatoat Diane. He really had a good arm for a young boy and it hit her smack on her forehead. It was a nice ripe and perfectly juicy tomato that dripped like blood down her surprised face. She was too astonished to hollar, but soon she hurled one back at him. Not to miss the fun, I threw one at Mickey, too and it took on the aspects of a real war. No Koreans here,but enemies none the less.
We, of course, only threw when Grandma wasn't looking which was most of the time as she was a real nose to the grindstone gardening machine. We also took care not to make any sounds or she would catch on and stop the fun. It wasn't long, however, for the fickle finger of fate to catch us. Grandma was right between Diane and me when I made a particularly hard throw of a tomato I had squeezed enough to soften it perfectly without breaking the skin. Grandma picked the wrong time to stand up facing me and got hit dead center on her sweaty forehead. Deathly silence prevailed for what seemed an eternity. No one moved and no one breathed until all h--l broke loose. It seemed impossible that an old lady Grandma could run as fast as a ten year old boy, but she sure did!! Even faster, because she caught up to me before I even exited the tomato patch. She grabbed the collar of my shirt and threw me down like a ragdoll onto the ground. Standing over me she reached into the large pocket that extended clear across her apron and mashed tomato after tomato into my face until I thought I would never breathe again. Diane and Mickey looked on in delight; thankful that THEY had not been the ones to hit Grandma. She either tired or ran out of tomatos and breathing hard, said; "Hitting a person with a tomato is NOT what nice boys do. Is It?" I didn't know the term rhetorical question at that time, but realizing she really didn't want an answer, I kept my mouth shut. This was also to keep smashed tomato from running down my throat. They sure taste different when mashed up on your face than they do when eaten from your hand with a little salt.
Grandma raised her colorful apron and wiped her face then told me very coldly to get up and go wash off at the hose and get back to my job. I spent the next several hours picking tomato bugs, getting sunburned by all that great vitamin D, and praying that Grandpa wouldn't also get into the punishment act when he came home and Grandma told him. I could almost feel that stingbat coming.

More Great Grate stories from childhhood

So we had all this money and decided we had to pool it and buy something. You have heard about money burning a hole in one's pocket? Well, we had a five alarm fire going and thoroughly discussed (argued about) what to buy. Of course, Diane, thought she had the most say, as she had been the one who first contributed the dime for the bubble gum and she HAD pulled up the most coins. This was true, but she was just a GIRL and easily out-argued by a coulple of BOYS. Later in life she took charge and showed that ol' husband who really wore the pants in their family.
We traipsed (an old-timey word for sauntered or moseyed) into Eastman's Drug and walked up and down each and every aisle checking for the BEST thing we could find to buy. Diane wanted paper dolls and after Mickey and I nearly puked (another good word I was not allowed to say at home) we finally decided on food--always a big winner with us especially having thought of puking before.
Eastman's drug had a medium sized soda fountain and three or four tables with four twisted metal chairs. We had to order at the counter, wait for our treat to be made up, then carry them to our table. I recall being a wonderful boy and told Dianer to sit and I would pick up the banana split she wanted. I still am the best at impressing girls--just ask any of them!!
I wanted a hot fudge sundae as I was then and still am a HUGE choc-o-holic. For the first time, I got to order and felt like a big man. I watched the attendant fill the tulip shaped dish with icecream then reach for the hot chocolate dipper (no squirter here!!). I darn near fell over in delight when I read the name of the chocolate painted on the outside of the electric, plug-in dispenser of hot chocolate. It said MY last name, Johnston!!!!!! I hollared at Mickey and Diane to look and they were also impressed, though Diane less so as her last name was Foster, and not Johnston. I loved that feeling and never forgot it. One day far into the future, my other brother David called me and said he had somehow heard that Eastman's Drug was going out of business and everything in the 50+ year old store was up for auction on a certain date and mail bids would be accepted. He told me he had bid on a table and four of those chairs. I hurriedly bid $100 on the Johnston Hot Fudge Dispenser with lust in my heart and I GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!! It is now in my home in White Bear Lake, MN and one of my most prized antiques. It was over 50 years old when Eastmans closed and I've had it for nearly 25 years. It will be passed down to my son, Christopher--- the only one of my three children with enough sense to keep the last name of Johnston. The other two kids are both married girls; guess I can't blame them.. To not get married just so one has a chance to inherit a Hot Fudge Dispenser seems a bit goofy to me. I love them and will be sure each will inherit some great thing from my past. How about a piece of black inner tube formerly used for shooting rocks?

Another TRUE childhood story

Another time when our cousin, Diane, and Mickey and I were abandoned in Platte SD with The Maternal Grandparents, I recall that we three got to pretty much wander about doing whatever we wished. This was LONG ago when folks never worried about child abduction, and other bad things that could happen. Now-a-days, everyone worries so much, children are being bent all out of shape mentally even though the true statistics show there Is ACTUALLY LESS KIDNAPPING THAN THERE WAS BACK THEN!! I am positive the 24 hour a day news coverage is the reason for all the fear as no-one can get away from it, so it insidiously affects the thinking processes. Anyhow, as I was saying about Platte, it was a tiny little prairie town of slightly over a thousand people and many of then Dutch who came over to freely practice their religion which we knew as Dutch Reformed. They were and ARE good people and watched out for everything in their town. "It takes a village" was never truer than in this wonderful place of my childhood.
One day as we three MOUSE-KETEERS (taken from the fact of brother Mickey having the same name as the famous Disney mouse) and WE MADE THIS UP LONG BEFORE THE TV SHOW OF THE SAME NAME BUT WALT NEVER EVEN OFFERED TO PAY US FOR IT!!!
Anyhoo, we had wandered down town which consisted of four blocks of stores on both sides. A unique thing to us was that there were TWO drugstores right next to each other (or there MAY have been one other type of store between--memory fails). Eastman Drug and ????? Drug both had those old- fashioned basements that had windows opening out into a dank pit with a metal grate over it. I found out many years later that these grates could be lifted off and supplies could thus be delivered directly to the storage area in their basements. However, as kids these pits were merely animal traps on the African veldt and held great promise for maybe seeing a lion or a wildebeast or, at least a hyena. We never failed to lie down on our stomachs and peer through the metal grates and dream.
One day Diane poked me in the side with her very bony elbow and said "Look there by the silvery gum wrapper? Is that money?"
"Holy cow! It looks like a quarter, but could be a nickle." Any money to three kids who lived from parental largesse and did not get a regular allowance like kids today was wonderous. Since we didn't know then that the grate lifted off and would have been too heavy even if we tried to do that, we put on our thinking caps, put our heads together, and tried to design a method to reach the aforementioned coin.
Mickey, who was the youngest of we three, but who often had the best ideas, said, "We need a stick--a sticky stick."
"Yeah. Let's go into Eastmans and buy some bubble gum and chew it and put it on a stick." Diane shouted. While she, the only one with any money as Grandpa had given her a dime for picking up all the loose sticks and driveway rocks in the yard before he mowed went for the gum as my brother and I ran to the lunmberyard. We loved this place with the planks, boards, and sticks! It smelled like a primeval forest to us and had great hidey-holes in all the separated lumber sorting cribs. We got the longest sticks we could being sure their diameter was such that they would fit through the grate openings These were just trimmings from other lumber and would be thrown away anyhow. I very politely asked the lumber man if we could have them.
"Fer whut?"
Thinking fast, Mickey said. "Ah, we want to play Africa and try to spear a giraffe."
"Huh! Well, I guess it's OK, but don't make me call your Grandpa that you kids have been throwing these sticks at each other. You'll put your eye out!" I swear to God that is what he said.
So the three of us met up again at the Drugstore grate and Diane removed a well-chewed wad of gum from her mouth. "I chewed three so we'd have enough. They only cost a penny each."
Now three kids lying face down on a city street may have caused a good deal of conversation in some places, but not in Platte and not as far as those Barada grandkids were concerned. We stuck the sticky bubble gum on the longest stick, mashing it on securely so we were sure it could even pick up an anvil . Unfortunately, the stick was too short by a foot or so to reach the bottom of the pit.
"Poo!" I cursed, using what was the worst word I knew at the time. "What do we do now?"
Diane, being a very resourseful girl (more like a boy), said, "Pull it up and we can tie two sticks together. She would have made a great chimpanzee in the Primate Intelligence Test I read about many years later. Mickey pulled one of the laces from his Redball Jets tennis shoes, and then we could reach the coin. Diane pulled up that old coin---IT WAS A QUARTER--not a nickle and we felt like treasure hunters. Man!! What a feeling of power over the forces of nature and being God's greatest creations. I'll never forget that feeling.
We moved leaves and small pieces of paper and dirty stuff around seeking more money, but this only made the gum un-sticky. We were positive there were many more coins down there and this was just one of several store front sidewalk grates. Diane went into Eastmans and bought gum with the last seven cents she had left from her pay from Grandpa. we all chewed two pieces and Diane got three again since it was her work that had earned it.
Tying more sticks together and using all our shoelaces, each of us took over his own grate and had a contest. As I recall, Diane won with that quarter plus a nickle and a penny. I was next with a dime and three pennies, and Mickey only got a nickle. We calmed him with the fact that he was the youngest and had many more years of life than us to find money.
There's more to this story but you have to wait for me to remember the details.

Oops!! Forgot to tell Steve Person's story

In prior post I mentioned the funeral director for my folks burial in Plattte, SD. He was a young man and only out of Morturary School a short time and was quite personable but hadn't fully achieved what I would call the typical Funeral Director Mein. He had bought out the Kool funeral home business which a Dutch man and his family ran for nearly a hundred years in Platte until they ran out of sons and daughters who wanted to go into the family business.
As we three sons stood in the chill wind, our heads bowed, Mr. Persons stood respectfully off to the side. As we walked to the car afterward in great sadness, I asked Steve why he had retained the Kool name on the funeral home. He told me it was in respect to the century-long service from the Kool family. He paused then said, "Sometimes the original name is kept and the new owner is added, but we thought somehow it wouldn't sound right to call the place the Kool-Person's Funeral home."
If you have ever seen the Mary Tyler Moore show where the whole crew from the TV station is at the funeral of Peanuts the Clown and Mary gets the giggles thinking of Peanuts getting "shelled" by an elephant during a parade, you can imagine the uproarious laughs Steve Persons got by teling this tale. I know my Mom and Dad would have died laughing right there on the spot if they hadn't already been dead. All three of their sons nearly joined them laughing, chuckling, chortling, and gasping.
Steve Person may not have been the typical funeral guy, but no-one could ever have made a family enjoy a funeral more. I SWEAR on my parent's grave that this is true!!
.

And still another chapter?!!

More true stuff from when I was a kid. Sometimes our cousin, Diane was "left off" with the grandparents for a Summertime visit in Platte at the same time as Mikey and I. She is the daughter of Alice and we were the sons of Enid. It seems there was some sort of collusion or conspiracy in this timing. Neither of the mentioned Moms had a reputation of being the World's Greatest Mother or would't have even showed up on that list.
Not that they were bad mothers, but they seemed to need more space that many women of that era who stayed barefoot and pregnant and loved to cook and clean and talk about their "Little Dears!" Diane was more of a Dear than Mickey and I were. As a matter of fact when the three of us boys (David came later--he was nearly 11 years younger than me and 9 years younger than Mickey), were all grown up and having one of our very few heart to heart talks with our Mom--and this was after she went into the hospital with lung cancer and never came out. She got us all to hold hands with her in the hospital bed and she whispered, since her lungs were so bad she couldn't make more than that---She said "when you boys were young, you were totally incorrigible and I hated your rotten guts!" This didn't really take us by surprise, as we had become rather fond of being known as "those D--- Johnston boys!" Our Mom had a VERY strong personality and raised three sons just the same as her and it is true that opposites attract and likes repel. Dad was completely opposite from her and they TOTALLY ATTRACTED. He gave everything to her and she took it. I can't say that he got much in return, but after she died at age 60, he was so alone and sad for the next 7 years until he died that he kept her ashes in a ceramic jug with a cork (Yep! It was an antique liquor jug he had found in her parents cellar) It was incised with her name and dates and so on. He used to pull the cork out and talk to her. When asked how come, he said--"We made a vow to always be together and I think she can hear me better with the cork out." Both their ashes were put into the same hole after his death when we three boys followed his instructions. I played my harmonica and Steve Persons was the funeral director at Platte where they were burried.
My wife of 46 years and I plan on this same dealie. Whomever is still around will have the other's ashes kept (but "NOT IN A LIQUOR JUG!" says the LSW). Our three children (not an incorrigible one in the bunch) have been told to cremate the other one when it's time and MIX the ashes together in a suitable container and put it aboveground in a nice columbarium for visits. Funny word>>> COLUMN- BARY- 'UM, isn't it??

More true tales of Byron's childhood

Some folks seem to believe that I am a dirty rotten LIAR; though they phrased their stoopid comments in a slightly nicer way like, "You are a smelly, evil teller of non-truths!!
You can't please everyone all the time. As President A. Lincoln once said, "You can't fool all the people all the time." and things like that. I find it really hurts to not be taken seriously even when I tell the ABSOLUTE truth. Another goofy person once said something about the boy who cried wolf. What I write has nothing to do with wolfs---- so THERE!!!
Another true tale of my childhood follows: My brother, Mike--(whom we all called Mickey probably because of that mouse cartoon) were abandoned at our maternal grandma and grandpa's home in Platte SD for at least two weeks every Summer evidently so our Mom could get a break from us. We seemed to be able to get into more trouble than a dozen regular (non-adventurous) kids. I now recall that there were three or four fine, tall Elm trees on the lot. With the leaves off they all had a vase-like branching structure and looked to me like a giant slingshot. Mike agreed, so we begged Grandpa for a few old non-usable innertubes from the garage and auto dealership he owned.
"Sure." he said. "Just don't get into any trouble." Of course, we assured him, trouble was the farthest thought from our minds. After all, who goes looking for trouble when it can find a person so easily by itself.
The small town weekly newspaper headlines read MYSTERIOUS STONES FALL TO EARTH SHATTERING HIGH SCHOOL WINDOWS.
The report was very incomplete, failing to state that only windows on the Barada side were broken and that Mike and I were visiting again Grandpa and Grandma whose house was three whole blocks from the school. We never told and never spent a single day in jail, but Grandpa sure looked at us in a strange way. This is true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who cares about Snow??

Well, I guess the LSW and I both do. We rassled the darn heavy snow blower into the back of my mini-van and drove it to the small engine repair place as we do every Fall. This time it cost us a bit over $200, but it runs great. Now we have to decide the EXACT RIGHT TIME to take the lawn mower into the same shop for its usual winterizing dealie. Too soon and the grass still needs a last mowing and too late and we have to push it out into the utility shed through snow. Not pretty. Life can sure get complicated trying to co-ordinate two machines, but it's better having them than like in the olden days when my brother, Mike and I had to cut our grass thusly>>> He or I would flip a coin to determine who was the fanner and who would be the clipper. The fanner would crawl along the ground fanning the grass with a bamboo Chinese fan Mom got from somewhere and the clipper would quickly snip off the grass that was sucked into an upright position by the fan using Mom's bandage scissors (She was an LPN). After this 11 hour job, we both had to go over the entire lawn and rake up the cut parts and haul them to the garden for mulch. This part took about 3 hours. we ABSOLUTELY HATED GRASS CUTTING AND RAKING!!! Over and over we begged for a reel-type mower so we could at least take turns pushing the thing and not have to do the hands and knees thing.
Now, don't try to even suggest that this story is NOT true and is just the rantings of an old man who has forgotten what it was really like. I will never forget the abuse we felt and why we found out that that pouring gasoline on the yard and setting it afire is no better at clearing the long grass. Also Mom got really mad when her garden and just a little bit of the carport was charred. True!!!!!!!!!!!
If you want to hear more, just let me know and I'll tell you what is is like to walk three miles to school, at 25 degrees below zero, through four feet of snow, AND uphill both ways. Also true!!!!!!! I think I had a rotten childhood and it just amazes everyone how well Mike and I turned out. Mom said "Adversity builds character" about thirty times a day.

HAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So my guy DID win as the LSW and I both expected. It sure is gratifying to have a wife who is so agreeable and that we are nearly 100 percent in concert on most things. It's that irritating remaining 1-2% that can cause the problems. How come one can't be happy with the 98% and even has to mention the rest?? I guess it's just human nature, but one on us is sure lucky that the other either gives in graciously or drops the subject before rancor sets in. Rancor is a LOT less troubling than Rigor Mortis. Words are fun.
Has anyone noticed that it seems hard to pronounce President Obama?
It seemed hard to say President Bush at first then as time went on and we saw his true colors, it was even harder for me to use those two words together. Not symantically but symbologically. I want a President I can truly respect and thus his title and name will flow gently off the tongue as though it was meant to be. My wife and I are in the 70% who have no respect for Georgie and can't wait to get him gone and get the problems of our country settled--at least to get started on them. GO-BAMA!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY it comes to an end

Of course I mean all the mean commercials (those things the candidates call "messages") that they approve of but I sure don't!!!!!!!!!! I will be so glad to get back to the normal erectile dysfunction ads rather than the ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION ones we have all been subjected to for all these months. I sort of even look forward to the new type of feminine products ads. One MUST keep up with the latest trends.
I am so positive our guy is going to win, that I had made up a HUGE email with just one word to send to my Republican relatives most of whom seem sincere (though misguided). It just says HAH!!!
I promise never to run for office. Never ever, never, never, never, and so forth. No one could stand it if I won.

Rake the Leaves save the good ones

The LSW and I spent about 50 minutes yesterday raking up some of the leaves (see prior post) in our backyard, bagging some, dumping some under the tall pines, and then she found two or three that had lost much of their green color leaving a fine tracery of yellowish gold and took them into the house placing them under the glass desptop, VERY effective as a fall decoration. I'm glad all the rest of the devils remained outside as it would be extremely messy to have a half-acre of leaves from our very heavily wooded lot inside. I never truly counted, but we ourselves have planted over a dozen trees since we bought and built on this lot 11 years ago ==I think there are nearly 50 trees. Pine needles are harder to rake than deciduous trees leavings, but mowing short after most fall helps.
Had only 13 (scarey number!!!!) Tricky Treaters this year. A lot of the kids in our neighborhood are getting past that and I sort of miss seeing them, but life goes on. We also missed seeing the Great Pumpkin rise out of the patch to bring toys to all the good children. Sorry, Mr. Schulz..