Thursday's Trip Down Memory Lane

This will be one of those sentimental posts - you are forewarned!

For today's trip down memory lane, I started thumbing through my photos which are all crammed in boxes in chronological order (there are a LOT of them hence the need for a serious scrapbooking offensive this year). I saw this one and it made me smile so I thought I'd use it.

Most of us are lucky enough to have grandparents, and I was lucky enough as a child to have both sets of grandparents and even two sets of great-grandparents. This is me and my Grandma D. He was one of those fun grandpas because he was very active and always up to something, working in the yard or garden, fiddling in the garage or burning leaves which was my FAVORITE chore to help with. Just like gramps I loved to burn things! I remember that when he quit smoking he started chewing tobacco, Red Man in a pouch to be specific. After seeing him put that in his mouth time and time again, I finally asked it I could try some. He let me take a pinch of that nasty looking stuff and try it ... needless to say I am NOT a tobacco chewer to this day.

As for me and the army hat?? Apparently that had been my older brother's, but it became my favorite thing to wear. There are MANY pictures of me as a toddler in the army helmet , but sadly most of them would be considered kiddie porn as I'm only wearing my underwear (hey we lived on a farm and had no air conditioning!) The best are of me with the army hat and giving the black power salute - my Mom still can't explain those.

Grandpa D passed away three years ago and until he went downhill with his Alzheimer's, he still had all of his hair styled almost exactly like this picture, was in great shape, and still let us help with burning things!! We all still miss him but have great memories!

And though I don't think that Alzheimer's or dementia are any thing to laugh about, I think sometimes you have no choice but to find some humor in a situation. Now Grandpa was one to say what he thought and he was a big believer in staying fit and active, for example while in a crowd of people and seeing a heavier woman.... "Maaaan, look at that heifer over there!" Bearing this in mind, I'll never forget when we were at a family gathering and he stared at me and said "you know you've got a mustache there" and pointed to my upper lip. I immediately went to the bathroom and confirmed that like all mammals I do in fact have a slight fuzzy covering on all of my face including my upper lip, but thankfully no mustache!