Today’s guest post comes from Ben.

My Dad admired his brother Carl. Carl was a big man with a broad chest and a round face. He had a buzz cut and red cheeks and a voice full of gravel. He was quick to grin and rub your head or grab your shoulders. An impressionable kid would naturally want to be like Carl, so when Carl said he had a broad chest was because he slept without a pillow– I immediately threw out my pillow and slept without one for several years. Maybe it helped.

But there was a confusing detail about Uncle Carl. He married his aunt. Here’s how it happened:

Uncle Carl’s best friend was his uncle Maurice (Morrie). Morrie and his wife Helen had two kids; Maurice Jr. and Maureen.

Morrie Sr. told Carl that if anything happen to him, Carl should take care of Helen. This was in the late 1940’s and people did that sort of thing. And then Morrie Sr. was killed in a freak accident. He worked in the city bus garage in Rochester, MN and when the brakes failed on a bus and rolled down a hill into the garage it pinned him against the wall and killed him.

So Carl took care of Helen and eventually they married.

Adding to the confusion – Carl’s mother (my grandmother), was also named Helen.

Carl Jr. and Helen the widow were married about ten years before Helen died. Then Carl Jr. married a woman named Mic and they had two girls, Kelly (Kathleen) and Theresa.

(When I married my wife Kelly this made two ‘Kelly Hain’s and no end of confusion including one phone call from some guy who wanted Kelly to know he was back in town and maybe they could get together. Kelly and I were married at this point and listed together in the phonebook. Dunce cap for that guy. And then later, a woman who had done daycare for our kids for years randomly says out of the blue “You know, I have a cousin named Kelly Hain…” WHAT?? And of course she’s talking about the other Kelly Hain.)

Anyway, Mic had been married before and had one child, Sue. So now Carl and Mic have three step kids between them from two different Dads and two different Moms. What I remember most is how my Uncle Carl took all these kids into the family. The first two; Maurice Jr. and Maureen were cousins in the first place and they’re still at the family reunions. Mic’s Sue is around but not quite as much. And I remember Uncle Carl taking me fishing with Sue’s two boys when we were all teenagers.

A while back we’re at a funeral for one of my Dad’s other brothers, Richard. Richard’s first wife was Ann, who died back in the ‘80’s. My brother works with someone who told him Ann Hain was her Grandmother. Was it our Ann Hain, or a different one? We’re still not sure. My mom tries to explain who was married to whom, but then she has to correct herself and she says ‘No, it wasn’t them it was ____ …’ and at that point we’re all lost.

Which of your relatives is the most ‘interesting’?

Today’s guest post comes from Ben.

I saw one of those plastic tips from the old ‘Tiparillo’ cigars lying on the ground the other day. It reminded me of my Dad as he smoked those for a time when I was a kid. He always said he spent more time chewing on those tips than actually smoking which is just as well.

My folks were a pretty good example of how to be married. I would hear them lying in bed at night talking and laughing. My wife had good examples of relationships too and we’re lucky that way. My Parents Joe and June grew up together. The story goes when they were infants both their Moms belonged to the same social group known as ‘The Mothers and Daughters Club’. At the monthly meetings Joe and June’s bassinettes would be put together behind the furnace at the town hall. Dad said he didn’t expect to date anyone but Mom and Mom grew up on a farm so she didn’t intend to be a farm wife. She says he had to work at it and in the end his twinkling eyes and Irish charm won her over.

Skip ahead about 60 years after they got married.

My Dad decided it was time to give up his job and therefore Mom said they only needed one car. Dad informed Mom he was NOT getting rid of his car. She was rather indignant about that “He didn’t even give me a chance! Who made HIM ruler of the roost!?” she said. My parents ‘fight’ in a rather humorous way… I asked if we should leave so they could work this out? Mom informed me it was already worked out because HE decided!
I was at their apartment with my son to pick up their now extra car because my son wanted a car with actual heat in the passenger compartment. (As compared to his old car that didn’t have heat. I told him having a car with no heat builds character. My first car didn’t have heat either and look how I turned out. Son thinks he has enough character for the moment.)

It was Moms car we drove home.

Mom has always had some spunk in her. When they were farming together Mom wasn’t afraid to inform Dad that his Universal Hand Signals left something to be desired and he could bale his own Damn hay. Among other things…

I only knew my paternal Grandpa and maternal Grandma. This was Grandpa’s farm before ours so he still had a garden out here when he was able. Built himself a little garden shed, cut his own hair – and boy did that freak me out when I saw it—and at the local mall played Santa Clause for a number of years and in 1976 played Uncle Sam.
It was his father that came to our current farm location in 1896. People ask how we got so far off the road and down in a valley but that’s where the water was. They settled next to the natural springs. Grandpa hauled sand from the creek banks to his garden plot so he could grow peanuts and watermelons.

My dad says his Dad didn’t like change and didn’t like to make improvements to the farm. Whenever my dad made a change his dad criticized it. And when they decided to tear down the old farmhouse they didn’t exactly tell Grandpa about it. He drove in about the time the old house was pulled down and I’m told he simply turned around, drove away and didn’t come back until he was invited for Thanksgiving dinner in the new house. Which he did admit was a nice house.

My maternal Grandpa died before I was born. Grandma called every night at 7:00 to talk to my mother and if I answered the phone there was a pause and a little laugh and then ‘Ben?’ Yes, Grandma, it’s me… she also told me not to eat candy cause I was gonna get fat and, in the 70’s when I was trying the ‘gold chain necklace look’, she saved me from myself by informing me that only girls wore necklaces.

One of my favorite memories of Grandma is riding in her car when I was a kid, stopping at an intersection and a couple boys about 10 yrs old on bikes had to stop as we blocked their path and one kid said ‘Aw ya dumb old lady….’ And Grandma laughed and waved and drove off. I think about that a lot; I think how well she handled that (we never talked about it so I’m not sure what she thought of it), but I think there was probably a good lesson in there for me as a 10 yr old. And as a future grandparent.

Grandma’s house was where we watched the fireworks on the fourth of July. All my cousins were there with watermelon and squirt guns in her back yard.
And her 1967 Plymouth Valiant was my first car.

Yep, driven by a little old lady.

What comes to mind when you think of your grandparents?