“WE ARE FAMILY….”

Wednesday we took a drive up to Montgomery , IL, so Dennis could finish the chimney job for Uncle Jr. and Aunt Jeanette.   I have to give you a brief history of these two amazing people.  They met shortly after Jr.came back from WWII, and from what I hear, he was a real “Wildman”, (Must run in the family).  He had been in the Navy since he was 18 years old, served onboard the USS Lexington and the USS Bennington .  We visited his ship when we were at Corpus Christi, TX in 2006….

Let me just say that the stories he tells about being in WWII border on “movie inspiring”…

  He is 9 years younger than his wife (of 50 years)…She was 40 years old when they married, and there are still rumors floating around as to whether they ever really WERE married… Jeanette and her mother drove to Alaska in 1949 to visit Jeanette’s brother, who worked in a Drug Store in Anchorage (after being discharged from a mental hospital…truly, I am not making this stuff up…) This period of time was when the Alaskan Highway ( the Alcan Highway) was new.   It was unpaved and you had to ford some streams or ferry across.  Jeanette tells the story of when she left her purse in a phone booth outside a restaurant on the way, with about $1600 in it (LOTS of money in 1949!) …When she realized it, about 200 miles up the road, she called back to the restaurant on a pay phone and they acknowledged they had found it… They found a very honest semi truck driver , who delivered it safely to them about a week later…This is the stuff movies are made of.  They have lived a long and fascinating life...We try to help out when we can these days…When we visit them I should take a tape recorder…

   Well , Jr. is now almost 87, and Jeanette is almost 95…still together….still in the home they built together…no kids….great life….and now, beginning to realize that they cannot keep up their home much longer….This is a point in time we all might experience… Sometimes, as Jeanette says, it’s possible to live a little TOO long.

….THESE TWO PEOPLE ARE MY HEROS!!!!!! (notice the glass of wine in front of Aunt Jeanette..probably why she has lived so long. And yes, that is a wig on her head.) 

On a totally different topic, I have been burning my brain cells trying to come up with an activity to pass the time for our new full-time “Midlife Cruiser” friend, Nellie….  I think I have it….

 

Sidewalk Chalk!!!!

 

        

I have NO idea where our granddaughter, Taylor , got the idea of a Busch Light glass………

Let’s see…no camera….very few ideas…..Oh, one new thing….We are dog sitting for our son and his wife.  We have acquired their 9 year old Lasa Apso  (how the Hell do ya spell that??) until Monday or Tuesday..They drove to Arkansas to visit her family.  The dog’s name is Sammy Sosa…yes, I did really say that…Named after the former “pumped up” Chicago Cub player..I thought maybe I should make this Sammy pee in a cup to make sure HE wasn’t putting steroids on his dog food..…Following him around waiting for him to lift his leg was definitely NOT my idea of a good time…not to mention a little demeaning for him.  I should trust him at his word, right???

Behold our very first camper ..EVER !!  Our 2004 Keystone Cougar..We were camping virgins at ages 61 and 55…You may notice in the top photos there is some snow on the ground..We were in Waco Texas that November…and they lied when they said “Oh, we don’t get snow here..” We burned up one whole bottle of propane trying to keep our water from freezing and it STILL froze!!   We had the Cougar almost 3 years when Dennis got tired of his feet hanging over the bed, bumping his head on the bedroom ceiling and freezing to death in Texas…Enter, The HitchHiker..

 

WE LOVE OUR HITCHHIKER II!!!!!!!

I’m bordering on brain dead….See ya Saturday!!!!