Joshua surprised everyone by demonstrating that he taught himself how to read before even starting kindergarten. My son and daughter-in-law found that Joshua was reading instructions on web sites so he could play video games. Did he teach himself to read just so he could play video games or surf the internet without any help? Or did he carry this skill over from a previous life?
Matthew, age 4 years, just related a story to his Mom about being alive before. He said that he had a different Mommy when he was shot in the face when he was 8-years old and died. Then when he opened his eyes again, he had this new Mommy, my daughter. Ideas and questions such as these, when disjointed from one another just adds mystery to the why… but when joined together may explain that we never really die, but we perhaps continue on in new and different lives. When Matthew was three he was looking at photos, with his Mom, of his sisters when they were younger. He then stated that he wasn’t in the pictures because he was dead at the time. Many people around the world believe in reincarnation so they refuse to step on a bug because it may have been their great-uncle in a previous life.
My first memory was when I was about 3-years old, and I’m quite sure that it had nothing to do with a previous life that I may have lived.
This memory that I had is an experience that I shared with my father. I was standing in the front seat of my parent’s "family car," which just happened to be a polished black hot-rod. This was before Ralph Nader and other safety lobbyist got laws passed requiring that all cars should have seat belts, padded dash boards, airbags and, legally required, child safety seats.
If my Dad had to slam on the brakes of the car when I was riding with him, his strong arm would instantly hold me back against the car seat. My dad, who was 24-years old at the time, was wearing a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up over muscled arms with a pack of Pall-Mall non-filter cigarettes tucked into one rolled up sleeve. He was also wearing Levi’s with the cuffs rolled up over black boots. His dark black hair was combed back into a ducktail with a lock of hair curled down over his forehead... this was pre-Elvis days and nearing the birth of the Rock and Roll era. Recalling what my Grandpa Hersh, the former Marine, was like, I wonder today, how my Dad ever got near my mother, and I’m sure that my Grandma Hersh thought that my Dad was the King of the Heathens.
My father was in fact a product of years of evolution and maybe reincarnation from the time his forefathers first set foot on the Eastern shores of America.
One ancestor was Colonel John Richmond, one of the founding fathers of Taunton, Massachusetts. Another of my Dad’s ancestors, Henry Bull, twice served as the Governor of Colonial Rhode Island and was one of the signers of the Newport Compact.
My father had yet to accomplish anything historically noteworthy in his life, but he was my hero.
My father was very proud of me; where ever he went I went. He took it upon himself to teach me the important basics of life, from his viewpoint. In addition to teaching me how to pee standing up, he taught me at a young age, to wolf-whistle at pretty girls. He thought that it was pretty cute, until one day I whistled at a girl while my Mother was in the car with us. I believe that was the first time I realized who the true boss in my family was. My Dad told me not to whistle at girls anymore... at least not while Mom was around. Of course they made up from that fight and my brother, Rodney, was born nine months later. Then a short time later a second brother, Allen, was born… two opportunities for more recycled souls.
I was really happy to have two more kids in the family. Besides my dog Tippy, I now had two brothers to play with. What I didn’t realize before-hand was that little brothers could be wet, stinky, noisy and they never wanted to play at the same things I did, like putting them in a cardboard box and pushing them down the stairs for a ride. It also seemed that Mom spent more time hugging them and less time hugging me. So Tippy and I remained best friends.
Tippy had the run of the neighborhood, and knew all of the great places to go. So it was quite natural that at times I'd follow along. However, these adventures usually got me into trouble with my Mom or Grandma. I never felt as though I was in any danger because Tippy was always there to protect me.
I had my own transportation too, a red pedal-powered fire truck. I'd just pull out in the road behind Tippy and off we'd go. My mother told me years later that once Tippy and I had disappeared for the whole day. All of the neighbors and much of the Omaha, Nebraska police department were out looking for us. I can't remember where Tippy and I went, but we were eventually found by the paperboy and brought safely home.
I believe the reason that some television programs today announce that “stunts they are about to show should not be tried at home,” could probably be attributed to some of my youthful scars.
After watching Superman on TV one day, I thought that I could tie a towel around my neck for a cape like Superman’s and fly from the top of the stairs to the couch in Grandpa and Grandma's house. After Mom finished patching me up, she threatened never to let me watch television again. But of course after pestering her to let me go outside everyday for the next few days, she relented in turning on the television again.
Besides Superman, my other heroes of the day were Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Buffalo Bob Smith and Hopalong Cassidy. I thought that my name, Danny, was a pretty stupid one for a cowboy. I figured that Roy and Hopalong were already taken, and everyone called my Uncle Eugene, Gene for short. Also, I figured that Mom would refuse to call me Buffalo, so the best cowboy name that I could think up was Hank. So one day I worked up my nerve and I asked my Mom and Grandma to start calling me Hank. Of course Mom and Grandma just laughed at me and caused me quiet a bit of embarrassment, so I dropped the subject and never brought it up again.
Years later I met Gene Autry, in person, at a business conference and when he shook my hand, I almost reverted back to being 4-years old again. Just a couple of years before he died, Gene Autry gave me a baseball, through a friend of his, that signed by members of the Los Angeles Angels baseball team for my Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary… because my parents were big fans of the Angels, this was their prized possession. Just one year after the passing of Mr. Autry his beloved Angels won the World Series… hopefully he reincarnated into another talented individual who can continue to bring more joy into the world for people.
I eventually thought it would be real cool to be an actor so I could play at being a cowboy if I couldn’t be a real one, so one day I thought I would try out my acting skills on my Mom and Grandma. I made lots of noise coming down the stairs and screamed like I had fallen, then laid at the bottom holding my breath like I was dead… Mom started screaming and Grandma started crying, and I started giggling and got a spanking from Mom. I never tried that again.
With three boys and a dog, my parents ultimately decided that they should move out of Grandpa and Grandma Hersh’s house and into their own. Besides, I think us three boys and Tippy got on my Grandmother's nerves. I can still remember her yelling at us in her best high-pitched Arkansas drawl, "You boys ain't nothin' but a bunch of wild heathens." Then she would always add, "If'n you young'ns don't behave yerselves, I'm gonna get a switch and tan your behinds." Of course Grandma never did carry through on her threats. I didn’t understand at the time what a heathen was, but I thought that it must be something fun, because whenever Grandma called us heathens, we were always having fun.
Grandma didn’t even spank me when I tried painting my red fire truck white, and wound up painting myself instead by dumping the bucket of paint over my head.
It was an innocent mistake. I was painting with a stick because I couldn't find a paintbrush. How the paint got spilled over my head and body could easily be explained. I wanted to see if there was any paint left in the bucket under the dried and hardened layer on top of the paint. So I just naturally turned the bucket of paint upside down over my head to see inside the can better. I can still remember the scrubbing Grandma gave me with the turpentine while she was telling me that I’d always be a heathen if I didn’t start behaving myself.
After moving out of my Grandparents house, I still adored returning to spend the weekends with them. Despite our tendencies towards being heathens Grandma and Grandpa still loved us. Grandma was also a wonderful cook. She could make the most delicious meals out of just about anything. She grew up in a large poor family from the hills of Arkansas. Her mother died young so it was left up to her, as the oldest daughter, to cook. She would gather all sorts of things in the hills around her home as she once saw her mother do, or one of her brothers would bring something home from hunting, she would skin it and cook it up for her brothers, sister and father. Grandma took the time to teach me how to make pies and other delicious dishes. Grandma had a pantry stuffed full of foods that she canned, and always had a pie or two cooling on the pantry’s shelf. Sometimes Grandma would take me with her and we'd go out and pick weeds so she could prepare them for supper. Grandma could make anything taste good. I remember one time when Grandma kept the watermelon rind that would normally be thrown out. She prepared it in a way somehow to make what she called watermelon rind candy... again it was a delicious treat.
I don’t think that my Grandmother ever bought any processed foods from a grocery store… she believed that you could get poisoned from eating TV dinners.
By the time my parents found a house to move us into, I had graduated from kindergarten, and even though Tippy and I were fenced into the yard, we were enjoying summer vacation. Mom and Dad found a cheap 2-bedroom, no-bath house with a huge garage on a dirt road called “Avenue D” in Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River from Omaha where Grandpa and Grandma lived. However, Mom immediately had us move back to Grandma and Grandpa's house after visiting the outhouse late the first night. It seems a cat jumped up between Mom’s legs when she was about to set down in the outhouse. This almost scared her to death. The whole neighborhood was woken up, and the police came to our house because of all the screaming. Dad had to promise Mom that he’d install an indoor bathroom so she would come back.
By the time we moved back into our 2 bedroom, 1 bath home, I was starting the first grade and my youngest brother was just learning how to walk... and I was scared to death of him. His hair was so blond that it was almost white. Somebody said, “Allen almost looks like he could be an albino.” At 6-years old, I had no idea what an albino was, but it sounded scary because in my young mind I equated albino to alligator, and my little brother's best defense against harassment from me was biting! After I discovered that he was harmless, I went back to harassing him for the next 16 years until he got bigger muscles then mine.
Iowa was a wonderful place for us kids to live. It was sort of out in the country at the time, but near enough to town where we could go to the movies on Saturdays to watch our favorite cowboys shoot the bad guys. Also in Council Bluffs is where I met my first two human best friends... Buddy and Glenny... Even Tippy liked Buddy and Glenny. With my name being Danny and not Hank, we all kind of fit together because we all thought our names sounded alike with the y at the end. Buddy hated his real name, Bertsill, and would fight anyone who called him that. He even got mad at our teacher the first day of class when she was calling roll. When she called out “Bertsill” everyone in the class laughed except Glenny and me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t mind having the name Mom and Dad gave me.
Buddy resembled Alfalfa from the "Our Gang" fame and Glenny had red hair and lots of freckles... and when Glenny got excited it seemed that his freckles connected and he got even redder. Buddy had a little brother, who we never allowed to play with us, which was a rule for my little brothers too. Glenny had a little sister, who we named droopy drawers because her diaper was always drooping down between her knees. I learned years later that Droopy Drawers grew up to be a strikingly beautiful red-haired prom queen. I learned this from Buddy, who I ran into in Hawaii while serving in the Navy. I hadn't seen Buddy for sixteen years, but I recognized him right off... he still looked like Alfalfa, only bigger.
In the short time we lived in Iowa, Buddy, Glenny and I experienced a lot of adventures together. We would spend our days together by getting lost in corn fields, riding in the back of Glenny's father's pickup truck or scraping grease off the floor of Buddy's father's garage to earn a dime for a strawberry soda. We would then drink those strawberry sodas while sitting on the bench in front of Quigley's grocery store, which today would be considered a Mom and Pop convenience store.
The Quigley's were a large family and they all lived in an apartment above the grocery store. I thought their store kind of resembled one of those old western hotels we saw in the movies. The Quigley kids were all a lot older than us boys were, so we never got to know them. Mr. and Mrs. Quigley were real nice. When we were collecting bottle caps, they saved all the caps in their soda machine just for us.
I started first grade at Roosevelt Elementary School. I don't remember if the school was named for Teddy or Franklin. Mrs. Moore was our teacher. Luckily, Buddy and Glenny and I were all in the same class, but Tippy wasn't allowed in the schoolhouse, so he had to wait outside. I started out in school wanting to be a good student. I even auditioned for the school’s Christmas pageant. It required singing, so during the audition I belted out the only song I knew, which was Jingle Bells. Mrs. Moore gave me the job of assistant stage manager, which ended my singing career before it even got started. However, I was still an enthusiastic student.
One day Mrs. Moore surprised us with a show and tell session. Kids in the class started getting up in front of the class to show us wonderful things they brought from home, or to tell about some adventure they experienced with their parents, when it was my turn, I was blank... I couldn't think of any wonderful adventures that I had experienced with my family. Then it came to me... I remembered my Mom and Dad's conversation from the evening before. So I related what was said. "My Daddy has the piles so bad he can't hardly sit down, and then I added he won't let my Mommy call the doctor." The next week was Parent Teacher night at school. When Mrs. Moore was talking to my Mom and Dad, I couldn't understand why she and my Mom were laughing so hard. Dad refused to attend any more Parent Teacher nights the rest of that school year.
In those days all we had was an unlimited imagination. We only had one or maybe two channels on the TV, and no computer games. Today kids around Council Bluffs would probably say, "There's nothing to do here."
One day my uncle Walter paid us a visit. While there he built us boys a really cool play house with only half walls around the bottom and a roof. This wonderful playhouse became a frontier fort, a western town jail, a pirate ship on the high seas and an airplane soaring through the sky… we thought it was magical… but it was just our own imagination. We could turn that playhouse into just about anything we could think up and all without electronics!
When we first moved to Council Bluffs an old couple who lived next door to Buddy said that they were going to catch my dog Tippy and skin and cook him for dinner. We tried really hard to stay clear of that house and to keep a close eye on Tippy so he would get eaten. Then disaster hit one day; Tippy got trapped in their back yard. Buddy and Glenny, who was real red, came running to my house screaming that those old mean people were about to kill and eat Tippy. All three of us took off running we crashed through the front door of their house, crying and ready to fight for the life of my dog. When the old couple discovered how upset and angry we were they told us that they were just teasing us, and that they really liked dogs and little kids and they wouldn't do any harm to either. They treated us to cookies and milk and never teased us again. A fear that we lived with for weeks suddenly subsided. And true to their word, they were real nice to use after that and never teased us again.
One Saturday, Mom came and picked Buddy, Glenny and me up from the movies to take us home. She said Dad had a surprise for us. What a surprise that was... two Shetland ponies! What great things to have if your ambition in life at 6-years old is to be a cowboy! I was immediately the most popular kid in the neighborhood. We even had experience riding Shetland ponies at carnivals. However, these Shetland ponies turned out not to be the same gentle horses we had experience with. These two evil ponies liked to kick, bite and stomp on feet if you got too close. I think Dad got a real good deal on these two mean knot heads. Somebody probably gave them to him just to get them off their hands. Dad said, "You boys can teach them to give you rides, and while you're doing it, pretend you're in a Rodeo." Dad converted our huge garage into a barn to house the ponies. He even built a corral in the back of the garage for the ponies to run around in.
We learned to lasso them out of the corral and drag them over to the picnic table in the back yard so we could climb up on their backs. Of course we could only ride for about two seconds before they dumped us on the ground, then they would turn around and try to kick, stomp or bite us. We would just jump up real fast and climb back up on the picnic table so they couldn't get to us. Glenny turned out to be the best rider of us all. He would just grab the pony around the neck and not let go...I think he was just too scared to let go. He would just ride that bucking pony around the yard and he would just get redder and redder, until the pony scraped him off against a fence or something. The old man who lived next door to us was our audience until his doctor told him he couldn't watch us ride the ponies anymore because of his heart and weak bladder.
I think that experience with the ponies cured my ambition of becoming a cowboy.
However we did have some joyful experiences from those ponies. They kept getting out of the yard, which in itself wasn’t so fun because when they did get out we had to look all over Council Bluffs for the darn things. One time Mom and Grandma caught one of them, except the pony didn't want to go home. While Mom was pulling on the rope around the pony's neck Grandma was in back pushing. The rope broke and Mom went flying back wards into a mud puddle. A nearby road crew and we kids thought it was pretty funny... of course Mom didn't, she just got mad at the pony, us kids and the road crew. Then she got mad all over again that night when Dad got home from work and found out what had happened and started laughing.
The first Christmas in Iowa, I asked for a sled from Santa. But when Christmas morning came along, I found a pair of skis under the tree instead. I was very disappointed because in Iowa where we lived there were no mountains or even decent hills to ski down. Even at 6-years old I knew this. My Dad told me not to worry about it. I think that my Dad wanted us boys to be athletes, even if we couldn't be bronc busters... and he took it upon himself once again to teach us.
As I said before, we had a huge garage in the back of our home. Of course by then it was converted into a barn the previous summer for our mean Shetland ponies
The day after Christmas, Dad started working on a ramp from the roof of our "barn" to the ground. He said that it was a ski ramp. It took him about two weeks of working on it in the evenings after work and on the weekends. The ramp itself was about 8 feet wide and to us kids looked real dangerous.
Finally the day came when Dad packed snow on the ramp and told us kids that he was going to teach us to ski. I thought that this was going to be real interesting because Dad himself had never skied a day in his life. But he figured that he'd seen people skiing on TV and in the movies and it really didn't look all that hard.
Dad took the skis Santa brought to me and climbed up the ladder to the roof of our "barn." He sat down on the peak of the roof and strapped on the skis... so far everything was going real good. But when he stood up, all of a sudden he started turning around backward and slid toward the edge of the roof... nowhere near the ramp. Immediately I thought that this was not good, and my first impression of the ramp was correct. Off he went, nowhere near the ramp and down he came... whomp... landing in a snow drift up against the "barn." After he caught his breath and brushed the pony poop and snow off his backside he told us, "That darn thing is too dangerous for you kids to play on, stay away from it!" Then he limped into the house.
Mom was real strange that day. She was laughing and crying and real mad at Dad for building something dangerous for us kids to play on. Dad spent the rest of the day in bed, and again refused to let Mom call the doctor.
We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how we could attach the skis to a box so we could make a sled.
In the spring, Dad was still trying to make athletes out of us boys. One Saturday he decided to teach us how to pole-vault. And once again Dad's only experience with pole vaulting was that he once saw somebody do it. He found a sturdy pole that he could use to teach us with. He took off running, just like he once saw some body else do it, planted the pole just like a pro and jumped. The pole snapped and again Mom got mad at Dad for trying to teach us boys dangerous stuff, and again Dad wouldn't let Mom call the doctor, or let us try pole vaulting.
Then came the fateful day about nine months later when Mom decided that she wanted to move back to Omaha and civilization and where it would be safer for us kids. Besides, we needed a bigger house by now because we had a new sister, Lorie. I had to say goodbye to Buddy and Glenny. It seemed like I'd never see them again, even though we were only moving about 10 miles away, and just across the river. I was pretty sad, because just a short time before this fateful day, my original best friend Tippy had died. He was pretty old for a dog by then. I wouldn't be able to put flowers on his grave in the back yard anymore. I asked Buddy and Glenny to take care of his grave, and they promised that they would.
Again we had an experience with the ponies. Mom and Dad had to transport the ponies to a farm because we couldn't take them with us to Omaha. Dad finally saw a doctor about his piles so he was at home in bed and Mom couldn't find a horse trailer or truck to transport the horses. She called uncles Luck and Buck, my Grandmother's brothers, who came over to help. They took the back seat out of Mom's car and somehow got the ponies inside. On the way to the farm they had to cross over a toll bridge. Of course when they pulled up to the teller, one of the ponies stuck its head out of the window and tried to bite the teller, scaring the poor person almost to death. Also, both ponies just had to poop in Mom's car before they got to the farm. She was real mad at poor old Dad who was at home sick in bed.
By this time I was growing older, 9-years old by now. In Omaha, Dad got us into scouting. My new friend, Mikey was real cool. Again, I had a friend who’s named ended in y like mine. His parents were real exotic. His mother was British and his father was Italian. I could barely understand what either of them was saying most of the time. I couldn't imagine how Mikey understood them at all. Mikey's Mom was our Cub Scout Den Mother. She was really cool, because she arranged for us to take all kinds of field trips. We even got to ride a train through the cornfields of Iowa all the way to Ames once. Of course there wasn't much to look at except corn fields... it was pretty boring during the train ride, and Mikey’s Mom was very angry with us boys by the time we got back home.
Mikey's Dad also had a real strange appetite. He kept snails in a big bucket outside his house and fed them corn meal so Mikey's Mom could cook them for him. The only thing I knew about snails at the time was that my grandfather cussed them in his garden and was continuously trying to poison them. I sometimes wondered if Mikey's Dad ever ate one of my grandfather's poisoned snails if he would get sick.
Mom allowed me to start playing softball during this time. She knew that someone would coach us other than Dad. Life again was good in our new home. It was large and spacious with a huge garage. But this time the garage wouldn't support mean Shetland ponies or a ski ramp. Our house was even big enough for Grandpa and Grandma to move into with us. I was happy for them to come, even though I was displaced out of my bedroom that I didn't have to share with my brothers.
However, Grandpa and Grandma didn't stay with us for long. We only had one bathroom, which Mom was real proud of, for four adults and four kids. Grandma still loved us but accused us of being wild heathens. My Dad and Grandpa got along pretty good by now. Dad even built shelves in the basement where Grandpa could display his rock collection.
Grandpa just loved collecting rocks. Whenever he went out for a walk and spotted a rock, he would pick it up turn it over spit on it or lick it to see if it would shine up. This habit would upset Grandma. She once told him that “a dog probably peed on that rock you just licked.” Then I remembered when Tippy would pee on dandelions… I never ate any of Grandma’s greens again.
Grandpa was always kind of quiet. In addition to collecting stuff, he liked to write things down. He kept a big green log book where he cataloged all the rocks he collected with their scientific names, where he got the rock from and then assigned them a number, which he also placed on the rock before he put it in his collection. To this day, we can look at the number on one of Grandpa's rocks then check the logbook to tell what it is, where he got it, and when. He also liked to write letters. On a regular basis Grandpa Hersh wrote to every relative and friend that he knew. Even school projects that we made for Grandpa were carefully cataloged with a tag on the date he received it and who gave it to him. We learned about this years later after he passed away and we found an old trunk of Grandpa's. In this trunk we saw that he treasured everything that we kids gave him, no matter how humble the gift was.
Everybody liked Grandpa. He was also an easy touch for the panhandlers of Omaha and later Los Angeles. He kept spare change in his pockets at all times just for such an occasion when he could hand it out. Whenever I spent the weekends with my Grandparents, Grandpa always had some project he'd have me help him with. He taught me about gardening, taking long walks and reading the newspaper. Grandpa never installed an irrigation system in his yard or garden. He always watered by hand. Today, I do the same thing to my garden. He even taught me how to tell if a rock could shine up by scratching it with a pocket knife to check its hardness, and what it might look like shined up by licking the rock.
Even though Grandpa liked licking rocks, and spending long hours writing and watering, as I mentioned earlier, he was very particular about his appearance, probably part of his Marine Corps discipline. He would always get up early in the morning to get ready for work. His suits had to be perfectly pressed. He spent hours ironing his clothes because Grandma couldn't get them ironed just right (which I’m sure was intentional on Grandma’s behalf). His white shirts had to have heavy starch and his shoes shined brightly.
One morning he was in our crowded and brightly decorated bath room getting ready for work when he accidentally put a glob of Mom's leg hair remover stuff on his head thinking that it was hair tonic. When the little bit of hair he had left started falling out in that day it almost devastated him. Everybody else thought it was pretty funny. I thought that it wasn’t so bad Grandpa wouldn’t have to get so many haircuts.
One night, while Grandpa was ironing his clothes in the basement, I “accidentally” dropped one of Grandma's good silver butter knives through an old heating duct hole in the floor of the dining room. It fell and hit a metal tub in the basement at about the same time Grandpa's steam iron let out a blast of steam. Grandpa thought the "damn iron just blew up." It scared him pretty good, and I had to go hide so I wouldn't get a spanking. Grandpa did swat us once in a while… but only if he could catch us immediately, which was rare. He eventually forgave me. But shortly thereafter he and Grandma moved to an apartment in downtown Omaha... and I got to go spend the weekends with them there. Mom liked for me to spend the weekends with Grandma and Grandpa as much as I did.
My Grandparents would even take me on vacations to Arkansas with them where we would visit Grandma’s family. I loved going there because I could run around barefooted with all the kids there. One time I was going to chop some wood for my Grandmother’s sister, Maggie. My Grandma saw me with the ax and told me to “drop that ax right now before you hurt yerself!” So I dropped it… as I was barefooted at the time it just naturally dropped on my middle tow nearly cutting it off. Grandma and Grandpa rushed me to a country doctor where he miraculously reattached my toe which is still in use today. While I was sitting on the table waiting for the doctor to sew my toe back on, I could see a little creek running by his office. I wondered at the time if they were washing the blood off my foot with the water from that creek.
I thought that everybody in Arkansas at the time did not have indoor plumbing as that was the way Aunt Maggie lived. Years later, in 1969 while I was in the Navy going to school in Tennessee, my Grandparents visited my Aunt Maggie’s house on vacation so I arranged a weekend pass to meet them there as it wasn’t far from where I was stationed at the time. I arrived rather late to my Aunt’s house so I went directly to bed… before it was even light out my Aunt was telling me “Boy if you want breakfast you’d better git up!” I asked if I could take a shower, she told me that if I wanted a bath that there was a tub out behind the wood shed. I could fill it up from the well and wait for the sun to come up to warm up the water and bathe there. I don’t think my Aunt Maggie ever lived in a house with indoor plumbing and I’m quite sure that if she did she wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Of course I had other Grandparents and Great Grandparents, but I grew up mostly knowing my maternal grandparents.
I remember going to visit my Great Grandma and Grandpa Barber with my Mom and Dad. Great Grandpa was very stern and believed that children should remain quiet at all times. At one time Great Grandpa was a lawman in a Nebraska cattle town just before or at the turn of the century. My father told me that he used to set up bottles on fence posts and then ride his horse at full gallop past them while he shot them off. Even if I knew this fact when I was young, I still don’t believe I would have had the courage to bother him with it… he was scary. He also walked with a cane that he made himself. I was sure that he used this cane to hit little kids with if they gave him any trouble. Dad told me that one time Great Grandpa was on his way home on horseback when his horse slid on some ice and fell on Great Grandpa’s ankle breaking it. Because the horse took off running, he had to walk a couple of miles to get home on his broken ankle, which caused a permanent limp.
Great Grandma Barber was also very stern. She had a big wooden spoon that she would whack us with if we did something at the dinner table that we weren’t supposed to do. I once asked my Dad why he didn’t stick up for us… he said that Great Grandma Barber would whack him harder if he did. Great Grandma and Grandpa Barber died in the mid 1950s.
In 1961 Mom gave birth to a new baby brother, Kevin, and Dad got a new job in Los Angeles, California. We thought what an adventure! But Grandma and Grandpa and all the other cousins and aunts and uncles were going to stay in Nebraska.
