Family Archives

October 6, 2012

Counting Bugs on the Wall

My Altenburg friend Warren Schmidt was riding herd on a youth group that stayed overnight at the museum. He posted this as his Facebook status: “I think the effects of trying to sleep on a church pew in the museum last night are catching up with me. I don’t suppose I should make up for it by sleeping in a church pew tomorrow morning.”

My parents put together a scrapbook of my first grade experiences at Trinity Lutheran School. It had photos, school papers, drawings and my lessons. Dad was away working Kennett during this period, so we kept in touch by phone a couple times a week and on weekends. I think he must have been responsible for the diary portion of the scrapbook.

Seeing Warren’s status report made me think of this entry from Sunday, September 19, 1953: “The whole family went to 8 o’clock church. I didn’t wiggle very much. To pass the time away, I counted 13 bugs on the wall….”

Exhibit preview Oct. 16

Warren must have been standing guard to keep the kids from drawing mustaches (and worse) on my photos being exhibited in the museum.

I’m going to be doing a preview “picking party” slide and video show at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum Tuesday, October 16, at 6:30pm. I have more material than will fit into the slot allocated for my presentation at an immigration conference scheduled for the next week, so I’m looking for folks who can help me trim. (“All of the above” might be the correct answer, but, please, be gentle.)

I’d love to have folks see the photos hanging in the exhibit and have a chance to hear my war stories. (I’m pretty sure some of my old teachers figured that I had pretty good chance of hanging, but they were thinking of Jackson’s Hanging Tree, not a museum.)

October 6, 2012October 6, 2012

Zippo Lighters

Dad was a smoker until he quit cold turkey one New Year’s Eve without telling any of us. We noticed that he was crankier than usual, but he didn’t tell us what he had done for a couple of weeks, “in case I couldn’t do it,” he said later.

One day he came home with a handful of these Zippos with his company logo on them. As a non-smoker and as an appreciator of something special, I never put lighter fluid in mine nor did I ever spin the flint. I don’t recall him carrying one of these special editions.

Zippo lighters worked

I remember well the Zippo lighter he DID carry. There was something simple and satisfying about this simple, but foolproof device. There was the “click” it made when you opened it, and the “clunk” it made when it was closed. Because of the nearly windproof chimney, it was almost impossible to blow the flame out; the proper way to put it out was to close the top, starving the flame of oxygen.

You filled it by putting lighter fluid on cotton batting inside the base. Dad always carried a couple of spare flints back there.

Zip!…It’s Lit!

One spin of the flint stiking was all it generally took to light. I’ll never forget the slight smell of ozone that came from the flint and the smell of the lighter fluid. Looking at the instruction sheet brought back the memory of those zebra-striped Zippo fluid cans. I’m going to have to look under the basement stairs to see if any of the old cans are still there. The fluid, I’m sure, has long since evaporated, but it would be neat to see a can again.

They weren’t kidding about the life-time warranty, either. Something happened to Dad’s lighter – maybe it was the cam on the left that kept the lid securely open or closed that broke – anyway, he sent it in and they replaced the guts of the lighter and returned it with the original case. (You might have to click on the pictures to get the instruction sheets big enough to read.)

Personalize your Zippo

I’m pretty sure Dad’s everyday Zippo was plain, but you COULD personalize it for as little as a buck. I don’t have any idea what the Steinhoff, Kirkwood & Joiner cases cost, or if they might have been a Zippo promotion to encourage him to buy more.

Dad tried some other lighters. I think Ronson made one that had a rounded case. It didn’t work like a Zippo, though, so it didn’t get carried long.

Guys got really attached to their Zippos. That’s hard to believe in this day of throwaway butane jobs (that don’t work as reliably as a Zippo).

Zippo Rule

At the same time he got the SK&J lighter, he got a Zippo Rule with the same logo on it. It looks like a lighter, but the case contains a tape measure.

September 30, 2012September 30, 2012

Cleaning Up the House

Wife Lila and two of her friends are coming back home Saturday night after taking a cruise in Alaska. That means I’m scurrying around like a teenager who threw a keg party while his parents were gone. The place pretty much passes the sniff test (or my sense of smell has gone dead).

This trip left me in unusual circumstances. Normally she takes my level of domestic skills into consideration before she leaves town and makes sure that the laundry is in a U+4 status. (That means four pairs of underwear more than the anticipated days she’ll be on the road).

Abandoned in U-3 status

She had a lot of last-minute tasks to take care of, so she left me in a U-3 status. Faced with either turning the articles of clothing inside out to bridge the gap or going out and buying more, I tackled the washing machine. It didn’t belch suds, my white underwear is the same color as when it went in (I remembered to add the fabric softener, too) and the smoke alarm didn’t go off. An even number of socks came out. That must mean that I either didn’t lose a sock or the sock monster coughed up a spare.

The fridge was pretty barren of leftovers, too. I thawed out a bag of frozen homemade chili for a couple of meals and there was enough cheese and lunch meat around to carry me for a few more. In the end, though, I had to reach for my cookbook: a stack of takeout menus under the kitchen telephone.

Dishes are overrated

Dishes are highly overrated. Food tastes just as good off a paper plate and you don’t have to wash it. OJ tastes a lot better straight from the bottle.

In the end, though, I had to fire up the dishwasher for coffee cups, eating utensils and the like. The experience went much better than the first time I did it when the kids were little. I got everything loaded, put in the detergent and went into the living room where we had the computer set up.

All of a sudden, I heard the kids screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” and turned to see them running from a wall of suds only slightly ahead of a thoroughly traumatized cat. Who KNEW that all soaps weren’t made alike? Well, at least the kitchen cabinets were clean up to about waist level.

It’ll be good to have her back home. I’m just waiting to hear what I did wrong.

[The Missouri Utilities ad came from the 1956 Sesquicentennial book.]

September 11, 2012

Brother David’s Birthday

I promised to have more and better photos this year than I did last year on Brother David’s birthday, but I had forgotten how quickly the pages on the calendar turn. This is the best I could do. Maybe next year.

The first shot shows David and Diane with their rental trailer. I’m guessing this is when they moved to Tulsa.

This is why they have girls

This double exposure showing David and Diane with their trailer also exposes Son Matt. I’m not sure, but I think this experience may be why the couple had girl children and their daughter, Kim, has girls.

Lined up at the trailer

Here we all are lined up in front of the travel trailer my folks bought to keep over at Wil-Vera Village on Kentucky Lake. The quarters were a bit tight. Wife Lila (who took the picture) was happy when Dad traded it off for a full-blown mobile home not long after this photo was taken. David and Mark are both sporting full heads of hair. I’m in that awkward transitional comb-over stage before becoming good-looking like Dad.

Love the details

Let’s see, David’s shoe is untied. Mark is tired out from carrying his hammer around looking for something to hit. The tricycle has a load of animal crackers on the rear deck. Note the red reflector tape on the trike. Dad bought it by the mile in widths from one inch to four inches and in white and red. I still have some kicking around. As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.

So, Happy Birthday, Brother. I hope it’s a good one.

Category: Family