Guess! Cuz I Can't Tell You

For the most part, I make every effort to stay apolitical in my postings, and I’m actually not going to get political in this one either. But, with all the talk and constant barrage of news regarding the debate between the White House and Congress over tax and spending cuts, I’ve been reminded of an incident from my past. And though it seems a bit silly to change the names since many who read this will have no trouble identifying to whom I am referring, I’m doing it anyway as a courtesy.

During my early tenure as the publications production manager and graphic designer for a New England boarding school, the director of admissions became overwhelmingly enamored with the charismatic creative director of a Boston communications design firm. The firm had been winning the hearts and minds of admission directors throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York in a blaze of incomparable marketing genius. Everyone—I mean absolutely EVERYONE—was talking about Dave.

“Have you seen Exeter’s new Viewbook? How about Groton’s? Phillips’s Academy, too! Even Trinity-Pawling for godsake!”

“No? Well, Dave designed it. It’s spectacular!”

The coos, the ahs, the ohs, the wows, the superlative onamonapiatically enthralled responses were cacophonetic. [Yes, I just made up two words, but they further illustrate the over-the-top love that was being thrown in Dave’s direction.] And that’s why our school had to talk to Dave.

So Jess, one of our admission officers, heart racing at the very idea that she may actually get Dave on the phone, dialed his Boston number. His administrative assistant set up an appointment for four weeks in the future. Dave was a busy guy.

The appointed day arrived and Dave, along with his personal assistant, arrived on campus. Jess ushered them into the office of the duly reverent director, Warren, for the much-anticipated discussion about the school’s upcoming marketing efforts. The meeting lasted about an hour. As Dave was departing, Jess and Warren sighed and bowed as the object of their affection left the building.

It was shortly after Jess and Warren had recovered their senses, and had fully digested Dave’s quote for his services, and the impact such a venture would have on the budget, that they called me.

“Dave had the most fabulous idea for a yield piece,” they gushed. I nodded.

Jess reluctantly added, “But, we can’t afford him.” I nodded again.

Warren then said, “So we want you to come up with an idea.” I nodded again.

“The same idea that Dave mentioned in the meeting,” Jess added breathlessly.

“What was the idea?” I asked.

Jess and Warren looked guiltily at one another. Jess finally turned to me and said, “We can’t tell you.”

Wait. What?

“Well,” she further explained, “it was his idea so if we tell you, then . . . well . . . that wouldn’t be right.”

Wait. What?

Jess and Warren then looked at me expectantly.

I felt a little sick to my stomach as I asked, “Are you saying that you want me to come up with the same idea he did so that you can say that it was my original idea, but you’re not going to tell me what the idea was?”

Yes.

As with the current stand-off between the legislative and executive branches of our federal government, I was placed in the position of having to guess what the other party wanted knowing full well that such a guessing game could push our mutual tolerance of such an exercise over the cliff. Never having been very good at being funny when it comes to sarcasm (I always come off as hostile or mean), I hesitated to say what was really going through my head: “What? Do I look like an Oracle? Yea, sure, let me get out my crystal ball or Tarot cards.” Instead I explained as calmly as I could (though I really was annoyed) that such an expectation was beyond reason.

After a few minutes of going back and forth trying to get them to understand the impossibility of their expectations, they finally relented and Jess said, “OK. I’ll tell you.” She then explained in a rush of enthusiasm how Dave had come up with (on the spot!) that the yield piece could be designed around the concept of an old campaign button. “You know,” Jess went on, “like ‘I Like Ike,’ one of those big (and here she gestured with her hands to show me the size) pin-on buttons. Ours would say, ‘I Vote Choate’ and be accompanied with the usual letter of congratulations and encouragement to select our school over any other the recipient may have been accepted to.”

Seriously? A campaign button?

“Exactly how do you suppose mailing fulfillment is going to be accomplished?” I asked without rancor.

Jess and Warren thought for a moment before Warren guessed, “In a box?”

“Uh huh,” I said. “And how do you suppose that box is going to get made?” I further prompted.

“Is that a specialty?” Jess asked.

“Uh huh,” I responded. “And how do you supposed that box then gets labeled, postage applied, and handled through the USPS?”

I could almost see the light dawning on their faces.

“So, you see, this is an idea I would never have. Even in my wildest dreams. Because the manufacturing of such an idea is already too expensive. And I’m not even charging you a design fee.”

Their hopes dashed to pieces because they, too, realized that Dave’s idea was not an affordable option no matter how you sliced it, Jess and Warren and I then discussed some more viable alternatives and settled on one that, in the end, effectively served its purpose.

Dave’s star burned bright in its ascendancy, but only for a very short time. His business was bankrupt within three years.

So here’s my conclusion: Oh wait. Guess! Cuz I can’t tell you.

Copyright by DJ Anderson, 2012

I Remember Grandmother

My grandmother will be 103 on December 2. Her short-term memory has been gone for several years and she’ll tell you the same things over and over during the course of one visit. She still, however, has a very clear sense of self and can accurately describe to you her most ingrained characteristics. And she seems to still know who I am—at least she gives me every impression that she does. I haven’t asked her in a while about her past, and it hasn’t been that long since she could still tell stories of when she was a girl, but I suspect that some of her long-term memory is starting to disappear as well. This is why I am so glad that she wrote a few things down, and it is her story I will share with you for this post.

I Remember Grandmother

by Maxine Grace Stricker Anderson Hussong (b. December 2, 1909)

written December 18, 1994

Every little girl should have a grandmother such as I had the privilege of knowing for many years. She had so many good qualities, and though she had only three children, my mother’s seven were all treated with love. A baby sitter was not her style, but when several of us were at Grandma’s for a day or afternoon, playtimes were made enjoyable. A tent of blankets was hung over the clothesline—cookies and milk for a treat—plus music. An accomplished pianist, she’d play and we sang.

One Sunday I especially remember, our family was asked to her home for dinner. We came after Sunday School and stayed the rest of the day. Mid-afternoon Grandpa asked “Does anyone want the music?” Of course we said, “Yes.” Gramps and Uncle Bob took out their clarinets. Aunt Helen and Grandma sat on twin stools at the large, beautiful piano. They played duets and the men harmonized. What a special time we all had. My mother had a lovely contralto voice and she led the singing. My dad’s family was also musical, but he only played the mouth organ. So, he enjoyed listening to all of us.

Almost every week Grandma Hettie and her friend Trix would walk up to our house to visit. They brought goodies for the children. Sometimes my mother knew which day they were coming, and she would tell me to hurry to Grandma’s so I could walk with them. I’d walk between them or skip on ahead. If I reached Grandma’s early enough, she’d be seated at her dressing table (made by Gramps) and she’d allow me to brush her long auburn hair and pin it up in the style she liked. I can see her yet. She always walked so straight with her head held proudly. I always wondered what would happen if the hairpins didn’t hold.

After I reached sixth grade, these close times of love changed as I had more friends to enjoy fun times with. But, I never have forgotten her stories told to me about her own childhood and marriage and moving to Edgerton, Wisconsin, in 1900.

Her childhood story, as told to me over the years, was certainly different from my own.

The Loomer family lived in New York state. In the early 1840s they moved to Green Lake, Wisconsin, bringing three wagon loads of household items. Other family members had settled there. Young George Loomer (3-13-1828) was 26 years old and had left the girl he cared for in New York. He took two horses and rode back there. The Miller family had a daughter named Dora (4-14-1836 to 1-29-1924). It was she George wished to marry. Her parents were well-to-do, and after the marriage, they outfitted four covered wagons filled with household items. Three of Dora’s brothers each drove one wagon, and George drove the fourth one. Slowly they made their way to Wisconsin. The brothers then returned to New York.

George and Dora then settled down to live as the other pioneer families were doing. This meant lots of labor as so much had to be done the way it had for years. Now Dora realized this still was a wild country—Indians were still around—one story was of the Indians who cut across their land and used their water. Dora took the horsewhip and told them not to cross there anymore. They must have thought she meant it as they then did not do it anymore.

But Dora was not happy living as was necessary to do at that time. She wanted to go to New York for a visit, and did. In a couple of years nothing had changed in the dull and hard life of the time, so Dora again visited her old home. When she returned a daughter born on 4-27-1866 was name Hettie Jane Loomer. (my grandmother). When Hettie was about 4 1/2 years old Dora again wished to go to New York. George told her that if she did, she did not need to return. She went!

George then took Hettie and visited family in Kansas. There, Hettie had a new and different life that included riding horses. He realized that the child needed schooling, so returned to Wisconsin. He was told of a family in Clinton who took in children, since they had none of their own. This was Charles Curtis, the man who had invented “the reaper” used in farming. He was a wealthy man, and he and his wife kept 4 to 6 children at a time. All were schooled, given lessons in riding horses, and playing piano. George Loomer lived nearby and paid money for Hettie’s education as he could. Later a son was born to the Curtis family. [This son attended Hettie’s funeral in 1962.] They had always kept in touch. Hettie stayed on at the Curtis home and helped with the children.

The young people of the community put on plays, and there was always dancing. She played piano in an orchestra and met leader Jay Merrill who played clarinet. He was seven years older and was quite a ladies man! He was known as “Jay.” As an orphan Jay was brought to his uncle’s home to live. His parents had lived in Dayton, New York, and were killed in an accident. Jay and a sister were taken to an orphanage until relatives could be located. His uncle, on his mother’s side of the family, was Jess Pramer of Clinton. No trace of his sister could be found. Had she died or perhaps was adopted? Grandpa Merrill later hired a detective to find out, but was not successful.

My mother and father used to drive to Clinton (about 35 miles away) to see Jay’s relatives and friends of Hettie.

Jay Merrill and Hettie Jane Loomer were married 6-23-1885. Three children were born to them: Josephine Grace 8-2-1887 (d 1-6-1986 at 95 yrs).; Robert W. Merrill 10-21-1889 (d 1973 at 84 yrs.); and Helen Marie Merrill 5-8-1893 (d 1-92 at 98 yrs.).

They lived in Clinton until 1900. Jay Merrill was the town telegrapher and also did carpentry. He decided to take the same job in Edgerton, Wisconsin. Grandpa George Loomer moved with them.

A large house one block from the main street was found. Hettie decided to turn it into a boarding house. Single men who worked nearby stayed there. Many visitors arrived by train as the town was known as the Tobacco Capital of the U.S. There were nearly 100 warehouses, all working. Many women worked at the warehouses. Much acreage was grown by local farmers. Tobacco buyers came and stayed at the Hotel Carlton one block from Hettie’s. This came to an end when cigarettes were introduced. The tobacco grown this far north was not as fine or sweet as needed for the cigarettes, but is still grown to some extent and used for chewing tobacco.

Hettie’s Boarding House was a success. My mother, Josephine, used to hurry home from school at noon to “wait on table.” The Hotel burned down, I believe, in 1992. It was over a 100 years old.

Hettie and Jay finally bought a home several blocks north at 307 N. Main St. They lived there the rest of their days, and Aunt Helen and husband bought the home and she lived there until she went to a retirement home where she died in 1992. Grandfather Loomer died of a heart attack in 1902.

Dora Loomer came to Edgerton in 1906. She expected to stay with Hettie and family. My father and mother married in 1907. Dad thought he could help Hettie by taking Dora to help him as Mother was very ill with typhoid fever. Dora did not help or fit in there either. Grandma Hettie asked her minister what to do as she never felt Dora was a mother to her. He decided she had no obligation to keep Dora. Dora returned to New York, finally living in a Masonic Home until she died in 1924. (88) I never saw her!

There are pictures in the old album of all peoples mentioned

My grandmother and grandpa were very close to our family as neither Bob or Helen had children. My mother had nine and raised seven children. All of us loved our grandparents. We were together often and on special occasions. In his younger to midlife years, Grandpa Merrill liked to drink. Finally he gave it up and he and Hettie enjoyed life together after that. They went to the movies two or three times a week. She also took a magazine about the movie stars. Then I got it to read! She also taught me to sew and embroider.

When I married Marvin B. Anderson in 1928 we lived with my grandparents as they were alone in the big house. Bob worked in Milwaukee and Helen and Roy were in Hawaii—Roy worked for a telephone company that was putting in underground lines there for 4 years.

Times were hard. Recession was imminent. I got laid-off and the people’s son did the bookwork. Marv’s work at Highway Trailer was down to a few hours a week (25 cents per hr), if I remember right. He would drive out to his dad’s farm and so we were asked if we’d move out there. We did all right, as Marv’s mother liked me as I helped her. Nine children all home, much cooking and ironing, which I did. Heated the old irons on the top of kitchen stove. Shirts had starched collars and cuffs plus down the front. We stayed there until fall of 1933. Leonard was born May 15, 1932 and was about 1 1/2 yrs. when we found a small house to rent. Moved several times to larger places, and finally built our first home in 1938. Leonard started school then graduated high school 1950, went to Madison University until armed forces called. He came back in 1954.

He had fallen in love with Janice Annette Heller, and they were married Sept. 25, 1954.

You girls know the rest of their story. Happiness, hard work, two lovely daughters and two great-grandsons and one great-granddaughter. You are loved very much.

As for me, I’ll never forget my dear grandmother Hettie Jane. As I sew for the porcelain bisque dolls I make today, I think of being taught by her so many years ago.

Quite a saga from the lives of real people.

Don’t Ask Unless You Want a Real Answer

As they enjoy their post-coital tea and bagels, he musters up the courage to ask what he’d wanted to know from very early on in their affair, “Would you leave him for me?”

A dreaded pause follows in the wake of his query. She calmly responds, “Are you actually asking me to do this or are you testing me with a hypothetical?”

He has to process this question through his head for a moment because he’s not sure it makes a difference. Is he actually asking her to do this thing or is he testing her? He decides to not wear himself out ciphering out the differences, if in fact there are any, and asks another question, “What does it matter?”

Her voice is unaffected—like a teacher or mother gently explaining to a child. Without condescension her response is measured and instructive. “If the question is hypothetical—a test—then my answer creates one of multiple scenarios, none of which is positive. If you are actually asking me the question, then the outcome of my response is narrowed to two predictable outcomes.”

He had to smile at the way her mind had essentially turned his question into a math problem—a problem he was not following with her same sense of logic. “Could you please explain how my question has become an exercise in statistical analysis?” he asks with amusement in his tone.

She says she is happy to explain and begins. “If the question is hypothetical, then you may or may not have already worked out what response you are hoping for, which in itself introduces an element of unpredictability.” She lets him digest this statement for a moment before continuing. “Consequently, the possible scenarios are:

1. You have not decided what response you would like and my response is ‘No.’
2. You have not decided what response you would like and my response is ‘Yes.’
3. You have decided what response you would like, that response is ‘No,’ and my response is ‘No.’
4. You have decided what response you would like, that response is ‘No,’ and my response is ‘Yes.’
5. You have decided what response you would like, that response is ‘Yes,’ and my response is ‘No.’ and
6. You have decided what response you would like, that response is ‘Yes,’ and my response is ‘Yes.’

“From my point of view, six possible scenarios, each with its own outcome . . . and in at least two of the scenarios, I can imagine two possible outcomes.”

“And if the question is actually being asked?”

“If the question is actually being asked, then right away an assumption can be made as to the desired response.”

He raises his eyebrows at this statement, “It can be?”

“Yes,” she answers emphatically. “If you ask me with intention, ‘Would you leave him for me?’ than I can pretty much assume you have decided that the response you would like to hear is ‘Yes.’”

“Why do you assume that?”

“I think it is one of those questions you wouldn’t ask unless you were hoping for a positive response. Sort of like asking someone to marry you. I don’t think you would ask, ‘Would you marry me?’ and hope to be turned down.”

He thinks about this and decides to agree that the assumption is valid. “So assuming I have decided what response I want and that response is ‘Yes,’ then you’re saying there are only two possible scenarios.”

“That’s right,” she agrees. “Only two.”

He further speculates that those two scenarios are:

1. Desired answer is “Yes” and the answer is “Yes.”
2. Desired answer is “Yes” and the answer is “No.”

“We can break the problem of the hypothetical down even further,” she goes on. “Depending on the scenario, your reaction to my answer could be relief, hurt, horror, or happiness to name a few but that’s not the worst of it.”

“What is the worst of it?”

“In all of the hypothetical situations, the problem of the outcome is further complicated by the unpredictability of the emotional responses that could then be triggered.”

This was very complicated but he was intrigued and wanted her to continue. “Give me some examples,” he encourages her.

“In scenario one and two, my answer will provoke you into deciding on the spot whether you are happy or not with the answer. If you are happy with it, then we go on and all is well. But, if you are not happy with it then a conflict has been set in motion. Plus the conflict is double-edged because one or the other of us is going to be left feeling hurt. One might feel that the other doesn’t actually care about the relationship, which would be absurdly untrue but a logical conclusion under the circumstances. Scenarios three and six will likely end in an agreeable way as well, although scenario six will in all likelihood then beg us to make a decision to take action. Scenarios four and five are the most difficult because there can not be a conflict-free resolution to either one. We will be unalterably faced with deciding ‘what happens next?’ I have to then ask, what good has been served by answering the question, which wasn’t a real question in the first place because it was just a hypothetical? Maybe we now fight about this thing that was never a thing. Maybe we end the relationship as a result, therefore ending any further exploration of what might come in the future.

“I see either and all of these outcomes as undesirable therefore I logically conclude that an answer to the hypothetically asked question serves no purpose and should not be answered.”

He thinks he is following her train of thought and agrees that if he meant the question to be in the hypothetical, then it was a thoughtless and irrelevant one.

She continues, “If on the other hand you are actually asking me the question, ‘Would you leave him for me?’ then it’s more like flipping a coin to see if it will be heads or tails. With only two scenarios to consider, the answer to the question either creates a conflict because the relationship is deemed to be unsatisfactorily stalled, which might lead to only one logical outcome—a break-up—or creates a harmoniously mutual goal, which can then be set upon to achieve.”

He considers all this and decides, “The next time I ask the question, I will actually ask it.”

She nods her head in approval.

Copyright by DJ Anderson, 2006

Baby Sister Comes Home

I am not quite six-years-old. The memory is a snippet—like a flashback shown in a movie.

I come home from school feeling unsure of what I might find. A few nights before, Dad picked me up out of bed in the middle of the night, wrapped me in a warm blanket, and carried me next door. I was in a foggy headed half-dream state and I shivered as he crossed the lawn with me in his arms. He laid me down in a little bed with crisp, cold, white sheets upstairs at the Elenze’s house, and kissed me gently on the forehead. I wasn’t afraid. I felt safe, and soon was cozy warm, and fast asleep again.

I knock on the front storm door of our house, looking to my left and right to make sure no one is watching me. Why did I knock on the door of my own house? Mom opens the door with a big warm smile—the warmest and most inviting smile I ever remember her having. I feel really good inside and happy to see that smile. Her big teeth are shining. One has a little gold dot filling—an old cavity. Her upper gums show just like mine will when I am grown. She opens the door wider and takes me in her arms, squeezing me passionately, and then asks how my day at school was.

But, instead of answering her, I ask, “Is she here?”

Mom smiles brilliantly again and answers, whisper-like, “Yes.”

I look past her shoulder toward the hallway where the bedrooms are located, scared to ask the next question, but somehow find the courage because Mom is so happy. “Can I see her?”

“May I,” she answers softly, “. . . and yes, you may.”

I shrug out of my coat and drape it over the back of one of the kitchen table chairs, and then head to the hallway. I go as quietly as I know how, Mom not far behind. I open the door to the first room on the left and tiptoe in. There, in the crib Mom and Dad set up a few weeks earlier, is my new baby sister, just a small bump in the middle of the crib mattress. Her head is turned toward the wall so I can’t see her face. I look up at Mom who stands in the doorway with that great smile still on her face and say, “I can’t see her.”

Mom helps me pull the crib away from the wall so I can have a better look. I can’t believe Mom is being so accommodating as usually everything is so impossible. I look at Mom with wonderment and awe. When I turn my attention back to my new sister, her little lips protrude out. She sighs audibly making a little groaning sound at the same time. Her tiny bits of hair stand straight up on her head, just little wisps of blond.

I immediately fall in love with her though I am a little disappointed that I can’t play with her right away. For a while I will call her “the baby” and she will remain in the background of my life until her personality starts to emerge. And then, she will become Susan—a beautiful girl, and now the beautiful woman she is today.

Copyright DJ Anderson 2003

A Life Saved

Dad died on January 4. As sad and awful as this is, and as sad and awful as his nine months of illness were, going through his and Mom’s house is an altogether different experience.

Mom and Dad lived in their Bradenton home together for over 33 years. Dad made no changes whatsoever after Mom died in late 2007. Except for her clothing, which he asked my sister Susan and me to take care of right away after she passed, the detritus of those 33 years, plus another four of Dad on his own, remain. From the large closets of each of three bedrooms packed from floor to ceiling with plastic containers, boxes, albums, three-ring binders, silk floral arrangements, and sewing, quilting, and knitting supplies, to the numerous filing cabinets filled to overflowing, to the kitchen equipment of small appliances, every size bowl, spoon, baking dish, and pot or pan you can imagine, not to mention the roll-away plastic bins under beds, the attic full of decorations for every holiday, and a garage full of saved nails, screws, washers, and other bits and pieces (because you might need that some day), and so much, much more (have I mentioned the dinnerware and glasses yet?), the house is a veritable junk drawer of a life saved.

I have only just begun cleaning out the house. All of the papers—bank statements dating back to 1974, tax returns to 1954, investment statements from every quarter since 1978, old invoices for work done on the house over the years, old bills from Florida Power & Light, Verizon, the Bradenton Herald, and several credit cards, as well as the Bradenton Country Club statements—are now either in some landfill or were shredded on site by ShredQuick, a local company franchise I highly recommend. All tolled, I estimate I went through around 30 linear feet of paper, most of which was moldy, dusty, suspiciously coated with tiny black specs of fecal matter, or all three. At the end of the week during which I undertook this task, I was quite literally sick. I should have worn one of those masks people wear when there’s a SARS alert. Except that I’d already had my Aunt Beth get rid of all the medical supplies in the house, and that included an unopened package of disposable surgical masks.

There is a silver lining in all this grousing. And that is that while pawing through one of the filing cabinets, I came across two folders, their labels quite distinctively giving me a moment of pause. The one was labeled “Debra – School Information” and the other labeled “Susan – School Information.” Now, I had always suspected that my memory of my grades over the years was a bit cheerier than the reality. I knew I was capable of doing good work, and therefore remembered the best of what I had done and conveniently forgotten the rest. The report cards my mother had saved proved both the former and the latter. As to the latter, I audaciously flirted with “C’s.” And though never as a final grade, I tried on a “D” or two along the way just to see how it felt. This was a sort of rebellion, I suspect, since I knew my mother would absolutely hit the ceiling upon seeing such grades, and there really wasn’t much she could do about it. Pretty much without exception, I pulled off a “B” or even a number of “A’s” as final grades. But those mid-term marks, comments, and test grades? Wow, I was testing my mother’s limits. My sister, on the other hand, consistently worked hard and has the final report cards to prove it sitting in her file folder. Beautifully aligned “A’s” and a few “B’s” pepper each report. But even this isn’t the point.

Placed in my folder, still in the envelope I addressed to my mother, is a letter I wrote to her the fall of my junior year at Stetson University. Reading between the lines, it seems as if my mother is exasperated with my sister. I can hardly believe that this could be the case, except that Mom was such a perfectionist that I can only surmise that even Susan’s good report cards somehow failed to earn her a full-fledged approval. What is even harder to believe is what I have written. I’ll let the words I wrote in 1978, as a 20-year-old, speak for themselves.

Dear Mom,

I wish you would share some of your feelings with me. I want to know you better. I know you as my mother, the woman who has put her precious time and effort into making me into a woman, but, I want to know the special person that you are. My friend Jill has such a close relationship with her mother. They talk for hours about their ups and downs. They comfort each other and give strength and support to each other.

So, you’re having a hard time dealing with Susan? She’s in a world far removed from childhood now. She sees her friends ascerting [sic] their adult influences and wants to “move with the tide.” She needs your subtle guidance more than anything now. I don’t know what kind of a relationship you and Sues have now, but she needs your support through her new experiences. Susan, like any fourteen-year-old, will not take lightly to being told the way. Sometimes experience is the best teacher. I know how hard it is to watch your children fall and pick themselves up again. You should rejoice that you have given them the solid ground and confidence to get up and go back fighting.

Don’t ever let it be said that we have little love or respect for you and Dad. Your strong characters have kept me going through many of the harsh traumas of adolescence. Please bear with Susan during these times and open yourself up to what she reaches out for. Sometimes just a gentle hug or “I love you” means more than all the lectures or punishments you can ever hand a child.

I hope you can be as happy about life as I am. I owe a great deal to you and Dad but there are many hard lessons along the way that an individual must experience for themselves. Try not to stifle Susan’s growth in any way. She’s responsible enough to know the difference between right and wrong. But, she needs your wise thoughts to help sort out the grey areas.

One thing that will help is that when she comes to you with a question—give her the reasons for your answer. “Because I said so” is not a reason and will only create frustration in her already confused mind.

I’m writing all of this because I want you to know that I’m concerned about what is going on there. I also want you to understand me a little better. I also want you to feel that you have been a success with me. You’ve taken me to this point in my life where I’m willing to take the responsibilities of what I make of my life. Whether I make it or break it will come mostly from myself from now on. Thanks for helping me get to this point.

Your loving daughter,

Debbie

What strikes me, beyond the absurdity of me giving my mother parental advise, not to mention dramatic references such as “harsh traumas of adolescence,” or now hilarious references such as describing my sister as having an “already confused mind,” is that at 20 years old, I had already formed the basis of my own parenting style. I had no idea until reading this letter. And I would never have known this had Mom and Dad not been . . . okay, I’ll say it . . . horders. Organized, to be sure. But horders, just the same.

And so, despite the enormous task still left to be done (Does any body want a 48"x24"x10" plastic roll away bin filled with decorative house flags? One for each holiday and season!), I am grateful for the opportunity to view this life saved—detritus though it may be—that explains some of me . . . to me.

Copyright DJ Anderson 2012

Educate Yourself

 “Are you a feminist?”

I recoil from the question, my facial expression measuring somewhere between ‘Do you like liver and onions?’ and ‘Do you believe in aliens?’ on the Richter Scale of reactions.

“If you’re a woman, you must be a feminist,” Earl states.

At first the question rolls around in my head like a loose marble. It’s not a left- right-brain thing either. I can feel it roll from one side to the other without regard for the corpus callosum.

Surely, I am not a feminist. Feminists are radical lefties, aren’t they? Though it is 25 years later, aren’t feminists those women who burned their bras? I would never burn my bra.

Earl is waiting for my answer. He is visibly exasperated with me.

I remember my dad boasting that he had married one of the first feminists. But it was a joke, and we all knew it. He would only say this when Mom was in one of her recalcitrant moods. And the joke was usually sufficient to alert her that it was all great fun to see a woman taking a stand, but it was time to knock it off, and cooperate.

“I’m not a feminist,” I finally state.

Earl is incredulous at this response.

But his question continues to haunt me for several weeks, until I decide I need to find out what this moniker really means.

I call the one person I know who would probably unhesitatingly state that she is a feminist—an “out” lesbian friend of mine. She asks me a series of questions:

1. What are your views on equal pay for equal work?
2. With what political party do you best identify? Why?
3. What are your views on traditional female versus male roles within the family unit?
4. How do you feel about education and women pursuing non-traditional roles in the work place?
5. What do you know about and what are your thoughts regarding sexism in the work place?

Most of these questions make my brain feel like mush because I haven’t much thought about them at all, and now feel very stupid that I haven’t. But my friend doesn’t make me feel stupid. Instead, she hands me the subscription card from inside her latest issue of “Ms.” Magazine and says, “Educate yourself.”

I receive my first issue a few weeks later, read the thing cover-to-cover, several times saying the word “yes” out loud as if the author is there waiting for my personal affirmation, and have now been a subscriber for almost 15 years.

Yes, Earl, I am a feminist.

Copyright DJ Anderson 2012

Just One

Dear little heart ripped from my breast,

Placed in a silent tomb,

Buried under days

Years

A lifetime.

I’ve dug you up.

Miraculously you still beat

A familiar rhythm

In the palms of my hands.

Forgive my capricious desertion,

Jump into the still open wound,

Feel the warmth of the place

You once called home.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2005

Teaching Babies to Fly

A few mornings ago my son went outside to check the bird feeder. “Hey Mom, be careful if you go out in the yard,” he warned, “there’s a baby robin on the ground.” Nathan was very concerned about the fledgling, knowing we have several cats in the neighborhood who are very good hunters. Before leaving for school, Nathan checked again on the bird who was making tentative hops around in the grass. I assured him that the little fella probably had been pushed out of the nest to learn how to fly today and I’d keep an eye on him. I then waved at my very own fledgling as he got in his car to drive to school.

As I went about the business of cleaning up the kitchen, having gone to bed the night before too tired to finish the dinner dishes, I kept looking through the large window in front of the sink through to the backyard. The mother and father robins swooped to the ground to feed their baby, then swooped back up to the trees, or into the grass to forage for more worms that they would then masticate for their youngster. As I continued to watch, I was reminded of the part I had played in the disastrous demise of another baby robin—one that had the ill-fated luck to be “saved” by two nine-year-old girls.

One spring afternoon during the fourth grade, one of the other Lauras (there were four of us) invited me home for lunch. On our walk to her house, we discovered a baby robin hiding underneath a bush and assumed it had fallen from its nest. Concerned for its survival, and apparently assuming that its parents were unaware of their baby’s whereabouts, Laura and I scooped it up and brought it to her house.

Laura rummaged around in her basement and found an old canary cage the family had stored there, and we tenderly placed the chirping little bird in it. We proudly brought him back to our classroom to show our adoptee to our fellow classmates.

Laura and I thought he was a delight, but we did have one dilemma: how to feed the wee tyke. At recess we went out near the lilac bushes and dug around for some worms. We chopped them up, but little baby wouldn’t eat them. We couldn’t seem to force feed him either as his beak remained firmly shut, except when he cheeped. We tried some milk having no clue that birds would not be interested in dairy products. We tried water. Nothing worked.

At the end of the school day, Laura took our baby home with her. The plan was to switch off days until he was grown, and then we would let him out in the world. We were under the false assumption that he would just fly off when he was ready.

The next morning Laura came to school without the bird cage. The poor little thing had died in the night—probably starved and scared to death. I was grief-stricken. I couldn’t help thinking back to the moment we scooped the little robin up from under the bush, and desperately wished that we had left well enough alone. What if his mommy was looking for him, I wondered, too late.

As I watched the mother and father robins in our backyard care for their offspring, the mistake that Laura and I had made, gave me pause. And the parallels to raising one’s own children interrupted my thoughts as I observed the birds.

Over the next three days, the robins fastidiously cared for their young. They took turns dashing off to gather food while the other parent acted as sentinel. I went out in the yard periodically to find Baby when I’d lost sight of him in the grass. If I got too close, Mother or Father Robin made a terrible fuss and Baby would cease chirping as he waited for the danger his parent sensed to pass. Finally, on the third morning I saw Baby making practice take-offs and landings from a low embankment on the back of our property. By the end of the third day, he could easily fly to the branch of a tree and dig his own worms. Although I could still tell the baby from his parents, his growth over the three-day period had been remarkable. His downy feathers were all but completely gone and his coloring was very close to that of the adults. Another day or two and I’d be hard-pressed to know which was which.

Each day upon Nathan’s arrival home from school, I reported out on the activities I had observed, and he went out in the yard to make his own observations of the baby bird. My hope was that I was coming at least close to emulating the robins when it came to teaching my own baby how to fly.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2008

A Malapropistic Snark

What difference should it really make to Diana? So what her brother, Matt, had used a word incorrectly on two separate occasions. Indeed, he had used the same word incorrectly—incorrectly in two different ways. But, what difference should it really make?

Of the twins, Matt was considered the shining star—an example of what strides an individual could make with solid determination to beat the odds and fight personal adversity. Diana, on the other hand, while successful in her own right, was a natural. Academic and artistic accomplishments had come easily to her. She had never needed to be pushed—she excelled on her own volition. The one time she made a “C” on her report card and cockily addressed her parents’ anger by saying, “It’s an average grade,” she was sternly told, “You are not average. It better not happen again or there will be consequences.” It didn’t happen again, but not because of the threat. She had not enjoyed seeing the resulting grade.

Their mother, Judith, first worried over Matt’s failure to excel when the artwork he brought home from first grade was made up of one-color stick figures, compared to Diana’s multi-colored landscapes. A minor speech impediment, left-handedness, an inability to make friends or recognize social cues, and a new book on the bestseller shelf, finalized the home diagnosis. Judith was certain that Matt had “Asperger’s.” She worked closely with the second grade teacher, who had a personal interest in identifying those “on the spectrum,” to establish a program at the local elementary school. The two women ran workshops, brought in speakers familiar with the entire range of autism, and provided support for parents whose children fit the label. They provided coffee for the kids whose doctors prescribed caffeine as a counter to the hyperactivity, and boxes filled with Legos, K’Nex, and manipulatives for those who had the unnerving need to constantly be sorting and counting. The program gave Judith an identity and a project—ensuring Matt’s future success in the world. The amount of time devoted to her project was immense, and the end product beyond her expectations.

When Diana first heard Matt use the word paradigm—“You have these professors living in their paradigms dictating to finance about results they claim are driven by the science of economics.”—she quickly pointed out, “Paradigm actually refers to a pattern that is a clear example, as when a verb is conjugated. You probably meant to say ivory tower.” Matt waved off Diana’s correction saying, “There are numerous definitions.” He continued with his mini lecture to Diana, and Judith, who proudly smiled with admiration at her son who had recently been hired by a big Wall Street investment firm. Dejected, Diana sullenly sat only half-listening to her brother. She always made the same mistake. She knew Matt and Judith were a team, a union bonded solidly together. Yet, she persisted in trying to point out the faults of each to the other, hoping to crack it apart just enough to make room for herself.

What difference did it make? Diana wrestled with the significance and insignificance of her feelings, the paradox consuming her. After the visit, she was unable to shake the need to prove herself right, and to, for once, hear her mother or brother say, “You’re right, Diana.” She desperately sought a place on their team where she could contribute as an equal. She used the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary where she found the equivalent of a full column of definitions to pore over. Scanning the examples, she could not reconcile any of them to fit Matt’s use of the word. Smugly, she closed her browser. At work she told the story of her brother’s mistake to several co-workers. Some were able to appreciate the subtlety of the misuse, others were completely dumbfounded by her apparent zeal to prove him a fool, and responded with indulgent smiles.

One friend made a pun by laughing and talking in a stooge-like way saying, “Oh I get it. A pair of dimes. Next time tell him you don’t know about a pair of dimes, but you’ll take four nickles.” He chuckled to himself as he returned to his office still muttering, “Pair of dimes . . . pair of dimes,” like a recording you can’t turn off.

Diana was haunted. The word kept popping up all over the place. While at a large bookstore, she saw the bestseller Paradigms and Prejudice. She read in a novel about the heroine being a “paradigm of virtue.” Wasn’t that supposed to be a paragon of virtue? Synonyms, perhaps. A column in the New York Times extolled the overuse of the word paradigm in today’s language and called it “the most popular malapropism.”

As Diana analyzed her obsession, she realized it was not over the word. She had been fighting this battle for a long time and it wasn’t just her jealousy.

In college, her mother had come to help her pack up to go home for the summer. Diana asked her mother’s opinion about a birthday gift she was considering for her cousin, Sara, and started to describe the earrings she had seen at a local artisan shop. Judith quickly interrupted her saying, “Sara is allergic to all metals except gold and even then she can’t wear anything less than 18 karat.” Diana was amazed to find out this detail about her cousin—something she had never known.

“Eighteen karat! That’s nearly pure gold.”

“Oh, it’s no where close. Pure gold is 100 karats.”

“No, Mom. Pure gold is 24 karats.”

“Diana, I know what I’m talking about. Pure gold is 100 karats.”

As always when face-to-face with one of her mother’s sweeping and affirmative statements, Diana became disabled. Her mind raced, synapses fueled and fired madly. She wanted to contradict this woman whose convictions and opinions about absolutely everything were always said with such unquestionable authority. How could she let such an opportunity go by? Here was a situation where her mother was clearly wrong about something that Diana could prove by simply opening up her dictionary. Here, a chance to be smarter. The longed-for expert in Diana’s many and varied unsuccessful face-offs with her mother was an indisputable resource.

“No, Mother.” Diana took the plunge. Grabbing the dictionary off her bookshelf, she quickly flipped to gold. No help. She flipped again to karat. A unit of fineness for gold equal to 1/24 part of pure gold in an alloy. Putting her finger on the definition, she shoved the book under her mother’s nose, “There.” Diana held her breath, waiting to exhale twenty years of having too little information to mount a convincing argument to persuade or sway her mother.

Judith sucked in her breath slowly, pulled herself up to her full height—a good three inches taller than Diana—and lifted her chin slightly, pursing her lips together at the same time. As she exhaled, she controlled the words through her mouth with tightly flexed muscles around her lips that extended down to her neck and back to her ears. “That could be wrong,” she said.

Diana couldn’t clearly hear the words, her own disbelief that she had angered her mother filled the inside of her head, making a loud ocean-like sound. She remembered as a child, listening for the ocean in some South China Sea conch shells her father had brought back with him after two tours in Vietnam, and thought this sound in her head right now was a magnification of that memory.

She had not been told she was wrong about the definition. She had been wrong in daring to contradict. The ocean calmed, and Diana and her mother went back to packing boxes.

About a year after the first malapropistic paradigm incident, Diana was again with her family for a casual get together. They had all decided to rent a DVD that would be light, entertaining, and funny. Unbelievably, perhaps inescapably, one of the characters referred to a paradigm shift during one of the scenes. Diana’s eyes quickly scanned the members of her family for a reaction. Her father gazed blankly at the screen, her mother sat curled up in a corner of the couch filing her nails, occasionally glancing up, and her brother squinted with furrowed brow as if trying to figure out part of the plot. Diana realized she had tensed at the use of the dreaded word and forced herself to relax by rolling her head around to stretch her neck muscles.

This word had become a symbol for her so that every time she heard it, or read it, her gut reacted with a spasm and her heart began to pound. Then the unexpected happened. Diana’s father turned to her and asked, “What is a paradigm?” Diana froze. She dared not speak. Only a few seconds passed as she formed the explanation that a paradigm shift is when old practices are given up and new practices are accepted as the norm. This was her chance. Her father had looked directly at her and asked. She was just about to speak when Matt’s voice was heard. “It’s when something is in a constant state of flux.”

Her dad nodded, seemingly satisfied, and the blank gaze returned to his face. Incredulous, speechless, and horrified, Diana looked about her. No one questioned this authoritative answer. It didn’t matter that it was wrong. An acceptable and plausible answer had been given and no one questioned it. Her parents had no need of this word in their everyday lives. Diana’s mind screamed at her, “Say something! You can’t let it go at that.” But she did let it go. The panic of the moment drained away and a sardonic smile replaced her previously shocked countenance.

That night, Diana had an epiphany. Her brother was trained in a very narrow field of endeavor, one in which he was very successful, highly paid, and respected for his efforts. His field did not require him to know anything about literature or art, fine wines, or gourmet food. Nor was he interested in these things. His working vocabulary was a well-defined but limited list of terminology he and his peers used to communicate with one another about credit default swaps and financial derivatives, but ill-equipped him for conversations on social, political, or, absurdly, . . . economic topics. He received accolades for his work and thus was considered the more intelligent of the twins. Plus, he had done the impossible. In Judith’s words, “My son overcame Autism. Well, actually, Asberger’s Syndrome.”

Diana had the ability to drink in the world and all it had to offer. She had become caught up in the need for a label and found the label to be meaningless. This had been her paradigm . . . and it was about to shift.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2012

A Story Problem with a Multiple Choice Answer

Author’s Note—this story works best when read aloud.

You and your roommate are on your way home from work together when you, fresh from an out-of-town business trip, ask, “Is there anything for dinner?”

Your roommate answers, “No, I was going to stop at the grocery store on the way home to pick something up.”

You nod your head and say, “Great!”

When you get to the grocery, your roommate asks, “Are you going to stay in the car?”

You think for a moment and then say, “No, I’ll come in with you. It’s getting cold outside and I don’t have a warm enough jacket on.” So you both proceed into the store.

Upon entering the store, your roommate picks up one of the handheld baskets and as you are both about to walk towards the back in search of “something for the grill,” your roommate says, “Wait here for a minute, I have to go to the bathroom,” at which point your roommate hands you the basket.

You then stand in this spot where you parted ways, occasionally glancing to the other side of the store where the bathrooms are located in anxious anticipation of your roommate’s return. You are starting to get a little hungry and would like to get home so that dinner can be started, you can unpack your dirty laundry, and if all goes well, catch up on some reading—in particular the “Week in Review” section of the NYTimes you missed yesterday because the people you were staying with while away “wouldn’t pay 50 cents for that piece of crap.”

You wait and you wait, watching the numerous people enter and exit the store, now and then a bit concerned about what’s taking so long—it’s been ten full minutes. Finally you figure that this trip to the bathroom has turned into something of an event, so decide to go ahead and just pick out the few things needed for dinner in order to expedite.

You walk to the back, pick out a steak and a 12-piece pre-packaged sushi, grab a bag of Pepperidge Farm fishy crackers (because you love them), and just as you are about to head, less than two minutes later, to the check-out, your cell phone rings.

“Hello?” you say.

Your roommate asks, “Where are you?”

You answer, “At the end of aisle 10.”

Your roommate says, “Okay, I’ll come back and meet you.”

A few seconds later your roommate meets you halfway down aisle 10 and clearly puzzled, asks, “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean? I figured I’d just go ahead because you were taking so long.”

Your roommate says, “I’m already done. The groceries are out in the car.”

You are, to say the least, stunned.

“Why didn’t you come back and get me?” you ask, a note of irritation definitely betraying how you feel.

“I looked all over for you but couldn’t find you so I went ahead.”

You are further mystified.

“I didn’t move one inch from the spot where you left me, and was there for ten minutes.”

Your roommate maintains that an effort was made, but you were “no where to be found.”

What is the most logical explanation as to why this happened?

1. You are living in a parallel universe where you can see everyone in a universe you do not belong to, but they can not see you.
2. Your roommate did pass by you, but didn’t recognize you and you didn’t recognize your roommate because your memories of one another were temporarily erased.
3. You became invisible for ten minutes.
4. You actually did move from the spot, wandered all over the store in a stupor, and therefore were unaware that you had moved.
5. You moved and then lied about it.
6. Your roommate forgot that you had come into the store and thought you were sitting out in the car.
7. Your roommate didn’t look for you at all and then lied about it.
8. Can’t decide between a, b, or c.
9. Can’t decide between d, e, or f.

This problem is worth 100 points. Good luck!

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2007

Dad’s Life In Cars

 Author’s Note: My dad, Leonard M. Anderson (May 15, 1932 to January 4, 2012) had a penchant for many things. One of them was the cars he owned. This is a little tribute to that aspect of his life. The images are approximations I found on the internet. The text below was written as the audio for a YouTube video that is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBU16EIIMGA There are a few audio snafus . . . see if you can catch them! Listen, Watch, Read . . . and ENJOY!

(Slide 1) Dad loved cars. If Mother would have let him—and that’s a key statement right there—he would have had a new one every two years. In my memory, there was the Chevrolet. It looked something like this (Slide 2) . . . in fact, I think this might be the actual car. It’s a 1954 Bel Air, if memory serves. Then he bought the 1960 Volkswagen Beetle (Slide 3) so that Mom had her own car. In 1962 he traded in the Chevy for a beautiful blue Buick LeSabre convertible. I couldn’t find an exact match, but (Slide 4) this is a 1963, and looks pretty close.

On Sunday afternoons, if the weather was nice, Dad would suddenly say, “Let’s go for a drive.” For you of a certain age, I’m sure you’ve heard of the “Sunday Drive.” Well, we used to do that. Mom would tie a scarf on my head so the wind wouldn’t blow my hair into a snarly mess, she would don her scarf as well, Dad would put the top down, and off we’d go. They liked to look at new construction houses, so my memory of these drives seems to include doing that. Then Dad would start driving around, taking roads through other neighborhoods and subdivisions near our home up on Lake Michigan, and I would get antsy and start asking, “Where are we going? What are we doing?” Dad always said the same thing, “You’ll see.” We’d wind our way here and there, but always, always, ended up in the same place. At the Dairy Queen. (Slide 5) Because that’s something else Dad loved. Ice Cream.

He traded in the LeSabre for a 1966 two-door Buick Electra 225 hard top. (Slides 6 & 7), but was unhappy with the two-door, so traded it in for a 1968 four-door Buick Electra 225 (Slide 8). Then Mom got a new car. In 1970 Dad traded her Volkswagen in for a 1968 Camaro (Slide 9). He didn’t like old cars because he didn’t like to work on them, and he didn’t like paying to have them worked on, so he preferred to trade them in. Mom always bemoaned the loss of her Volkswagen, and mentioned this many many times over the years. The Camaro eventually became the car I drove, but that’s a few years off at this point in the story.

Mom put her foot down about a trading again in 1970, so Dad waited until 1972 to get his Oldsmobile 98. (Slide 10). He loved to tell the same story over and over about this car. It was pretty fancy, and one of the features was that there was a clock both in the front seat, and mounted on the back of the front seats for passengers to see in the back seat. John King, Dad’s boss at Clark Equipment at the time, and his wife Annabelle, were riding with Mom and Dad to some event. Mr. King, a quipster of the first degree, had been in the car for just a few minutes when he noted aloud, “Len, this car is so big, there’s a three-minute time difference between the front seat and the back seat.” Dad loved Mr. King’s humor, and this joke just cracked Dad up time and time again.

Dad’s real dream was to own a Cadillac, but I think that at this point, it was still a bit too pricey even for him. He never financed a car. Ever. He reasoned that a car was not an investment, it was a commodity. To finance a car that then immediately depreciated upon driving it off the lot, was a waste of good money. So he’d save up and buy his cars outright. And later, when credit card companies started offering incentives that paid you back, or gave you points for charges, he would buy a car on his GM credit card, pay it immediately off, but then reap the benefits of all those points he’d earned as a result. Smart.

The Cadillac dream was realized shortly after our move to Florida in 1974. I believe he bought it used, but I also believe it was less than a year old. It was either a 1974 or 1975 two-door Coup Deville. (Slide 11) But, the color was beautiful—a gorgeous shade of blue with a hint of metallic in the paint. This was Mom’s car, and the Camaro got passed to me at that point. Dad would cringe at the idea of Mom using her beautiful Cadillac to haul mulch or fertilizer, or whatever else she needed for taking care of her roses and orchids, and various other yard and gardening projects. “Jeez, Jan,” he would decry, “You treat that car like it’s a pick-up truck.”

After this point, my memory gets a bit fuzzy because I was off to college, and then got married and moved away. But I do know that, though they kept the Cadillac for a long while, they became van drivers. They both liked the space that was afforded by one, the amount of stuff you could haul around, and the party aspect in getting up to 7 in the vehicle for going to a Bucs game, or once grandchildren started arriving, packing everyone in together to go somewhere.

They started with a purchase of the Miller company van (Slide 12) that . . . seat belts? Who needs seat belts? Was a party van with banquette seating, a table with captain’s chairs for playing cards, and captain’s chairs at the helm. I use the word helm on purpose because driving the thing was akin to navigating around on a ship. The thing was huge!

After Dad retired in 1995, they decided they really didn’t need two cars. To go to the club to golf, Dad drove the cart (Slide 13) just a mile to the course, and they otherwise did everything together, or coordinated the use of one car.

When I asked one time why they didn’t get a Mercedes, or after seeing Mom swoon over a Jaguar (Slide 14), asked her why didn’t just get one, she told me that Dad would never own a foreign made car. He’d been in the truck trailer manufacturing business, believed in American manufacturing, and it would be impossible for him to own something other than American made. By this time, a lot of foreign cars were being manufactured in the U.S., but there was never any use in arguing with Mom. The other pet peeve she had about cars, was the color red. Though her Volkswagen had been red, she seemed to dismiss that as counting, she was absolutely set against owning a red car. Dad persisted in wanting one, but she consistently vetoed that notion. So, after Mom died, Dad was considering upgrading his van. His first declaration was that it was going to be red. He then set about doing some research. He started with G.M. products, but wasn’t happy with options, prices, etc. He then, to my surprise, started looking at . . . foreign cars! Hondas and Toyotas. And what he decided was that he was going to start leasing his cars. That way, he’d, at the end of a lease, just upgrade to a new model, and keep that going in perpetuity.

His last car was a (Slide 15) 2011 Honda Odyssey in blue.

Honda’s red was more of a maroon, and that was definitely not what he’d had in mind. He had wanted fire engine red, couldn’t get it, so he settled on the blue.

He was just six months into this lease when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Honda was great in buying back the lease in late August when I finally faced the fact that Dad would never be driving the car again. Of course, they were getting the better part of the deal because Dad had put money down upfront, the vehicle was less than a year old, and demand for them was high. But, I was happy to be out of the lease with no further penalties or obligations.

Toward the end of his life, after he was already at Heritage Park, his caregiver, Tammy, told me that they’d brought an auto show (Slide 16) to the parking lot at Heritage. She took Dad out to see the cars, and said he then reminisced about all kinds of old cars. From what she told me, it sounded like he was talking about his father’s cars, maybe even his grandfather’s cars. I knew that cars had been important to Grandpa Anderson and to my great grandpa Stricker, too, so this didn’t surprise me. (Slide 17) I’m just glad that Dad got so much enjoyment out of the cars he’d owned throughout his lifetime.

Copyright DJ Anderson, 2012