Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  In honor I'm going to tell a short story I remember from being a young buccaneer.

Do NOT try this at home, ARRRR!

One evening at dinner for some reason I put my knife in my teeth.  We were having steak and potatoes, one of Dad's favorites.

When I put the knife in my teeth Dad said, "Don't do that, you'll cut your tongue."

I took it out but I protested, "But pirates always carried their knives in their teeth."

Dad said, "Why do you think they talked so funny?"

I can say categorically that Dad was not always ahead of his time, but, there you have it, Talk Like a Pirate explained about twenty years before it became a thing.  

Have some rum (maybe some Stoh rum, ah but that's a different story for a different day) and enjoy the holiday ya scurvy dogs!!!

A Double Happy Father's Day

I've now lost both my Father and my Father in Law, so I wanted to share this story.  It's not really much of a story, but it means a lot to me and my wonderful bride.

Because Dad had no daughters (at the time) he thought he would never get the chance to walk a daughter down the aisle.  When we were about to be married he made a very special request of my Father in Law to be.

Because he loved Maria and was as excited as anyone to have her as part of our family he asked if it would be possible to show that by meeting my Father in Law and my bride half way down the aisle, and walking with them the rest of the way.

I didn't learn until years later that my Father in Law was very uncomfortable with this but he loved his daughter and my wife loved my Dad and wanted to do this for him.  He reluctantly agreed.

I am eternally grateful to my Father in Law for doing that for my Dad.

Dad always was, well, let's say, a rule bender.  I hope the two of them are together somewhere now enjoying the memory because I sure am.

Happy Father's Day, gentlemen!

Oh Christmas Tree!

The boys - Christmas '75

We just put our Christmas tree away for another year and it made me think of a sort of Papa story.  We've always had artificial trees as long as I've been around, but Nani and the Nortons (in other words, the La Fleur side of the family) always had natural trees.

Well, it seems that Dad grew  up with natural trees.  I think he may have told me stories of hunting for a good one when he was younger, but I can't remember them.  I do remember the story of the last natural tree our family had though.

In August 1964 Mom and Dad got married.  Christmas 1964 was their first one together.

I know that Dad stayed in the USMC for a while after they got married and they lived with Nani for a while, but if I remember the story correctly Mom was expecting.  Since I was born in November she wouldn't have been expecting Christmas '65.  It must have been 1964, only a few months after they were married, when Mom was expecting their first child that this story happened.

The house on Kostner always had a huge plate glass window in the front, and they used to have the tree right near the window.

That first Christmas Dad told Mom that when he was gone, if the tree ever caught fire she should grab a chair and throw it through the window.  Once the window was broken she should shove the burning tree out of the house through the opening.

I'm sure Mom looked at him and asked if he really just told a pregnant woman to throw a burning Christmas tree through a window.

Needless to say, Mom was not going to put up with that, ahem, "stuff."  The very next Christmas they had an artificial, flame resistant tree and have had one ever since.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Papa on the Forth of July

I know this post is coming at the end of July, and I will offer no excuse.  Next year and years from now we will read this on the right date so here goes.

Papa never had a problem bending the rules.  He used to say, "I do not lie, cheat, or steal, but I am sly, cunning and alert."  He was also a big stickler on safety.  So when it came to Fourth of July we never had fireworks.

There was a police officer down the street who used confiscated fireworks.  Papa's safety urge battled with his competitive streak.  He told me that it wasn't right to use those fireworks, but it also wasn't right that when he went to his National Guard annual training period (which he always called, "Summer Camp") he used pyrotechnics, like artillery simulators and even nuclear bomb simulators which put all the other cop's stash to shame, and he couldn't use them at home at all.

One summer he brought home a smoke grenade.  He reasoned that although it was a pyrotechnic, it did not explode and was therefore safe.

It was a purple grenade and he let me pull the pin, let the spoon fly and place it on the sidewalk behind the house (where Collum transmogrifies into Kenneth ).

You'll see in the photo what we expected it to look like, and how it did indeed start.  However, it expands from what you see here and the photo is probably in a pretty good breeze.

That day there was no breeze at first and the cloud built up and expanded.  Then the very slightest of breezes crept up and gently guided the purple cloud of non-visibility across our little street, up the slight rise and onto the Kennedy Expressway (one of the busiest thoroughfares in the country).

It wasn't quite this bad

Traffic instantly stopped.  Under our own smoke screen we snuck away, never to deploy any types of fireworks on Independence Day again.