I am ROBERT

I am  Robert.  Not Bob, not Rob.  

I was named after my materinal grandfather, Robert Burton White, Sr  

.  He was never a Bob, at least not as far as I am aware of.  He was really, really tall compared to be at 5 years of age.  He was mostly bald, really thin hair.  He was a farmer in Beaver, Utah.  He served a term in the state legislature and was a bishop.  

We visited him 2 or 3 times a year.  We would sleep at their home, a farmhouse, like a 2 bedroom home.  Out the back door was a fruit cellar that always intrigued me.  It had the slanted door, dug into the ground. It was always cool and dark inside.  Always filled with canned fruit. Grandma had this large raspberry patch which we made sure it was picked clean. We sure loved to get into that patch. She hated morning glories because the vines would grow into the patch and choke out her raspberries.

Grampa would call to me, "Robert!  Ohhhhhh Robert!"  He had the most interesting outbuildings beside the barn, filled with amazing stuff that we loved to play with and touch.  

the one time I remember visiting, Grampa was going to go out and spray for bugs in his garden.  It was a pressurized pump.  It was really heavy.  I was helping him, hauling the spray container and would stop as he sprayed each plant and then we'd move on to the next one.

I sure do remember his funeral.  It was a very hot day.  My cousin Vickie  Williams was sitting next to me crying  We got up to the cemetery to bury him and a sudden rainstorm came up.  We didn't get out of the car but watched as the folks did what they needed to do to inter him.  

So I am named Robert.  Not Bob.  Not Rob.  But if you pronounce it like the French, I'm good with that (Ro-Bear).  Only my special friends call me Ro-Bear, by the way.

                           

Things my father told me

My dad was born in Salt Lake City but grew up in Scipio, Utah, a small cowtown in the middle of Utah.  One day Dad knew Jack Dempsey was going to be driving through their town.  He and his young friends decided they would throw rotten tomatoes at Jack as he drove through town and did so.

 Dempsey --known as the "Manassa (CO) Mauler"--was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1919-1926. His parents had converted to the LDS faith through missionaries who had met them in W. Virginia. The family moved to a small LDS community of Manassa, CO and then had moved to Provo.   Jack was raised in the church. The boxer later described his own religious beliefs:  "I'm proud to be a Mormon.  And ashamed to be the Jack Mormon that I am."


Dad also told me that there was a canon of some sort in the town which someone  would fire it off at 4am on each July 4th to start off the celebration.  Big event for this little town.

Scipio also had a rodeo on the 4th of July or perhaps July 24th for Mormon Pioneer Day.  My cousin Paul had entered the calf-roping contest for the kids.  He got his calf but he also got his head kicked in by the calf so Paul had to spend the day on the couch with a cold compress.  He did not win his division.

my father's dream

     The other day, for whatever reason, I started telling Susan what I remembered about an incident that occur in 1969.  The scene is shortly after my grandfather Frank  S Hatch's funeral

(which I did not attend).  This is what I recall my father relating:  My father noticed that the hole into which grandpa's casket was to be placed - was not quite "square" with the world.  The casket went into the hole anyway. The idea that grandpa's burial site was not "squared up" kept bothering my Dad.  Finally, in a dream grandpa appeared to Dad and told him that it was "alright, don't worry about it".  That was the end of Dad's concern.  By the way:  there is no period after the "S" in grandpa's name.  I distinctly remember a conversation one evening in grandpa Hatch's living room where the question arouse as to why there was no period after the initial "S".  Grandpa stated that there just was no period in his name.  Fun fact.

     By way of recording a long held oral history - one that I've never seen in print but heard repeated verbally: One of my English grandmother fore bearers - probably in the 1840s-1850s worked in an English spinning mill.  Of course this was in prime and proper Victorian days where the women wore long dresses and were modest in every way.  She had a dream one night in which she was to quickly raise her skirts, something which of course she would never do in public.  As it turned out in the course of her work the next day at the spinning mill her dress started to get caught in the machinery.  She immediately remembered the warning of her dream and quickly raised her skirt up high - avoiding injury or worse.  Pay attention to your dreams.  I'm sure she was glad she did.

Chinchillas are us

Tonight over a luscious TV dinner, I got to reminisce about the first tv dinners I recall having.  Susan said she has no recollection of having a TV dinner but does remember now and again having a Swanson Pot Pie.  Perhaps that's what I had, too.  Once we went to SLC to visit our Native American Indian Aunt Ann (Piaute) , daughter of the Western Sage.  She lived in a very small apartment, 3rd floor (my first elevator ride ... the kind where you had to pull the screen door to close before going up) with a very tiny oven, 1920s style.  My mom suggested someone go out and buy some Chicken Pot Pies because we could bake them in her oven.  It was late and we were hungry.  We didn't go to restaurants (more on that later).  This was a treat!

From this remembrance I decided to regale Susan about the one big trip from the TriCities train station in Pasco, WA. to Detroit, MI.  All because my dad felt he could make a deal on purchasing a car.  Actually we were going to the Palmyra Pageant to pick up my brother, Frank W., who was doing his thing there.  Performing/organizing/leading/dance director/whatever?  But indeed, somehow my dad thought he could get a cheap car in Detroit.  He ended up buying a new 1960 full size Ford, white station wagon, blue interior.  And we drove to the pageant and stayed with our cousins the Chatterleys in  Rochester, NY. Then on to NYC to visit 2 aunts and then home...all in the new Ford.

In order to get to the main point of this blog entry, I need to tell you that my parents raised chinchillas for coats and I have a few pelts to prove it (in the basement in case anyone wants to see them). We even had a Christmas portrait taken with them for our Christmas cards one year.  I was too young to know how many they had nor how long they raised these animals.  But chinchillas we had...with these adorable carrying cages.  Shiny silver aluminum, about the size  3'x1'.  3 compartments to hold 3 chinchillas.

So on the train, of course, we did not eat in the Dining Car.  Instead my mom packed food...carrots, crackers, grapes, raisins, comestibles, munchies IN THESE CHINCHILLA CAGES.  ( I always thought something was wrong when all the other kids my age would get to go and do fun stuff and I had to mow the grass at the cemetery).

This is not quite what our chinchilla carriers looked like but close.  It had air holds for the animals to breathe  It did have a handle like this, though.


For the record, we left the chinchillas at home.

more

Susan and I were talking about seminary and attending BYU.  When we were seniors in seminary we had a talent show around Christmas, Bob and John Delaine and I performed a popular Christmas song...like a Hootenanny type song.  I played the piano and we all sang and I can almost hear the lyrics.  "Time engenders love, and then, a  Christmas world is young again."  Because we 3 boys got up and sang a non standard Christmas carol, we were considered the cool kids.  At least we thought we were.  An unexpected delight...let's just put it that way.

Susan only had seminary her senior year and didn't have a talent show but she did play the pump organ in the Hinckley's home for hymns.  I, however, got to play the pump organ in Seraing, Belgium...one of the original LDS church chapels from the late 1800s.  It looked like a smaller cathedral.  ***
So asked Susan, how did you get into BYU without graduating from seminary...obviously it was not requirement back in the 60s.  I asked her why she went to BYU and she replied, that's where all the LDS kids went, no other choice.  She continued that now she doesn't understand why people feel like they can only attend BYU...which is sad because they don't learn to be strong in their testimony and build up other areas.

When my sister, Julie, was a science fair docent, we were up staying in her apartment in Seattle.  It was a weekend morning and everyone was still sleeping because they had stayed up so late (and all I wanted was for them to stop talking and go to sleep).  Julie told me to go down the street and buy some Hostess cherry pies for 25 cents.  I went out and looked but could never find them. We never did have any pies. I also never got to ride the monorail nor go up in the Space Needle as a kid.

***Sporadic LDS missionary outreach occurred in Belgium prior to the late 1880s.[6]  The LDS Church was first established in Belgium in 1888 through the efforts of LDS missionary Mischa Markow, a Hungarian convert baptized in Turkey a year earlier.  As Markow traveled across Europe preaching, he stopped in Belgium and baptized a family of six in Antwerp and reported the baptisms to the Swiss-German Mission.  80 converts joined the LDS Church and three branches were organized in Liege, Brussels, and Antwerp just two months after three full-time missionaries sent to open missionary work under the Swiss-German Mission.  The Netherlands Mission began administering Belgium in 1891, and by 1924 all non-Flemish-speaking congregations were transferred to the French Mission.  Latter-day Saints experienced persecution at times during the late nineteenth century, with some missionaries receive death threats and misinformation about the Church being published in local newspapers.  Both world wars suspended LDS missionary activity and resulted in widespread property damage for the Church and its members.[7]  Many of the LDS congregations had few members before and after both World Wars.  Elder Charles Didier of the Presidency of the Seventy noted that when he and his family first attended an LDS Church service in the 1950s, there were fewer than 15 members in the congregation, five of wom were members of his family.[8]  In 1963, the Church created the Franco-Belgian Mission from the French East Mission[9] which was later renamed the Belgium Brussels Mission in 1974.  A second mission, the Belgium Antwerp Mission, was created in 1975 but discontinued in 1982.  Seminary and institute began in the 1970s.

 By 1973, there were four districts and 13 branches.  Districts were located in Brussels-Liege (four branches - Brussels French, Herstal, Liege, Seraing, and Verviers), Charleroi (three branches - Charleroi, Jumet, and Namur), Antwerp (four branches - Antwerpen, Brussels, Gent, and Michelen), and a fourth district for English-speakers (two branches - Brussels English and SHAPE Servicemen). 

Memories on a wintry dinner eve

I rode a vintage school bus to school, even as a senior.  It was very old (looked like from the 1930s but probably not that old)and Jose was our bus driver.  Obviously he was a Mexican or a Mexican American.  Mustached, on the heavy side a bit.  He was very nice guy.  On my last day of school as a senior, having suffered the indignity of having to ride the school bus (because my 1959 Fiat 650D died and I didn't have the expertise nor money to fix it), I thanked him for being my bus driver through all the years.  We wished each other well and I never saw him again.

I ate hot lunches at school, cooked at the schools.  Bob Gilmore always got to have Twinkies and Fritos because his mom packed his lunch for him.  Sometimes he would bring Snowballs for dessert.  I worked for my lunches in 5th and 6th grade by pushing a cart down the hallway in order to collect the leftover lunch items.  As students we ate our lunches in our classrooms.

When we were seniors our football team was so bad that halfway through the season, John Delaine Wyberg, Bob Gilmore and I decided to turn out for the team.  We met at Hawthorne Elementary Scipio.

I was also a wrestler, in dual meets, with a perfect record, 1-0.   Then I broke my ankle in practice and so it was time to retire.

 Once while visiting with the Hatch cousins in Scipio, UT, and my grandparents Hatch,I was sitting with  Paul and Steve, telling them how I was such a great wrestler.  They asked about my record. I replied, 1-0.  Then they challenged me to something...not sure what but I remember the discussion.  This reminds me of the woman from Europe someplace who decided to take up golf.  She took lessons and in her first actual game, on her first stroke she made a hole in one.  Time to retire!

Cucumbers

It's been so long since I blogged we had to look up my blog name.  Now that retirement is just months away, I need to get into the habit of once again recording my memories.

This week I am on vacation so today I am doing odd jobs outside around the house.  I am trimming the hedge to the north of the garage, the yearly chore that will take me all day.  I asked for tuna sandwiches for lunch and brought in a cucumber and tomato from our garden to add to the plate.

And everytime I bring in a cucumber from my garden it reminds me of an event.  When I was about 11 or 12 years old, I rode my bike with my brest friend Bob Gilmore all the way across town.  We went to visit Noel Trunnel house, a girl we both liked (one of about 18 kids in that family).  We didn't tell anyone where we were going specifically but I did tell my mom that I was going to run away for the day with Bob.  As an adult now, I can imagine my mother calling Bob's mom, Jean, to see what was up.

Bob had this great 10 speed English racer and I had an unknown vintage one-speed (but at least it wasn't my sister's bike).  I cleaned it up not knowing what I was doing and halfway into the ride I had no brakes.  I was pedaling with all my might to try and keep up with Bob.  By the time we got to Noel's I was whipped.

So we rode from our far west side of Kennewick to her far east side of Kennewick, at least a good 10 miles and hung out with her.  Her mom asked, "Are you guys hungry?"  We hadn't thought about food, just thought about our love interest.  When she said food, we decided we were hungry.  She told Noel to go into the garden to bring in a cucumber.  I was amazed that they actually could grow a successful garden.  We had lunch and then her mom asked, "Do you boys want a ride home?" and again I am pretty sure she had called our parents by then.  So she loaded our bikes into her car and drove us and the bikes home.

The last time time I saw Noel I was in the hospital after a head-on car crash, January 1969 (on my way home from my 3rd semester at BYU and preparatory to leaving for my mission).  She came up to the hospital to visit me.

But now I can grow a garden with cucumbers,

tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, peppers, onions, potatoes, beans, peas...anything you want.  But I always wonder what happened to Noel and if she ended up with 18 kids, also.

the end of winter

I grew up in the great Northwest, in the desert of SE Washington....specifically The TriCities. Winters for me were cold and dry. We only got snow every couple of years and 2" of snow would have been huge. The land looked tawny in color but there were about 280 days of sun per year.

I have lived in NE Ohio for 38 years now and have come to appreciate the beauty like the picture to the left. We had a winter that was harsh...very cold, particularly working long hours in the mill which is all steel/metal which retains more of the cold. Last week we had the February Thaw. The top of the snow was melted and showed the ugly underside...the black snow. But within a few days, even it was gone. We actually believed or hoped the groundhog was correct, that spring was on its way. However, the next winter storm hit us on Sunday night (specifically as we were on our way for a meeting held in the Historic Kirtland Temple). Icy snow fell...and then icy rain. All over our fair land was the glimmer and shimmer of ice. This morning as I sat at the kitchen table, indexing, I looked out the window and saw the breathtaking shimmer of sun on the ice. I grabbed a camera to take a picture as I also went out to give more corn to the squirrels in our neighborhood. My friend Ken made us this corn feeder and we have enjoyed watching the squirrels come to feed. But more fun is watching our Niko go nuts to get out at the squirrel...and then watch the squirrel overhead in the tree, looking down teasing the dog.

I don't hate it here...I have learned to endure it and enjoy the changes. Yes, there was more sun in the TriCities but today, we have wonderful sun. And I will enjoy this. Because I know, deep down, that spring is really just around a few corners.

a new shirt and a memory of buttons

I am just over the moon with my new John Wayne style cowboy shirt. I just love it. It's perfect. My sweetheart labored 2 days to make it and years to locate the pattern which she already had.

There are 24 buttons on it. It made me think back to my 2nd Youth Conference as a youth. John Delane Wiberg, my good friend, had a stylish sweater vest on with lots of buttons. The ice breaker prize was who had the most buttons...and naturally he won. The prize was a transistor radio and we stayed up later than we should have, listening to his transistor radio.
Some kid drove up to youth conference in a 1953 Starliner Studebaker, a model I always liked. He probably paid 50 bucks for it. One youth conference I went to showed 7 Brides for 7 Brothers on an old projector from a classroom. The brothers wore this same type shirt that I am wearing in the photo.

I have always liked this style shirt and am happy to now own one. As I struggled to button all the buttons in the new button holes, I remarked that this was a good birth control shirt. By the time you'd get this unbuttoned, the "moment" had passed and you might as well go home. Brigham Young considered buttons to be immoral because you could get undressed to quickly.

The purpose and need for this shirt now is the fact that in 2 days I leave for TREK...It's a spiritual experience in the woods that make us appreciate what the pioneers did for us, regardless of if it's for the spiritual heritage or the building of the nation/community. I will go as an adult child of a family. No, Susan is NOT going on the trek. I'll report back next week...but no pictures since we are not allowed to take any modern technology.

Today I am mudding the dining room walls. After over a week of removing the wallpaper and the horrible thick cement-like glue that remained after the paper was gone (and I ask, "You did want your wallpaper to stay up didn't you? Didn't you?"), it's finally time to make the walls as flat as I can. It was good to have Jordan and family come up the past weekend and really took on the bigger part of the paste removal. We were left with the fine removals.

I didn't grow up mudding walls. In my youth the walls had broken up almond shells added to the mix to make a very textured wall....and by the way, that's the kind of walls we had in 809. Linda Zuro taught Susan to mud one day but she was having too much fun so I made that be "not distaff" and I ended up mudding just about the whole main floor and down the hall to the basement.

My parents converted peaked-roof army barracks (which they bought whole and then floated it down the Columbia River and installed it in Kennewick, Washington) into an apartment house. It formed a U-shape. Our family lived at the whole base of the U, and the 2 sides were filled with apartments. When Susan and I were married, we lived in #1. So when an occupant left, I was always called on to paint. I got so that I could paint a whole apartment in a day. Obviously, that's how my painting ability developed. I also can claim to paint a very fine, very straight line between wall and ceiling with only my faithful, trusty brush, named? what else? My Old Trusty Brush. Somehow I lost him...but discovered his hiding place when we moved to 3830. He had fallen behind the old workbench in the old garage. I was a happy camper when I found it!

I love to paint. I do not love to strip wallpaper or the paste. But I think we are going to be ready to paint tomorrow. At least I hope so. The paint has been purchased so all is well.

How to impress your mother-in-law

Each night, Susan will ask me what I want for breakfast. I had mentioned recently that I didn't like eggs much, whereas she does. That surprised her but now she's worried about what I haven't enjoyed. Last night was the discussion how she gets up to cook me breakfast and then packs me a huge lunch (this was the only request I made of her when we got married because for years I watched my dad rummage for something/anything to eat/pack because my mom didn't do this for him). And then she has to spend the day planning and making dinner. And we wondered how food controls our thoughts.

I remember my mom had this large cupboard. It was hinged to fall downward, at waist level and in our home it was filled with dry milk/powdered milk.
We would use the scoop to bring out a measure of the milk and then added a gallon of water. No, it wasn't nice-tasting milk but it was all we had. It tasted like chalk or variations thereof.

Years later when we had more money perhaps (or maybe this was just my mother's quirky way to economize) we graduated to Carnation dry milk in a box. That was high class. That was name brand! It didn't taste much better but it was more palatable. It did help to pour it over the mush we'd have almost every day. We were also given canned milk (evaporated) to pour over our mush.

For a real treat, in concert with my older siblings, we'd steal away with a can of sweetened condensed milk, sharing it to the full, slurping it straight til it was gone...and then we'd pass out in ecstasy.

In 1971, while visiting my future wife in Ohio, there was this tall, slender glass of ice cold milk at my place setting at the table. I put it to my lips. It was like heavenly choirs singing. I glugged it right down, and slammed the slender glass down hard on the table. My to-be mother-in-law was startled and before she even sat down saw that my glass was empty. She had offered me more and then I realized, "ohoh...faux pas". I looked around as if to say, "the cold mug made me do it!"

Employment History

BLAST FURNACE

Currently I am working Greg Dziadon's job because he is out on medical, recuperating from prostate cancer surgery. I am also his vacation replacement as well. My own boss, Angelo Ciu, has had medical problems and has dealt with them admirably.

I will probably have to work on Sunday again and Susan asked, "Again? Why?" I mentioned to Susan, that I hoped Greg and Angelo do, indeed, return to work. Otherwise, I may find myself in a job position I do not relish. I have been in the Bar Mill for all my days at the mill since 1973 so why would I want to go somewhere else.. I am doing the job of 6 guys right now in the Bloom Yard and the Billet Yard. But every job I have aspired to, I have not gotten, yet I still have remained employed.

As I've learned from these past experiences, things never work out the way I wish. After working there for 5 years, an older foreman retired and there was an opportunity to become a Straightener and Saws (finishing) foreman. I said to the division manager that I was interested in being considered for the job. He said, 'ahhhhh, you were actually never considered." And I said, "Oh, have a nice day." heheheh.

Then about the time of the strike (mid '80s), I said, "Hey I would like to be a maintenance manager (millright, electrician, welder, a fixer in other words)." And they said "No, you can go back to Finishing. At that point in time everyone was saying Finishing was caput, that it was going down the tubes, that there was no need for a manager there.

The more I think about it the more experiences I remember....same results.

Back when they started to put in the Rod Mill to replace the straightener and saws area, I applied for Inside Salesman, working out of the old YMCA building. Didn't get that job. Stayed with Inspection.

Then when George George was around and we were revamping things with retirements and cut backs, he asked me if I wanted to go to Shipping or stay with Inspection. I said, "No." It was my choice and as it turned out, the Inspection job was done away with so I ended up going to Shipping.

Then when I wanted to stay in Shipping, the world economy took a tumble about 18 months ago and I had to go back to Finishing. Then when I wanted to stay in Finishing they sent me to the Bloom Yard.

Is there a lesson to be learned from this? Yes, there is. Take what you get and don't throw a fit, to quote Connor and Dawn.

Who knows what path I will be on soon. But what I do know that I have been watched over and lead to so many areas within the mill that by now I can do many jobs. That has worked in my favor so far...but you just never know what the future holds. For now, I have a job and can provide for us, as I have been able to do with the kids were young. And for that I am so grateful.

Tea with the Tudors

I've been reading this remarkable book about The Tudors (by G.J. Meyer). I've renewed it repeatedly. Then for my birthday, Marissa and Hank gave me this mug. Surprisingly it has Henry VIII on it as well as his wives printed on it. The fun part is when I drink 'tea' with the Tudors (or Hot Cocoa as is my case), the heat of the liquid will make the wives disappear as they did in Henry's time.

Other Tudors are: Henry VII, Edward VI, Mary Stewart, Elizabeth. Henry VIII was a very bloodthristy man...chopping people's heads off when he didn't like them. He changed the whole religious scene in England and inadvertently pushed along the Reformation.

My interested started back in 9th grade when I had to type a report. I was in Seattle visiting my sister, Julie. There was nothing for me to do other than listening to women talk. Julie had a book on monasticism and I started to read it. From then on, my interest in anything old, medieval, post medieval, European piqued my interest. Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings so when I saw this book at the library I picked it up and started reading it.

The mug is perfect! It has the same picture of Henry VIII on it as is on the mug. This is mug which I will be sure to keep and treasure...not to mention which I also intend to keep. Thanks Marissa and Hank.

Rings n Things

Last night I was romantically remembering the first time Susan cuddled up under my arm and she remembered it as well, even to the coat I was wearing (tan corduroy winter one). I was living at Deseret Towers back then, before mission, and played on the floor's flag football intramurals. It was a cold day, not exactly raining but not really bright. While I played the games, Susan walked to town and came back to discover we had lost a tournament game. She was consoling me and I loved being able to put my arms around her as we walked back to the dorm, accompanied by Neil Henry, another floormate.

Susan surprised me that day with a leather ring...one for her and one for me.
Her's is the one on the left, in much better condition than my much loved, Velveteen Rabbit one on the right. Since then Susan has bought me all my rings....which basically I don't wear...except for one.
Here are my rings all lined up.
From the left...a silver ring Susan made for me in the lab at BYU using the disappearing Wax method. She melted down real silver quarters, etched in the Hebrew which I can't remember what it said and gave it to me before I left for my mission.

Next is my wedding band, more of an oval now rather than a circle since my job doesn't allow rings and so I have seldom worn it. I must have worn it more at the first because I know we took it in to have the rather Aztecian dodads re-colored.

The 3rd ring is a ring Susan had all her family contribute to when I graduated from BYU. Again...not worn and I AM A COUGAR! and happy to say so. I AM true to my school altho Susan is not.

The next ring is a very special ring. It was a ring Susan's father, Henry S. Czekala, gave to her grandfather, Richard James Holman. It is engraved on the inside with HSC to RJH. Certainly, it fits my initials and keeps the bond between her father, grandfather and me. Currently the ring resides in Susan's jewelry box cuz, again, I seldom wore it.

The next ring is still kept in the box. I got that ring for working at the mill for 25 years, specifically USS KOBE at the time of the ring. Diamond, no less...but not treasured at all.

And finally, the my favorite ring of all time is the one on the right. I saw that ring when Susan and I went to the Virgin Islands last summer. And I knew right off that this was a ring that I would wear often, and do.

I love to give Susan rings when we visit special places, or as a surprise, or for no reason at all. She wears them all at one time or another. Rings...interesting things, aren't they?

French Onion Soup and the cemetery

Today Susan and I went to Hollo's Papercraft store in Brunswick, OH. We stopped at Petiti's Garden Center while making our way back to the turnpike. I could have purchased something of every kind there. We did buy 3 clematis...1 white, 1 red, and 2 purple....2 Bellisima in pink and red. and finally a Bleeding Heart. Pam and Ken Barlow had given Susan a Bleeding Heart plant when Bonpapa died but it didn't survive well OR it's surviving now with the new owners. This new plant will replace the old one and Bonpapa will continue to be kept alive in our hearts. I seem to remember the Barlows giving us an hydrangea plant when Gunner died and that we did transfer up here. Hopefully it will grow this year as well.

We had planned at eating in the MapleSide Inn but it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays so we continued on home and ate at the Applebee's at the mall in Elyria.

Mom ordered the Oriental Chicken Salad but when I saw the French Onion soup with the French Dip Roast Beef Sandwich I knew what I wanted. And it was very good. But I remember the first time I ever had French Onion Soup. It was the first time I had been out to my mom's newly acquired cemetery, I was about 14. I think it was in late summer and we had to turn off the water/sprinkling system. As we drove in we noticed a car was parked near the office. Two love birds were necking in the car and my mom stopped that activity quickly. But then she took me to a restaurant on the west side of the old Pasco Bridge. And that's when I had the soup. It is still enjoyable.

The 2nd time I went to the cemetery, my folks said I needed to mow the lawn...which had grown very tall. . .with a PUSH MOWER, no less. About 4 acres of lawn! I made it once around and nearly collapsed. That's when my folks said, "Well, it looks like we need to buy a riding mower."

Thank goodness! I was going to be the one who mowed the lawns and dug the graves and moved the sprinkling system (don't live in a desert) several times a day.

But the soup was good then and today as well. Last night Mom made me Macaroons, dipped in chocolate. They were better than the one I bought at Presti's Saturday when we were in Little Italy. Daphne came down today and she ate one and agreed. Well, she did say they were better than in any store but I am not sure she's ever had one at Presti's. Mom used the Alton Brown procedure....I sure do like Alton Brown. I might have to blog about him and the rib eye steaks Mom cooked on Sunday.

RUNNY EGGS

This morning we went to The New York Deli for breakfast. They made a very fine breakfast and Susan and I enjoy eating there. It seems like Susan always chooses the best meals, no matter which meal, which restaurant. So lately I have been ordering what she orders. Today it was the standard, favorite breakfast...eggs over easy with bacon and home fries and toast. I, of course, added a side of sausage gravy. The the plates arrived Susan mentioned that I should have ordered eggs over medium, not over easy, since I don't like runny eggs. Then she told me if I slid the eggs over the home fries the runnyness would seep to the potatoes and all would be good.

I told her why I have never cared for runny eggs and thus begins my Blogging experience.

When I was about 6 years old, there was a couple who lived in our apartments, Mr. and Mrs. Plowman. They lived in apartment #5. This couple REALLY liked me, probably because I was such a cute little munchkin. But the Plowmans were really old, old people. Mrs. Plowman walked with a cane, I remember.

One day she invited me in for breakfast and served me runny eggs. I had never seen runny eggs before let alone ate any. Suddenly my throat constricted and I said, "I can't eat these."

"Sure you can," Mrs. Plowman said. "Just try them."

"I don't like them," I again stated. And I never did eat them. But from that time on I have never cared much for runny eggs.

The Plowmans moved on after a time, on to Seattle as I recall. My parents kept in touch with them for awhile. But I so remember that morning and those runny eggs.