By Doris Schroeder
When John and I were first married almost sixty-five years ago, I had a very strong ambition…I was going to keep track of all my good memories so that when we were older, I would be able to recall many different things whenever I wanted to. I think I started out well enough when I was young but somewhere down the line I think I got careless.
At least that’s what I have found out as we are trying to do some down-sizing this winter. But then, I don’t think I realized then how much writing I was going to do. Now as I’ve been busy with this task, I find it takes a lot of time to go through all of this stuff and it’s not a job one can do fast. I love to stop and remember all these different happenings of life. It really gives me joy. However, it makes me realize more and more that I enjoy writing more than keeping up with my housewifely duties.
For instance in a column in 1996, I wrote about a trip we made to Colorado to see our son and his family. Our daughter-in-law Carol worked at the Mall in Colorado Springs but had a day off. We decided to make new year’s cookies and we made a double batch which gives about a hundred. Now, if you’re acquainted with the German new year’s cookies, you know they only taste good fresh.
We gave a plateful to their friend who had helped with some remodeling, the three grandsons ate their share, son John took some down to where he worked at the David C. Cook Publishing Co. and Carol took some to work at the Mall. As she offered them to her co-workers, one young lady said with her usual apologetic smile “I’d love to have some, but I don’t need it!”
“Oh,” Carol smiled “my mother-in-law says they’re fat free!”
“How could that be?” the young lady exclaimed.
“Well,” Carol explained “she says they’re full of fat and they’re free!” It seems that became the joke of the day and they all went chuckling about their jobs, working off the high caloric intake they had succumbed to.
Then there are the columns I wrote when my five grandsons were growing up. I can go through past writings and recall so many of the joys of having them around. When we went to the A-frame cabin in Colorado were times there were
times we had a glimpse of what heaven must be like. It was fun to hunt for pine cones and see what we could fashion out of them. We made up stories about Sammy, the Selfish Squirrel from watching their antics on the front deck of the cabin. We went up Pikes Peak and I lost my movie camera. Ryan, a four-year-old, told the clerks “You find my grandma’s camera!” And they did.
We hunted frogs for the frog jump contest they each entered at the Hutchinson 4th of July frolic. They had their little secrets they would tell their jumper like “You can do it!” And they did it, even winning the Reno Country frog jumping championship one summer.
We played ping pong in the basement at a time I could still beat them. When they grew up and I slowed down, the championship changed hands. We also played basketball on our driveway and Grandma even made a few baskets.
Grandpa and I, Ryan and Mike, appeared on a television commercial when we picked up a car we had bought. We quoted their advertising gimmick, “If you didn’t buy from…., you paid too much!”
Our oldest grandson, John Edward, came one summer during Bible School and I put him and hubby in the clothes of Bible times and made them fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. Of course, in the afternoon, they were fishermen at Dillon Nature Center.
We made up tapes on the little tape players and had question and answer segment where they told what they thought about the important issues of life.
You can see why down-sizing takes so long. It is really fun, however, to have this that I remember. Try it!
Doris welcomes your comments and can be reached at [email protected]
