The Watchful Eye

Over the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about my Uncle Charlie.  I don't know why, he just keeps coming to mind.  My Uncle Charlie was a person we would label today as "special needs".  After a bout with fever that left his brain damaged at the age of nine, Uncle Charlie was suddenly "different" from everyone else.  Growing up with him, it never phased me.  It was just who he was.  And one of the things he happened to be was the watchful eye of the family.

It was Uncle Charlie's job to always get the mail.  He would walk to the mailbox each morning to wait for the postman to bring the mail.  He knew exactly when it should arrive, and would make sure he was there to receive it before it even entered the box.  The mail carriers all knew him and enjoyed his company.  They would stop and chat before moving on to the next family.

Uncle Charlie was also our chaperone whenever we kids went out to play.  He would always keep us in his line of site, never engaging in our games or play.  He was a silent sentinel keeping watch so that no harm would come to us.  If we got too close to the road, he would yell and bring us back.  He would accompany us to the swimming pool and pull a chair up to the edge of the water.  If we happened to go underwater, which we did quite frequently, Uncle Charlie would stand over the spot where we submerged calling for us to come back up.  He would say, in his gruff voice, "Don't do that."  We always had to be where Uncle Charlie could see us.

Uncle Charlie also had a police scanner in his bedroom.  At night he'd turn the volume up all the way and listen to the reports as they came in.  Our room was right next door to his, so we heard a running commentary throughout the night.  After a call would come in, Uncle Charlie would repeat it at top volume to make sure everyone was aware of what was going on.  I think it was soothing to him in the night, although the same cannot be said for those of us who were within earshot!

Uncle Charlie was a true character, and I am so blessed to have had his watchful eye in my life!!

Blessings and Peace,
Sara

The Night Grandpa Stu Almost Took Out Santa

One Thanksgiving, when I was a teenager, we spent the holiday down in Farmington at my aunt and uncle's place.  After stuffing ourselves with turkey, potatoes, stuffing and green bean casserole, the adults settled down for the post-carb stupor while us "young-uns" looked for an activity of interest.  We discovered that there was a Festival of Lights in Bon Terre, about fifteen or so miles away.  My dad (Grandpa Stu), who is always up for an adventure, offered to drive us over.  My cousin, her boyfriend, my sister, dad and I piled into my parents mini-van and headed out of town.  A light freezing drizzle was beginning to fall.  Most people would have turned back and stayed home, as a light freezing drizzle generally turns to freezing rain that does not bond well with tires.  But, the Stephensons are made of a different fabric than most.  Winter weather becomes an invitation to prove one's skill and stamina.  My Grandpa Clell always went for a drive when the weather got bad.  He never had anywhere he needed to be, he just wanted to prove he could do it.

We reached the Festival of Lights without incident and followed the few cars out and about through the lighted path.  To call the display a "festival" might have been stretching it a bit, but it was magic to us.  The car was warm, Bing was crooning, and we were all aglow with the advent of the Christmas season.  As we reached the end of the display, the freezing drizzle had, predictably, steadily intensified to a freezing rain.  The car path curved around to the right and led to the exit back onto the highway.  A man in a Santa Claus suit was standing in the curve, genially waving traffic through and wishing everyone a "Merry Christmas".

Between the blinking lights of the festival and the blinking ice falling from the sky, my dad failed to see the curve ahead.  Santa's genial wave turned to frantic flapping of the arms as Bing intoned, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."  If you're image of Christmas involves Santa Claus diving headfirst into an icy ditch, then Christmas it indeed was.  Dad stopped short of the ditch, out of which Santa was nimbly making his way.  As Dad profusely apologized through the windshield, Santa waved us on with what appeared to be a "Merry 'mucking' Christmas!"  We made it home without further incident, although I don't think we received any candy canes from Santa's elves, and a story that has continued to follow Dad through the years.

Blessings and Peace,
Sara

The Day the Chair Fell

My wife Linda's dad was a real character. His name was W. E. Johnson. I called him Willie just because I was never told what to call him. He was a no nonsense sort of fellow who believed in self discipline and self control. One of my funniest memories of Willie occurred in our front yard on Truman Street around the 4th of July.

The family had all gathered for a cookout. After eating. we all went our separate ways. Willie, my brother Charlie, my daughter Libby (who was 7 or 8 at the time), and I went to the front yard to enjoy a lazy July evening. Willie and I sat in lawn chairs under a large redbud tree that still stands on that property. Libby decided to ride her favorite Big Wheel up and down Truman St. Charlie joined Willie and me in the shade.

This quiet picture of Americana was doomed from the start. Willie had given Libby explicit instructions not to ride too fast, and not to spin her Big Wheel as she could fall over and hurt herself. Willie had spoken, and that was it. Libby had not heard. She flew down the street and wheeled into our gravel drive on 2 wheels. Willie announced that he would teach Libby to mind once and for all. He attempted to stand to acquire a tree branch to teach Libby. Lawn chairs are not reliable props.

Willie began to fall as the miscreant chair gave way. I had gone toward the driveway to halt Libby's daredevil act. I should also mention that our yard slanted toward the street. There was a real danger that Willie could roll a considerable distance if not halted. I yelled for Charlie to intervene. His response was to run around the side of the house with both hands in the air. He announced to all who were in ear shot "Oh hell, Willie fell out of his chair!!" He then exited the area without further ceremony.

I got Willie to his feet and we decided he was only injured in the vicinity of his pride. We re-stationed our chairs and continued our lazy July activities. Later we went to Willie's car where he kept a bottle of medicinal bourbon and some paper cups. We toasted our adventure and I laughed. He never did. Here's to you, Willie. Libby turned out OK.

Bargaining in Vegas

My father loved going to Las Vegas. He, my mom, and my brother would go almost every year. On one occasion I took some vacation time and went with them. Actually, I flew out and met them. My father always drove. On this occasion we stayed at Circus-Circus. Not the most opulent hotel on the Strip, but it served the purpose. There are actually 2 stories that come to mind from this trip.

The first story involved going to get pizza for supper one night. We had decided to order pizza and have it delivered to our room. Most normal people would do this routinely. Our family was not normal! They said there would be a 10% delivery charge plus a tip involved. My father decided we should go get the pizza and bring it back to the room. So, off we went to find the pizza place. This was an adventure on its own. Vegas traffic was heavy and it took over an hour to get there. Once we got there the manger told my father that the price quoted on the phone was wrong and it would cost considerably more. Dad was fit to be tied. He said forget it, and wheeled to go out the door. At this point fate took a hand in the process. A young delivery boy brought in a load of undelivered pizzas which were going to be discarded. Dad seized the moment and made an offer on the entire lot. The manager realized he had been out maneuvered. He sold the pizza for pennies on the dollar. My father emerged victorious. He also emerged with enough pizza to feed the entire chorus line at the Stardust, but, no matter, all he could think about was he had gotten a bargain on the pizza! So we drove back through the Vegas traffic for another hour and dined sumptuously on cold pizza and warm soda. Another victory for my father and his trading skills.

The second incident on this trip also involved food. My mother and father played nickle slot machines exclusively. My father had a little trick he did which often caused some amount of irritation to those with whom he gambled. At the end of each session, no matter how much he had or how much anybody else had, it all went in the same bucket. Now this was normally not a problem. My father would usually have more money than anybody else and an equal split was usually acceptable. But, in this case, my mother had had a good day. So when it came time to cash in, she suggested we all just cash in our own nickles. Well, this did not set well with my dad. He put a handful of nickles in her bucket which was almost full of nickles and suggested an even split. Words were exchanged. Mom and Dad went their separate ways. Mom to the room to rest and since Dad never rested when he was in Las Vegas, he went to play another machine. I followed. Now one thing you need to understand about my dad was that he was truly one of the nice people in the world and anger only stayed on him for about a minute and then it was gone. It was usually replaced by remorse for having been angry in the first place. This is what happened in this case. He decided to placate my mother by getting her her favorite treat--Dairy Queen frozen yogurt. So, off we went into the Vegas traffic in search of a Dairy Queen. We found one and bought my Mother a frozen yogurt to take back to the hotel. Unfortunately, frozen yogurt on a cone does not have a long shelf life in heat that exceeds 100 degrees. It began to melt almost immediately as we got into the car. My father looked at me and said, "Don't let that ice cream drip in this car. Your mother will kill us both!" So, I did what anyone would do under the circumstances, I rolled down the window, held the ice cream cone outside the window, and let it drip harmlessly onto the pavement. It took about 30 minutes for us to get back to the hotel. As you can well imagine, by the time we got there, what had been a frozen yogurt on a cone had turned into simply a messy, sticky cone. I told Dad, "I think we'd better throw this away." But he was insistent that we would deliver it to my mother. So we did! And that afternoon my father delivered a peace offering of a wet, sticky Dairy Queen ice cream cone to my mother. I often wonder what people in Vegas thought when they saw my dad and I driving down Las Vegas Boulevard with my arm stuck out the window holding an ice cream cone. Oh, well, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

I've been to Vegas several times since then. Vegas has changed. I've changed. But, really, what's changed most is that it's not as much fun anymore. I think most of that has to do with the fact that I don't eat cold pizza in my room anymore and I don't deliver melted frozen yogurt. Dad really knew how to "do" Vegas!

Story Six: Just Another Battlefield

Growing up, our family vacations were never quite the same as other families. You see, as educators, my parents believed in instilling us girls with sense of history, an appreciation for our American past and the land which birthed the history. Namely, Civil War battlefields. My dad is a major Civil War buff, so if there was a battlefield within 45 miles of our vacation destination, we were going. We took three big trips growing up; two driving trips, one to D.C. and another to Tennessee, and one flying trip to Disney World. Don't ask me how we fit Disney World into "The Great Tour of American Civil War Battlefields", we just went, and my dad almost got into a fight, but that's a story for another day. :-)

Civil War battlefields: we went, we saw, we conquered. On the last leg of our Tennessee trip, my dad wanted to stop at one last battlefield. The exact field has sense escaped me, as has the name of the bloody battle previously fought there. All I remember is a battle of a different nature, when two punky pre-teenage girls took up arms, in the form of walk-mans and cassette tapes, against the advent of knowledge and historical appreciation to fight for the right to turn our brains off and ride roller coasters. At this point, my mom, dad, sister and I had spent almost a week together in our fearless Ford station wagon. Food supplies were running low in the back; all the sugar cereal was gone and the only soda left was RC Cola. It was hot, we were tired, and there was one more battlefield left to go. Fortunately, this was a drive-through battlefield. You get a cassette, stick it in the tape deck, and get a self-guided tour.

My sister and I waited patiently as my mom inserted the cassette. After the first bend in the road, our parents were fully ensconced in scenes of the past and Libby and I felt it safe to slip our headphones over our ears. We drove for awhile in the cool bliss of 80's hair-band rock. I was gazing out the window at the full green trees lining the side of the road, soaking in some Bon Jovi, when all of a sudden an angry cry of, "Girls!" pulled my attention back to the moment. My dad, in the process of highlighting some event which took place during the battle, had come to the realization that neither of his prodigies was paying any interest at all to the events which had taken place on this land over 100 years ago.

Ooops doesn't really do it justice. Suffice it to say, the head phones were promptly removed. I don't remember the exact conversation that followed, but I believe it was shortly after that our parents took us to an Alpine slide in the mountains of Tennessee. It was the closest thing to a roller coaster they could find, "The Great Tour of Civil War Battlefields" preempted for a season.

Blessings and Peace,
Sara

Story Five: The Big Fish

There's a place not far from Ottawa, Kansas called Redmon Reservoir. My family and I spent many a weekend fishing and camping there. My recollection is that the crappie fishing was better than good--it was outstanding! And, it was an oddity when we left without a limit. We would drive up there from Kansas City and camp in my Dad's old cab-over camper. The fishing was good, the fellowship was better, and we would often meet other friends there. Linda and I had been married a few years and were living in Salina, KS when this event took place.

Linda and I had just arrived. It was getting toward evening and we all went down to the spillway and had our usual good luck catching large crappie. My Dad cleaned them--nobody else could do it correctly--put most of them on ice and saved a few that he cooked in the back of the camper on the stove. My Father was very good at this. In fact, his particular skill was being able to cook on this stove while Mom drove down the highway at high rates of speed!. But, in this case, we were stationary--all of us--and enjoyed a dinner of fried crappie, fried potatoes, and whatever else Dad wanted to fix. After supper, Dad decided he wanted to fish some more before dark. Technicalities like daily limits and creel limits were a bit fuzzy to my Father. Well, darkness came and we all retired to the close quarters of an eight-foot cab-over camper. Dad decided to leave a couple of poles baited in the water overnight. The legality of this technique is also questionable. And then we retired for the evening.

That night some storms rolled through and if you've never experienced a real Kansas thunder storm in a rocking cab-over camper with five people and perhaps two dogs in it, you really have led a sheltered life. The thunder rolled, the lightening flashed all around us and the wind blew. I really think the only person who slept much was my Father who I'm convinced could have slept through the Normandy Invasion. In fact, I think he may have. . .but I digress. We woke up early the next morning, had breakfast, and Dad went down to check his fishing poles that he'd left out. That is to say, he employed a technique that he'd perfected through the years. He said, "Ruth, while I'm fixing breakfast, why don't you go down and check on those poles I left out last night."

Mother took me along with her. I should say that I would be of no assistance whatever under any circumstances. I was then, and am now, perhaps the world's worst fisherman. When we got down to the spillway, there were three other men who'd been fishing all night. We asked them if they'd had any luck and they said no, mumbling something about a low pressure system moving in. Mother pulled the first pole out of the water and reeled in the line and there was nothing on it. Then she picked up the second rod and reel and said, "You know, Butch, I think I'm hung on a rock." My advice was simple and succinct: I said, "Pull harder and reel." She did and we quickly realized that we had a very large fish on the line. She sent me to get my Dad, realizing that this was no job for amateurs. I guess at this point I should tell you to that in order to land this fish, we had to pull it up over the spillway wall which was approximately 10 to 15 feet high. Here we were Mom reeling and pulling, Dad giving instructions, and me standing there with a net on the end of a rope. It really must have been a humorous side show.

Mom got the fish to the spillway wall. I dropped the net down on the rope into the water, scooped up the fish, and we dragged it up over the spillway wall. It was the largest Channel Cat I'd ever seen! Now, the three fellows who were fishing legally at the end of the spillway saw, and probably heard, all the commotion. They came to look at the fish as well. Mother was standing there with the pole in her hand, the net and the fish at her feet as the men walked up. Assuming that my Mother had come down there, made one cast, and caught this giant catfish, they began putting their equipment away and muttering. We heard one of them say to the others as they walked to their car disgustedly, "We've been fishing here all night and didn't catch a thing, and this woman comes down here in the morning, makes one cast and catches a huge catfish. Let's go home, boys." Well, nobody in our little group wanted to burst their bubble by long winded and truthful explanations, so we just waved and told them, "Better luck next time!" Fishing is a wonderful experience. Fish stories are even better! Have a good day.

Story Four: Winter Ice Storm

Some of my favorite memories as a child were going to visit my grandparents down in Shell Knob, Missouri. They had a big house on a huge plot of land (okay, it all seemed huge as a kid) within walking distance of Table Rock Lake. We would spend weeks down there in the summer, chasing rabbits, picking wild blackberries, trying to catch minnows in the lake. The lake house was also a wonderful destination for Christmas. We spent several memorable Christmases at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The kids all slept sprawled out on mattresses in the basement next to the old wood stove which kept heat in the house. The adults piled in upstairs, filling the bedrooms and the living room. Food was plentiful and laughter abundant. Grandma and Grandpa always let us kids have the run of the place, except for Grandma's "lost room". A large storage space, Grandma kept us out of it by telling us we would get lost and be stuck there forever if we ventured in. Gullible kids, we kept out!

One of the Christmases that stands out most in my mind during this time, other than the one where Grandpa almost smoked us out forgetting to open the flu, was the Christmas we drove through an ice storm to get to Grandma and Grandpa's. It was Christmas Eve and we were on our way, making the four hour trip from Clinton to Shell Knob. We had two cars; a station wagon and my Grandpa William's white Buick. Both cars were piled high with suitcases, pillows, sleeping bags, snacks and black trash bags filled with Christmas gifts and wrapping supplies. The weather didn't start to get bad until we reached Southern Missouri. We were on highway 39, a winding, hilly, two-lane stretch of road with no real shoulder to pull off on. In hindsight, I have no idea why we drove through an ice storm. I can only say that it was over twenty years ago, and maybe the meteorologists weren't quite as dead-on as they are now--ha, ha! Regardless, night had fallen, ice was falling, and it was slick going.

My dad and sister were driving ahead of my mom, Grandpa William and I. I was snuggled up next to a trash bag full of gifts, thinking about my Annie book I would be opening in the morning, when I suddenly felt that tingling sensation that comes from spinning on a merry-go-round. Before I knew it, we were stuck. My mom pushed on the gas, the tires squealed, but to no avail. Looking out the front window, I couldn't even see the tail lights that were my dad and my sister. Not only were we stuck, we were stranded! Being Christmas Eve, and the fact that ice was dropping from the sky, there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road. In fact, we were the only traffic on the road.

I can't remember how long we sat there, pondering what to do. This was the pre-cell phone era. But I know that the darkness was eventually lifted by a pair of headlights coming up behind us. A young police officer from the Billings police department slid up to my Mom's window and asked if he could help. Before long, our car was out of the ditch and pointed back in the right direction. In the morning, everything was coated in crystal. I remember thinking that the ice covered trees sparkling in the sun were some of the most beautiful pieces of art I had ever seen. After opening our gifts, we piled back into the car with two plates filled full of Christmas dinner and headed over to the police station in Billings to thank the young officer who rescued the stranded travelers that icy Christmas Eve.

Sara