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Every Life is a Story
    A place to share my own family stories

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Mother's Day Present

I know, we just had Father's Day, but sometimes the reminders of stories come up, and they can't be ignored. Today, we were in the parking lot after buying shoes, and my oldest said the magical words, "Remember that time in the first grade that I got you that coupon book for Mother's Day?" The story went like this:

When my oldest daughter was in the first grade, they made coupon books for Mother's Day. She handed it to me wrapped in a paper sack. I flipped through the book, and it had a coupon for doing the dishes, a coupon for cleaning her room, a coupon for dusting, a coupon for vacuuming and many others.

Usually, I forget to redeem the coupons, but I took her up on the vacuuming. She was very small, and I had a huge vacuum cleaner that had a water filter. You had to fill the bottom drum with water, then had to dump the muck out when you were done. It was a big chore for a small child. So, I helped her out. I got her started, showed her the basics of vacuuming and let her get to work.

She lasted a couple of minutes. She turned the vacuum off, and left it there in the middle of the living room, only a few feet of carpet actually done. I came to her and asked, "Hey, what happened? Why didn't you finish the room?"

She shrugged, "It wasn't as much fun as I thought it was."

"So....you only made coupons for the jobs you thought would be fun?"

She shrugged again, "Yup."

I didn't redeem any more coupons.

Now, today, as she was remembering the story, her version came out totally different. It came out as follows:

"Remember in the first grade when I gave you that coupon book for Mother's Day, and I had hurt my arm really bad and it was in a cast, so you only said I had to vacuum a little bit?"

My daughter has never hurt her arm, or had it in a cast. I told her MY version, and she didn't remember things going that way at all.

I was there. I'm pretty sure my version is the right one.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Boots

My grandfather's name was Boots. That is what everyone called him, and it wasn't until I was a teenager that I learned Boots was a nickname, and my grandfather's REAL name was Arthur Wilson. Nobody called him by his name, except once when it was mentioned at his fiftieth wedding anniversary. It was always Boots.

He got the nickname just a few days after he was born. His parents brought him home, and his older brother Timmy got a look at him, and said, "Oh, he is such a beauty." Except that my Uncle Timmy was very small, and couldn't say "beauty" properly. It came out "Oh, he is such a BOOTIE." The name stuck.

My grandfather was "Bootie" all through his childhood, but as he grew so did the name, and by the time I came along, he had been Boots for many years.

Even then, I just called him Grandpa.

"To be a person
is to have a story to tell."

- Isak Dinesen  

 
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