A Child's Christmas Memory

The season is upon us now, and I think back on Christmas through the years. The best ones had my grandparents included. Each year they put up the silver tinsel tree and plugged in the electric color wheel that slowly changed the tree from silver to red, green, blue and yellow. Most of the ornaments were blue, and it just looked cool!

(Me and my favorite handwarmer at the Grandparents' farm.)

There was a heavy card nativity set that I just loved to play with. Grandma would let me set it up if I were careful, and I tried very hard to find just the perfect position for each animal and angel. There was always an Elf on the Shelf as well. I never knew it was an old tradition until just this year. They appear to be in vogue again, and I'm seeing Elf On The Shelf in the major bookstores. I guess everything old IS new again!

(Me in the hayfield. That's the old farmhouse in the back.)

Grandpa indulged all three of us kids, yet never had to lay a hand on us to punish us if we erred. All he had to do was look disappointed and sigh. Maybe shake his head. We would immediatly feel so bad that if he had actually whipped us we would have felt better! Grandma, on the other hand, was the disiplinarian. She actually gave me a knife once, and told me to go cut the maple switch for her to use on my behind!! Needless to say, all of us kids, once we experienced these two actions, did our level best not to experience them again!


Grandma and Grandpa usually slept upstairs in the attic during our visits. They had seperate beds, and I think it was so we kids could rotate sleeping with them. But there was this one very special Christmas Eve.....


As I was shaken awake by a gentle hand, my eyes opened to see my grandpa leaning over me, a quieting finger held to his lips. I crawled slowly at first from the warm bed, reluctant to leave the quilts behind. Then I remembered. It was Christmas Eve! We were going to sneak up on the barn animals and see if it were true that at midnight they bowed down to pay homage to the Christ child!

My feet wanted to dance, but the warning look from my grandpa, accompanied by an understanding smile, kept all dancing inside my body. We crept down the stairs, carefully skipping the sixth step that would have creaked and given us away to my grandma and my two younger brothers.

In the dark kitchen, grandpa helped tuck my pajama-clad legs into my boots, then zipped my coat against the cold Ohio winter night. He shrugged into his old barn jacket and smiled down at me as he slid my toboggan hat over my rumpled hair.

We unlocked the back door, freezing as the loud snick of the bolt rang through the air like a gunshot. We stared at each other, but didn’t hear anyone coming to investigate. Grandpa opened the door slowly and we stepped out into the dark.

A light snow was falling, the flakes drifting slowly past us, glittering in the soft illumination of the old security light in the corner of the farmyard. The snow crunched beneath our boots as we walked softly towards the barn, my small mittened hand clasping his work-roughened one.

Despite the crunch of the snow underfoot, I thought we were as good as spies, or even Indians.

When we got to the barn, grandpa slid a flashlight from his pocket to check his wristwatch before unhooking the barn door clasp. The hinges squeaked loudly in protest as he swung the door open, shining the light into each of the 3 stalls.

Two cows and a pony stared calmly back at us, one cow chewing her cud. None of them were concerned in the least at our intrusion. To my great disappointment, all three animals were standing on their feet, not kneeling in the straw. I heaved a sigh in disappointment, feeling my grandpa’s hand come to rest comfortingly on my shoulder.

We left the barn and headed back to the farmhouse, my disappointment making me drag my feet. The squeaking hinge had warned the barn animals we were there, and since they wouldn’t kneel if humans were present, or so the legend goes, they remained on their feet.

Grandpa stopped suddenly and swung me up into his arms in a big hug, then whispered in my ear, “We’ll catch them next Christmas!”

I hugged him back, suddenly happy. No one else would have gone with me at midnight to the barn! Not my dad, nor my mom. Not even grandma! I had the best grandpa in the whole wide world!

Yes, this really did happen. I can still feel the disappointment, so keenly sharp, when we opened the barn door only to see all the animals standing. It would have been so normal to at least see a cow lying down as she chewed her cud, but no. They were all standing, which was unusual for that time of night. ButI was just a child, and it never crossed my mind at that time.

Grandpa was generous to a fault. If a neighbor needed help, Grandpa was there. If his grandbabies needed or wanted something, he did his best to fill the need, or take care of the want. So when I wanted to see the animals kneel to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus, the Grandfather part overrode the farmer part. I was indulged, even though it meant getting up in the middle of the night and going out into the cold for something that was just a story.>

A Lesson Learned The Hard Way

Today’s submission has no pictures because I. Screwed. Up.

Here’s the backstory.

Mom had mentioned years ago that she still had dad’s old slides in the basement. Boxes and boxes of slide carts and carousels and SLIDES. So I volunteered to go through them, organize them, and convert some of them. With her blessings, I had the slides shipped to my house, purchased a slide converter, and away I went.

It was a slow and tedious process, and in all the sorting, which tied up the dining room table for MONTHS with various piles and stacks and such, I would find groups of slides that there really was no point in keeping. So then I’d call mom and ask what she wanted me to do with them.

The slides of the Columbus City Zoo from 45 years ago really held no value to either one of us. Yes, I kept the shots that actually had family in them, but of the cages and habitats of the animals? Just taking up space. So I offered them to the zoo for their archives under mom and dad’s name. They jumped at the chance to get them, so I mailed them off. Never heard anything else from them.

There were slides of numerous Labor Day parades in our little town. Dad sure did like the antique cars. And pretty girls. Again, I called mom. Unless there was someone in the photos that we knew, no point in keeping them, either. So this time quite a few slides hit the trashcan. I was careful to scrutinize each and every slide. In a few I found one brother with the band, and another in the cub scouts, so of course those were saved. And some from the early 60’s that had our parents and grandparents in them. Mom was pregnant in some of them. She sure was cute! And me sitting with grandpa on the hood of a car.


Then there were the shots of an old man on a stage. In checking the notation on the side of the slide cart, I was able to figure out that this was the famous Eddie Rickenbacker, at a military ceremony at (then) Lockbourne AFB, OH. Cool! I called mom, who again had no real use for the slides, and suggested possibly donating them to the Air Force History archives. Good idea. So after a few emails, off they went. This was a few years ago, mind you. Never heard from them, either.

I recently returned home to visit family and friends, and just happened to mention to one of my brothers about the Rickenbacker slides, and what I’d done with them. He got a bit interested, and asked if I’d converted them and kept copies. When I said no, he said that was too bad. Our dad had worked on setting up the stage for that ceremony! It would have been nice to have kept the shots, just because dad had had a hand in history. Yeah, this is where I. Screwed. Up.

What, exactly was the screw-up? In not checking with EVERYONE in the family. Maybe my other brother would have been interested as well. Or maybe both brothers would have liked copies of the zoo so they could track the changes made over the years. Who knows? Maybe mom or dad had talked to the boys and given them information or told them stories that I never knew (like Eddie Rickenbacker). But now it’s too late for the zoo and Eddie.

I still have a few more slides to go through, but what took up boxes and boxes now reside in plastic slide-protector notebook sleeves in 2 big notebooks. In getting the slides shipped to me, getting the plastic protective sleeves, notebooks, slide viewers, slide converter, having prints made, and in making scrapbooks for both brothers and mom, I spent over $500 dollars. But the trip down memory lane? And some (possibly) very good blackmail shots? Totally, absolutely, priceless.

Memories

I’m working on a labor of love at the moment. I’ve been doing it off and on for about five years now. I’ve been scanning every old family photo I can lay my hands on, and even had my dad’s slides – all 50 years worth! – shipped to me. I invested in a slide converter, and got to work sorting out the chaff from the wheat.

My goal is to make a cd or 2 (or 3?) for each family member so they can have a history of the family in digital record. Maybe my niece might like to see the genes that are in her makeup: good country folk with determination and hard work in their blood. People who lived through good times and bad. People who lived, loved and laughed, no matter what. Or maybe for the rest of us to look back in fondness and love to the people who shaped us and guided us as we grew up.

In my dad’s slides I found whole projector trays full of shots from Air Force base air shows and ceremonies. One particular set caught my attention: an old man receiving an award. Checking my dad’s notes, I discovered that this was the celebrated flying ace of WWI Eddie Rickenbacker! Now, after decades of languishing in my mom’s basement, he was finally seeing the light of day once more. I contacted the AF historian and asked if they were interested in receiving these slides. After assuring them that I really had no place for them, they agreed to take them, and seemed quite happy to have them. I received no other thank you, but I hope Eddie is not once more condemned to a dark box in some basement.

There was also a BUNCH of shots taken at the Columbus Zoo over a 40 year period. Even after taking out any shots of family and relatives, I was left with quite a few shots of the zoo in general. I thought maybe the zoo historian would be interested in these shots, as they show how much the zoo has changed. Again, on initial contact they were very happy to hear from me and eager to receive the slides. Again, no other thanks, but I’m not so concerned as I am for Eddie.

In the middle of converting the slides I thought family might be interested in, of which there are two 3” binders full of slide sheets that hold 20 slides each, my slide converter died. Thank goodness for Walgreens! The hard part is after they’ve been converted; I had to check each shot and see if I could rid them of the strange colors, tones, scratches and weird “artifacts” left behind after decades of storage in a basement. I developed “Mouser’s Wrist” and “Right-Click Thumb” after hours and hours and hours of performing cleanup on the digital shots. Some just weren’t salvageable, but I discovered that when they were changed to black & white, it was almost magical: you could see clearer detail. Like this shot of the back pasture. The main color is red, not black, yet converted to b&w, what a difference.

The "before" where only the cows should be red...

...and the "after". The spring is to the left, next to the tree in the back.

Grandpa and I would sit in the back yard, right about where this shot was taken, and pick off groundhogs across the “crick” and up at the spring with his old rifle. Darned things had a passion for my sweet corn, and I didn’t want to share! I got real good at picking off groundhogs.

In dredging up these slides, I’ve also dredged up memories that have long lain dormant. If not for these old shots, these memories might easily have gone to the grave with me. Like the shot of my grandpa sitting on the floor to accommodate my toddler height as I washed his face with a warm washcloth. He had so much patience with all three of his grandkids! I remember trying to be real careful and not rub too hard, or get soap in his eyes.

Me combing my grandpa's hair before washing his face.

I think all three of us kids grew up worshipping grandpa. If we got caught doing something wrong, he could lay the biggest guilt trip on us just by shaking his head and looking sad. That hurt us worse than if he’d picked up a paddle or belt and spanked us! Now, grandma? She’d make us go out and cut our own switch to be used in the punishment! So we learned darned quick not to misbehave at their farm.

I’m also adding scans of old photos I found when last I visited my mom. She had had open-heart surgery and was home recuperating, so what better bedside activity (to keep her in bed!) than to dredge up her own memories of people and places for the unmarked photos she had in a big box under the bed. I could hear the smile and love in her voice as she regaled me with stories about her own beloved grandparents and other relatives. There are two photos in particular of my great-grandparents that really speak to me.

Great-grandma back at the WVA farm.

Great-grandpa still in OH, and his bicycle.

On my own grandparents farm was a small house set apart from the farmhouse. It was only a two room house with a back porch that was constantly sagging, and an outbuilding and outhouse reached by a wooden walkway, and a dirt basement. Mom tells me this was built just so grandma’s parents could move in from their West Virginia farm in their old age. But. This only lasted for three months, as they weren’t used to electricity, running water in the kitchen, or the modern luxury of a telephone. They moved back to their WVA farm, much to my grandma’s chagrin.

Great-grandma at the "new" stove. She never got used

to running water in the kitchen.

I have photographic proof that I actually met some of my great-grandparents, even if I have no memory of it. Unfortunately, I never met THIS g-grandma, my maternal grandmother's mother. She was the favorite of my mom's, and their memories will live on in passing down my Mom’s stories and memories. And in looking at these photos and slides, more stories come to light, more memories appear as if by magic from far corners of memory. There are all sorts of photos in that old box, and yet more in albums just recently discovered. Black and white shots, a few colored, shots of people we knew and people we have no clue about.

I’ve discovered the old saying about the oldest child having the most pictures taken, while the youngest child will be lucky to find one of just himself, or even one period. As with all things, the first is a novelty, and it goes downhill from there. Luckily, my family was a camera-toting family, and ALL of us kids appear in many of the photos!

As a kid I was usually annoyed, sometimes highly, with allthe picture taking by my mom and grandma. Constantly having to stop, pose and smile in the middle of an activity was rather irksome to a teen and pre-teen. Oh, and checking to make sure the sun was in your eyes to get the best shot. What fun. Yet now as I sort through and arrange all these paper-to-digital memories, I am happy. Memories captured by grandma’s old Brownie camera or the Polaroid, snapped by relatives both known and unknown and by virtual strangers bring back the feeling of carefree summers on the farm, visits to relatives in WVA.

That’s the main purpose of this blog, actually. To tell others about our family, to let them know about a time and people long gone, just as we ourselves will be to later generations.

Canning, Part II

I last wrote about canning Bread & Butter pickles, and it made me reminiscent of my childhood when my mom and grandmother canned tomatoes. I love homegrown, homemade canned tomatoes!! As I mentioned previously, as a teen I tended to find other things to do when it came to canning. Climbing trees, riding my pony, going down over the hill…anything to escape the steam bath that the kitchen became as canning commenced. And now I’m paying the price for skipping out.

I gave in and took the tomato canning class anyway, and was disappointed to discover it was only a lecture. The speaker was fairly knowledgeable, but she’d only been canning for a couple of years, and sometimes I just wasn’t sure of her answers to the questions that were asked. What I WAS sure about was that if my grandma was canning today, the FDA would probably shut her down!

The speaker did explain a few things that were brought to life by her sometimes sardonic tone and her examples of what to do and not do. This was much better than just reading it in the canning books. She was a smaller version of Alton Brown. At least I got my money’s worth for the class.

But honestly. My grandma would have looked at her and shook her head over some of the techniques that are now being insisted on by the Co-op, or the University Extension, the FDA, whomever. Most of the procedures are fine in modern kitchens, with long counters and lots of space, but a small farmhouse kitchen? You had to make do with what you had! Counters weren’t always as generous as they are nowadays, for all the scratch cooking that was done back then.

Jars and rings were washed by hand, then placed in large canners of boiling water to sterilize. Then they were placed in other canners of extremely hot but not boiling water, to wait their turn to be filled. The lids were place in hot water (not boiling, or it melted the sealing rings too much), ready to be placed on top of the newly filled jars. There was some sort of assembly line going with the two women in the kitchen, and us kids were sometimes drafted to carry finished jars out to the porch to put on a table set up there for the cool down.

(My grandparents, and the first motorized vehicle I learned to drive. Even driving the tractor, grandma was a lady!)

I can picture my grandma at the gas stove canning. She comes in clear as a bell, but I see her actions as if through a badly warped glass. She always wore a dress, with a full apron tied on. I think the only times I ever saw her in pants was during haying or the time she stood with my foundered pony in the cold creek water. Everything was done in a dress. Oh, and sensible, no nonsense shoes. By the end of the day her hair would be dripping, and you could probably squeeze a couple of cups of sweat from the dress and apron. But I’m willing to bet that you could never get sick from anything that was made in that kitchen. It was made with love and sweat, at temperatures more closely resembling the surface of the sun than mid-summer Ohio.

So now with my faulty memory augmented by my Ball canning books, I may be able to actually put up a batch or two of my beloved tomatoes, no matter what the form. Juice, whole, diced, you just can’t go wrong with tomatoes. Unless you add celery … ICK!!

Cukes and Tomatoes and Pickles, Oh My!

Holy smokes! Literally!! Where I live it’s been over 100 degrees F for the past WEEK! Of COURSE some of the cukes had to decide this was the perfect time to ripen. Sigh. So Monday, in 102-104* I was canning bread & butter pickles. Only got 13 pints (did I mention it’s a small garden?), but that’s 13 more than I had before! I did it in stages and early in the morning so I didn’t overtax the one and only window ac unit we have for the entire house. Poor thing has been running pretty much nonstop. I think last night was the first night in a while it was actually turned off. Also the first night in 3 that we were able to sleep in our own bed instead of on an air mattress on the floor in the living room in front of ye olde ac unit. But I digress.

This was my second time of canning pickles, and it turned out just as good as the first time a couple of years ago. But since we were on our last jars, I had to plant more to can for the next year or so. The cukes are ripening in intervals, thank goodness, because if I’d’ve had to can them all on Monday, I’d’ve died from heat exhaustion. I think the ac unit would have as well.

From this....

...and this...

To this! Yummy!

All this canning and the talk of canning takes me back a few years. Wish it took my memory of canning back as well! I’ve been wanting to can tomatoes, but I just cannot recall how to do it. I remember Grandma put up the best tomato juice for years, until she started adding celery salt & seed to it. Then she’d get mad when I refused to drink it. “I don’t understand. Tomato juice is your favorite! You’ve always drank it. Now drink it!” But I’d complain that it tasted funny, and I didn’t like it. To this day I hate celery salt, and I don’t care WHAT you use it in! I can see no good reason for it to be used on food, or even for its very existence.

I remember going out to the tomato patch with Grandpa to check the ripeness. When we made these little trips, Grandpa always had a salt shaker in his back pocket. We’d walk through the patch, picking a tomato here and there and “testing the taste”. I don’t know how there was ever enough tomatoes to can, whatwith all the testing trips we made!

Then came the picking. Grandpa showed me how to start at the far end of the patch first to make fewer and shorter trips as the picking progressed. We had bushel basket after bushel basket of tomatoes! I was in heaven! Then came the canning.

Right about here is where I, the perfect tomboy, usually found something ELSE to do besides work in an extremely hot kitchen in the middle of an Ohio summer! I didn’t mind the work of picking the fruit; I carried a salt shaker in my OWN back pocket to enjoy the benefits. But canning? I couldn’t clear out of the farmhouse fast enough! Mom and Grandma sweated (none of that “glowing” for working farmwives!) in the canning steambath for a couple of days until all the tomatoes were processed. They made a game for us kids of listening for the top to pop and counting them to make sure all the jars had sealed.

Once popped and cooled, the jars were carried down to the dugout basement and set on deep shelves carved into the cool darkness of the ground, where they could stay for years…or until we came to visit and I drank them! Man! There is absolutely nothing on this earth better than home canned tomato juice straight from the cool cellar! And the canned tomatoes? Spectacular to bite into and to use in stews and such!

But now that I’m an adult? I wish I’d stayed in the kitchen. I wish I’d learned these things. But since I can’t go back, I must go forward. I’ve read up on canning tomatoes. I’ve even purchased the Ball Blue Book for home canning. Clear photos and illustrations of such quality that even I should be able to do it. Do I risk it, or plunk down $20 for a canning class with the college extension? I’ve been unemployed since April of 2008, so I really have to watch my pennies. Since I have this canning book, and I’ve been in on various stages of the canning (when I COULDN’T escape *lol*), I’m hoping some of the process has sunk in. That, and the fact that I asked my neighbor to let me help when SHE does her tomato canning (she also uses celery salt *ick!*) this year, will be exactly what I need, and I can save my money for more important things….like jars!

Peas in A Pod

Here it is, the middle of July, and I had just sat down at my deck table to shell peas. As I shelled, I’d pop the occasional pea into my mouth instead of the bowl. Memories of sitting with my grandmother in the front porch swing to shell peas came pouring back as I worked the pods.

Sometimes I can see the sun setting as we shell, the sky in deep pinks and purples with a hint of orange. Other times the sun is still shining strong, yet the breeze through the porch keeps the flies and other pests away. As we shelled, we talked. About anything. Church, school, family, farm, whatever came to mind. Maybe I’d tell her how I’d seen old Maude, the pregnant Hereford, escape her paddock again by jumping the 5 foot tall fence. She had a habit of doing that for each and every one of her pregnancies.

Or maybe we talked about the ponies. Grandpa had got me a Shetland pony who was all black except for a white spot on her forehead the size of a 50 cent piece. She was given the unimaginative name of Star. I’ll write about her later, never fear.

Whatever we talked about, what we were really doing was bonding. I was always fascinated at how Grandma could shell the peas so fast with her injured right hand. For a short time she had worked at a plastics factory to get extra money, and in reaching into an oven to retrieve the just-baked brush, comb & mirror set, the oven door malfunctioned, closing on her wrist. It caused severe damage; her fingers would never straighten again, set permanently into a claw.

But being a farm woman, she made do. What could not be cured must be endured, I’d say. Surgeries could not reverse the damage, and the metal contraption she got from the doctors for physical therapy more often than not was used to entertain us kids. What kid would not be entranced by something metal with leather thongs and rubber bands that fit over your hand like a gauntlet? We were warned about using it to actually punch each other. Grandma had a habit of handing a knife to us and having us cut our own instruments of punishment off a tree outside! We kids learned quickly!!

Grandma wasn’t even slowed down by the accident. She continued to knit, garden, can, tend the animals, whatever it took to keep the farm going. So there we sat, my young legs trying to push the swing into a real SWING, and Grandma’s feet planted firmly on the floor, keeping it down to a slight, steady rocking. She’d snap the top off the pea pod, pop it open, and zip a thumb right through the pod, peas falling into the bowl in her lap. She laughed when I tried to imitate her and the peas went everywhere BUT in the bowl.

I’m a little annoyed that she never clued me in on how good fresh raw peas tasted, but then, if I had known that back then, there would have been fewer peas in my bowl. I LOVE peas! Any way, shape or form. So I guess my Grandma knew what she was doing, as usual.

My peas are done now, and it’s time to plant more if I want some for fall. It is probably too late, but I’ll have to try anyway. I promised my backyard neighbor that I’d plant them along the fence line this time, since she loves peas as much as I do! As long as she leaves the peas on MY side to me, she can have whatever grows on HER side.

The Fight Is On!

When my brothers and I were kids, two of us had to wear glasses (we still do!) The youngest (Lee) was SUPPOSED to wear them for reading, but refused. So my other brother (Glenn) and I hated him. Nothing personal, you understand!

The number one rule in our house at that time, besides not running in and out of the air conditioned living room (that meant letting the cold out of the room every time we went thru the curtain!), was this; if we got into a fight with each other, the glasses had to come off first! Period. End of sentence. Woe be to the one who forgot and risked or actually did get their glasses broken!

Number two rule was to take it outside. That made a lot of sense, seeing how we were living in a tiny little house at the time on our grandparent’s farm. I can’t remember how many fights. or “tussles”, we had back then, but I do remember they fell off sharply when at one point grandpa came out with a folding chair and made a production of setting it up and sitting down to enjoy the free show. I’m sure we kids felt rather silly when he did that. I was rather embarrassed!

You know, I’m constantly amazed at how well we turned out, and at the fact that we managed to survive childhood relatively unscathed.

Goodbye, Uncle Walt

My grandparents had an old black and white Zenith back in the 60’s and 70’s. One of the first to have a remote control, which was top of the line back then. The remote, affectionately called “the clicker”, had 3 buttons; one for on and off, one for channel up, and the last for channel down. We got 3 stations on bad days, and 4 on good ones. They were ABC (channel 4), NBC (channel 6), and CBS (channel 10). Oh, and PBS, which was 32 or 34 if you had the UHF antenna pointed in the right direction and the sun was shining.

There were just a few rules that were sacrosanct when it came to the old black & white Zenith: Sunday morning before church we watched the televangelists, and if church got out early Sunday night we could catch most of Disney! Saturday evening was wrestling, and the weekday evening news was ALWAYS CBS with Walter Cronkite. No ifs-ands-or-buts about it. If our chores were done early we could watch Flippo, which was usually great. Or the Banana Splits. But the news was Walter Cronkite, as no one else would suffice.

This carried over to my parents. I believe they tended to watch Walter as well. He made us feel … comfortable, I guess…when his face was on the screen, giving us the good as well as the bad. He didn’t use big words, or act like he had to talk down to the general public. He didn’t “purtify” or make flowery speech. He gave it to us straight, whether it was man landing on the moon, or the assassination of a president. He reacted to the news as well, showing us that he was human, a man of the people, so to say.

I don’t think he ever made a misstep in his job or his life. He was the first reporter to be called an “anchor”, and in that he was aptly named. He anchored entire families to the television to hang on his every word. Nowadays entire families are split up: one is the in living room, actually watching the television, while another is in the bedroom getting their news online. Maybe a child is at the library, skimming over the MSN headlines, or in their own bedroom, watching their own television, away from the rest of the family…wherever they might be.

He popped up once in a while after his retirement, and every time I heard his name or saw his picture, I’d flash back to those times spent on my grandparent’s farm. Grandpa worked for the Electric company for his full time job, then came home to his modest 15 acre farm and took care of a couple of cows, a pony or two, the chickens, and a few other odds and ends critters he had running around in the pasture. Maybe some weeding or tilling the vegetable patch. Then in to wash up and relax in the living room with Walter while the women (grandma and mom) got supper ready. Me being a tomboy, I usually found something better to do, or else I’d sneak into the living room with grandpa and we’d watch the news together.

Walter was so a part of my childhood that it almost feels like I’ve lost a family member. Maybe a kindly uncle, or someone along that line. I, for one, will miss him. And that’s the way it was.