14 June 2005

A light-hearted trip to the Dark Side.


This photo from 1965, has absolutely nothing at all to do with kntting. I just posted it because I thought it important to demonstrate to the world that I haven't always been this zaftig.

In my hand is a bottle of soap bubbles. The location is Los Angeles, California, following my first visit to Disneyland. The sausage roll atop my massive forehead was made courtesy of my mother, Shirley, The Glamour Queen.

A few weeks prior to her death, Ms. Dorothy Harris, close family friend who is, in effect, like family, gave this photo to me. She got it from her sister Olga, who had kept it all these years. (Olga passed away about a year and a half before Dorothy, so we got an opportunity to go through her old photos from the 'Roarin' Twenties.' )

During my recent Kansas Death Tour 2005, we visited and laid flowers at the graves of Olga, Dorothy, and the rest of her family. Nobody is left to do it for them, and since they've always been so generous to us through the years, we were happy to do it for them. While tending to their family plot, we learned a lot from the old timers who were at the Frankfort Cemetery to aid people like us, who needed assistance finding a grave, or a public washroom, etc.

One man of le troisième âge even remembered Dorothy and Olga's brother, Otis because his name was Otis, too. Another recalled Chet, the patriarch of the Harris family, helping out on his father's farm when the thresh machine broke down. (Chet was somewhat before my time, so I never had the pleasure). My favorite story was about my Great-Great Uncle Eddie, who was a bootlegger during prohibition. I remember him, because he would drive up to Omaha to visit his sister (my Great-Grandmother Anna) in his shiny red Cadillac convertible. (I always called it the Batmobile because of its immense tail fins). He would always bring rolls of Kennedy half-dollars directly from the mint, because he knew I had a coin collection. Uncle Eddie always reminded me of a black Leon Redbone. And he was the best whistler I ever heard in my whole life.

There are other bits and pieces stored in my memory, about friends and relatives who have been long gone from this earthy plane. More on our recent travels from the Kansas Death Tour 2005, (in which we covered six cemeteries in two days) will be posted once I get it all together . And that could take some time, so I thank you in advance for your patience.

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