a couple of weeks ago...

i went to my great uncle's funeral. his name was ted and he was married to my grandma's older sister. the funeral turned out to be a much more emotional event than i anticipated.

growing up i spent a lot of time with my paternal grandparents (that is me and my grandpa in my profile pic). my first five years i'm pretty sure they raised me and were the only stability i had. my mother was trying to get her stuff together. when i was five they moved to beaver mountain - a little community (on a mountain) in eastern oklahoma. from about 5 to 13 i would spend weeks in the summer with them. i would come home for a week here and there. i was generally at their house one weekend a month during the school year. i loved them and consider them to be the saving grace in my really dysfunctional family. and in all honestly i think they were trying to make up for my crappy father.

but somewhere along the line i grew up and we don't see each other so much. holidays are now split between my immediate family and e's family and often there's not enough time. and then there's my father who after his stint in the pokie, now lives with them. this does not encourage me. anyway, i don't see them enough and probably am a horrible granddaughter. but i do love them, and tear up just thinking about how much they mean to me.

back to my uncle ted and aunt dortha, growing up they were always around. they are in most of my childhood memories that include my grandparents. they also lived on beaver mountain and i would walk to their house almost everyday. aunt dortha always had butterscotch candy and homemade lemonade. and they made wood crafts back when wood crafts were cool - always something to look at while visiting.

the funeral was so sad. my aunt told me that my grandpa and my uncle were the best of friends. my aunt told me i was always her favorite. there were photos and 56 years of marriage memories. my grandpa broke down at the casket. i think the funeral was my first glimpse into the future. the future of my grandparents dying. the future of everything changing - my childhood slipping away.

since then i've been thinking about the things that i can attribute to my grandparents - random skills, personality quirks, experiences - and the list is quite lenghty. i wish you could all meet freda and sug - i think you would like them.

1. knowing how to bait a hook (worm or minnow)
2. knowing how to cast a fishing pole
3. have painted my name on a turtle
4. know where blue moutain, tater hill, goat canyon and tucker's knob are
5. have been to robber's cave more times than i can count
6. know what a guinea is
7. my love of junk stores and flea markets
   
8. was driving a car by the time i was 10
9. ran over a turkey while doing #8
   
10. give names to random things - my grandma has a plant named herbie (that's about 25 years old) and a blanket named clara
11. know how to dig potatoes
12. am deathly afraid of ghosts
    
13. appreciate bob wills and jimmy rodgers
    
14. my love of willie nelson
15. my love of fresh eggs
16. my double love of gravy made from bacon grease
17. my love of fried taters
18. my love of blackberries and my hatred of picking them
19. starting my period at their house and having to tell my grandma
    
20. appreciation of pbs nature specials
21. exposure to crazy pentecostal women
    
22. love of glass hens
23. loving the sound of a window a/c because it reminds me of summers with no central air
    
24. picking corn off the stalk and eating it five minutes later
25. snapping green beans
26. shelling peas
27. my appreciation for crafty stuff
28. going to town once a week
29. having a pony named princess
30. in the fifth grade writing a report on the state of utah because my grandpa's name is utah but for some reason everyone calls him sug (pronounced like sugar)
31. my sense of humor
32. knowing how to identify deer tracks