I missed my Grandma’s 85th Birthday. She and my grandpa just went into a nursing home this week. He’s about to be 93. Here are some of my favorite memories with Grandpa and Grandma Tjarks…

Dear Grandma,

When I think about my childhood, my mind immediately jumps to spending the weekends with you and Grandpa. I looked forward to coming over to spend the night so much! I can’t believe that you both played along when I talked about how I wanted to live in a big city and asked you to play “taxi” with me. I’ll never forget you sitting in back with me, Grandpa wearing his top hat chauffeuring us around Britt. We would stop at the dime store and look around and then later you’d be so patient with me as you taught me to sew. Sorry I wasn’t such a good student! I am going to try to start to quilt again though, this time without a machine, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Do you remember when we went to the Winnebago County fair and dad [i'm just assuming it was him, because it seems like it's something he would do--sorry pops!] locked the keys in the car. I had to have been really young because we had the car before the Tempo, and we had to all squeeze into someones car [I feel like they were random people that offered to drive us, but I could be wrong], ride home and then I had to crawl through the window in the living room to find keys to go back to the fair and drive the car home. I remember even then seeing the look on your face and knowing how ridiculous you thought the whole situation was.

I don’t know if there was a Christmas Eve service where at least some of us didn’t get the giggles. And it’s so true when they say laughter is contagious, because it would start with one of us [probably me] and pretty soon it would errupt down the entire row, most likely at the most inappropriate moment of the evening. I know you were home with Janet, but a couple years ago Grandpa spilled wax on his pants and we all lost it. Betsy, Lindsey, Erik and I were laughing so hard. We couldn’t even look at each other for the rest of the night without starting to giggle again [and yes, I did say this was just a couple years ago...]

I don’t know why, but this always cracks me up…whenever we would leave your house, Grandpa would go outside and try to get the neighbors dog all “riled up”. He would bark at it, or do whatever it took to get the dog barking. You would just laugh and tell him to stop. Oh, and for the record, a Tjarks family gathering will never be complete without Jello. I think you started that. And playing cards with those president cards you had, do you remember those? I loved those cards! And Racko [still one of my favorite games] and Othello. Othello rocked, I don’t even know if you can still buy it anymore. You and Grandpa were always so patient with us, and I’m pretty sure you always let us win.

I love you! Thanks for all the memories. And I can’t wait to see you and Grandpa in December.

Katie Jo

Tags: childhood, family, home, jello, othello, racko

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 10:46 pm and is filed under just me, makes my heart smile, random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.