My Grandpa

My Grandpa passed away this week and I thought I would like to share some of my favorite memories of him:

- His favorite story all time about me: When I was just a wee lad, he had this pet cat and he would blow into its ear causing it to shake its head. He would ask the cat, "Do you like Brent?" and then would secretly blow into its ear causing it to shake its head no. I thought I would be clever and ask the cat, "Well, do you like Grandpa?" and the cat would just sit there and not shake its head. Over and over I would ask the cat the same question, but it would always just sit there without responding. It was quite a few years later until he told me he had been tricking me with this cat by blowing into its ear. He got quite a kick out of the whole deal.

- Fishing down by Norton lake and setting up lines overnight with bells on them that would ring when the pole was jerked from a fish biting.

- His love of crazy and funny hats. He had this hat that would hold two beers at once so you could drink out of it, a hat that said "Old Fart" on it, and many others.

- We would always take a trip to get hotcakes from McDonalds.

- Hanging out with the "guys" for a morning coffee and roll at Jack Wards. Almost every trip was accompanied with Grandpa trying to find me a new running outfit there.

- My Grandpa loved ice cream...and also naps. It was quite the common scene for him to fall asleep in his sofa chair with a half gallon of "Tin-Lizzy" ice cream melting away in his lap.

- Serving and working for other people. My Grandpa did it all, from working the football sidelines on the chain gang for 60 years, to mowing about half the lawns in Norton it seamed. He was always helping someone out and staying busy.

- Trash talk about the Denver Broncos from an avid Chiefs fan. Even this year he was still calling me up to give me a hard time about the Broncos when the Chiefs beat them!

- One of my last memories when I was with him in Norton before he became ill was when he had me drive him to the bank to withdraw some money so we could go buy Grandma some flowers. We then headed over to the flower shop and he wanted to make sure we got a real nice and pretty set of flowers. He was very excited to give them to Grandma. He was convinced he was being sneaky and she wouldn't know what we were up to, but I had a hunch that she knew where we were off to when I saw her in the living room with a simple smile on her face as we were "sneaking" out the back door .

I am very thankful for all the memories I have of him.