Hey
Folks!
Every year about this time, my wife Em talks me into coming up with a
fresh newsletter about the recent life and times of the Stephens clan and
the Notevena Ranch for your sole amusement. Over the years we have heard
from ya’ll about how you get a kick out of these adventures of ours and
how much you enjoy reading about them. Folks, all these stories are (for
the most part) true! Only the names have been changed to protect those
who no longer want to be associated with us.
As
a result of all the data and particulates I gathered and gleaned from this
summers’ vacation, I have entitled this newsletter, “WHAT I LEARNED ON MY
SUMMER VACATION”. I’ll start with the first leg of the trip which is the
long drive back to the cottage, on Lake Michigan. We drive because we
always seem to be delivering artwork to clients and galleries along the
way, so we take the little woman’s S.U.V. loaded to the gills with artwork
and blank canvases. (I do a little painting between daily fishing
trips!) Other than the all inclusive pit and gas stops at freeway tote’ n
toots along the way, one of our major stops is a Sam’s Club to load up on
supplies for the cottage. While Em shops for important stuff like beer,
chips, and beer, I find myself wandering aimlessly up and down the tool
aisle. After working up an appetite and drooling over tools I already
have, I ooze over to one of those little meals-on-wheels that are giving
away free food. “Land O’ Goshen”…. Free food! Now, you know how certain
things you experience as a child stick with you the rest of your life…
??? Well, as a result of growing up poor and malnourished on wax lips and
pixie sticks, (the word rickets comes to mind), free food still gives me a
full-body shiver. They cut those little samples into tiny chunks and
slivers to make it perfectly clear that you are just tasting here, not
having lunch. But the kid in me kicks in and after making the rounds a
few times, those little Suzie Homemakers would see me coming and rush over
to pull away the sample trays like villagers scrambling to hide their
daughters from marauding Huns. By the time the little woman gathered me
up and pulled me away from the feed trough, my six pack I worked so hard
for all winter, turned into a pony keg inside of about an hour.
Back out on the highway, I find myself enjoying the fruits of my labor by
wearing out the left side of my tongue trying to get at that last little
morsel jammed between my eye teeth, (I couldn’t see what I was saying!)
all the time denying the fact I was completely gratified after having just
committed culinary sin. (Emerill would have had my stomach pumped. BAM!)
So…. What did I learn from this? That under certain circumstances, you can
actually get your name mentioned over the intercom at Sam’s Club, (but it
might be followed by, “step away from the food cart”).
After a side trip to Chicago for some business mixed with pleasure with
good friends/clients, we finally land at the lake house after a week of
driving. After all the docks and boats are put out in the water, I had to
head to town for a part for the pontoon boat. As a relative new owner of
water toys, I am finding out that if it flies or floats, it will try to
sink your wallet. While we were there, Em spotted a two-passenger tube
that we could pull our grandkids behind the 60 horse Merc, and quicker
than a chicken on a June bug, I saw the salesman snatch the Visa card out
of her hand. (As much money as I have spent with him in the past two
years, the least he could have done is offer me some curly fries with
that). The first passengers on the tube were Mick & Ashley. Mick is the
16 year old son of our good friends from Chicago that have vacationed with
us every year for the past 8 or so years. I put the pedal to the metal
and cranked the boat right and left and around in circles, dragging those
kids over the waves while they rocked the tube back and forth to add a
little more excitement to the experience. As for me, I just enjoy the
fishing part of water sports but if one is going to actually get into the
water, it is a law that they must wear a life jacket. I didn’t hear from
Ashley but a couple days later Mick told me he just now could wear a shirt
cause the life jacket just about erased both nipples off his chest!! I
tried to console him by implying it could have been worse… he could have
damaged a body part that actually functions. I am not yet sure what I am
supposed to learn from damaged nipples.
Our
next door neighbors at the cottage on the lake are Jim and Sandy. We were
sitting out on their deck one evening when somehow the conversation turned
to an incident that happened to Jim awhile back in Newego, at the local
Dew Drop Inn. He was slamming a few back one evening when he decided it
was time to head home. Now home was just around the corner, and Jim,
feeling ten foot tall and bullet proof staggers outside towards the little
red truck that took him there. As he was fumbling for his keys, he slips
on the ice and, judging by the Big Dipper, realized he was headed south.
Sometimes levity is no laughing matter and while he lays there on the ice
contemplating the galaxy, his right ankle starts a-burning like a rattler
just bit into it. As he tried to stand up, he folded like a bad poker
hand and ended up studying the stars again. As Jim laid there full of
snake oil and resigning himself to the thought that we all gotta die
sometime, a couple of gents of the feminine persuasion passed by and as
Jim tells it, “Pert neared” tripped over him. The two were more than
accommodating and picked him up off the ice and got him to the nearest
infirmary. Thank Goodness for all of us that Jim is now a T-Totaler.
Apparently what I am supposed to learn from this is that little red trucks
can “drive a man to drinkin’”
We
interrupted our vacation in August to fly back to Albuquerque for the
birth of our second grandbaby, Aurora Rose. During the visit, granny and
I begged to take our grandson, Devin, down to the ranch for a few days so
he could ride “Junebug” and give mamma and dad a chance to get acquainted
with the new addition to the family. He’s 3 ½ years old and had never
been away from his mamma for more than an evening. His mamma was
naturally apprehensive to allow her baby boy to go live for 3 days with
grandpa, who at my age, still enjoys doing things that end in “ing” and
believe that all problems with neighbors can be resolved with a rooftop
and an AK-47. I totally reassured her by saying she didn’t have anything
to worry about as I also was born with opposable thumbs and haven’t lost
an eye yet! (I am also the grandpa who teaches her son morsels of wisdom
when he whines like, “you can wish in one hand and poop in the other and
see which one fills up first!) She finally agreed but two cuts and three
bruises into the second day, I’m leading Devin around on “Junebug” when I
turned to open the gate and I hear a squall like that of an injured cat,
followed by a resounding “plop”. The cat was granny and the plop was
Devin. As any grandparent knows, I don’t need to punish myself anymore
than I already have by bringing up the subject again, but needless to say,
two days later he had the most awesome fluorescent green cast I have ever
seen, which offered grandpa a new surface to paint on. I reminded his
mamma about the time she was seven and wrecked her bike by trying to keep
up with her older brother. She whined around the house for two days and I
told her to go outside and rub some dirt on it and it will be all better.
Most of the time my wife is easy to talk to when she is not armed, but on
that same day she miraculously convinced me in no uncertain terms that my
tried and true poultice of bag balm and horse liniment wasn’t going to
work this time and soon Trenna was navigating through the house on
crutches and a cast just fine. As I was reflecting back on this memorable
moment with Devin’s mamma, I realized about half way through my monologue
that my case had been made and I wasn’t about to score anymore points by
dancing with danger.
What did I learn here? I learned to give really nice Christmas presents
to my grandkids’ mammas!
You
know the old saying, “You can take the boy out of the country but you
can’t take the country out of the boy!” Well, apparently the same holds
true for some ex-Marines. I guess you can take the leatherneck out of the
Marines but you can’t take the marines out of the leatherneck. Our
neighbor, Rhonda, had Em and I down for dinner one night and her dad, Sam,
who is an ex-Marine, happened to be visiting for a couple weeks, sat down
to have supper with us. Sam has Marine bumper stickers all over the
outside of his truck; a Marine license plate cover; monogrammed “Marines”
shirts; and I can’t count what all else he has with “Marines” on it. God
bless the man for being willing to take a bullet for my freedom, but half
way through the meal, and right in the middle of a gossipy interlude
between Em and Rhonda, Sam pipes up and says, “Rhonda, where’s the picture
of my coffin?” Fortunately, the two girls and I were able to hold our
composer and keep ourselves from blowing chunks of Caesar salad and tater
tots through our noses in a fit of convulsive laughter long enough for Sam
to grab the 8 ½ x 11 full glossy photograph of the casket and explain how
he wanted to be buried with full military honors upon his death someday.
As you can imagine, it didn’t strike us as interesting dinner
conversation. Here is where I really understood the magnitude of the term
“Shock and Awe!!”
Well that about wraps it up for this installment of the life and times of
the Stephens Clan and “What I Learned On My Summer Vacation!” Stay tuned
for further developments as they happen, with no commercial interruptions…
and as always… there are no re-runs as this particular writer never goes
on strike! Virgil
