All the cars are in Atlanta

When we lived in the apartment on Main Street, the grandsons were in town for the fair week. They went downstairs at about 6 p.m., looked out the door, and said, “Where are all the cars?” I recently learned that they’re all in Atlanta clogging up the streets.

 

 

I’ve been thinking about my aunts and uncles from Windom and Delft, Minnesota. My uncle Ben was paranoid that the government was listening to him through the telephone, so he kept it covered with a sweatshirt. One time when we were sitting on the back porch with Ben, he let me and my brother Mark shoot a .22 rifle at the weather vane on the barn. When we hit it, it sure did spin fast. Uncle Ben had television before anyone else I knew. He had an antenna that could pick up stations from as far away as Sioux Falls, South Dakota. John lost three fingers in a corner picker accident. He drove himself all the way home. Lots of people who grow corn are missing fingers. For many years, Ben and John were bachelors and lived together on the family farm. My grandma went out and fixed them lunch every day. We would play Scrabble with her, and she would let me play any word, even the bad ones. She was a Hooge and her brother, Abe, lived about a mile away. Abe’s son was named Edgar. I was always very impressed with his Studebaker. He took us tobogganing east of Delft. It was really fun but very cold. Kate and Marie were the sisters. Kate used to come to our house every year on the train. Marie was the second to youngest. She knew a lot of jokes, and laughed all the time. Harry was the youngest. One time he was in a plane coming home from China. The plane fell 6 miles out of the sky before the engines restarted just before they hit the water. My grandpa B.B. Klaassen was very good at remembering license plates. He memorized everyone’s license plate in the county. I think I take after him in that way. He played the organ at the Carson MB church. My dad’s uncle, Frank B. Klaassen, ran a road grader for the county. He used to let us ride along with him.

 

 

I now have a scleral lens, which is a hard contact for my left eye that is filled with fluid to lubricate the cornea. My cornea has become damaged because I don’t blink as I should due to my PSP. This is supposed to help the cornea heal. The doctors say they think that with time, I’ll be able to see much better than I do now. Nancy has had to learn to put it in and take it out. Sometimes it takes up to four attempts, but today we got it in on the first try.

 

 

My grandson, Louis, has the patience of Job. He waited two months to get his new car, a 2013 Subaru Crosstrek. He and his Dad, George, had to drive all the way to Charlotte, North Carolina to find the right one. He gave me a ride recently. It’s a pretty neat machine.

 

 

Here are some jokes just in from the West coast.

Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”

At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

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