Grandpa Holder and Grandma Carol came all the way from Missouri to visit us last week, and we had a great time. My daughter A’Dell had a lot of board games ready to play as soon as they arrived….her favorite of which is the “Wheel of Fortune” board game, so I’ve been playing Vanna White for the weekend, orchestrating the board as they guessed letters and tried to solve the puzzle.
They say Vanna White makes millions of dollars for just a few weeks of filming, but they didn’t pay me anything, so I guess I need to negotiate a better contract next time. Anyway, lots of the Holder cousins and uncles and aunts and future aunt came over for supper, and A’Dell suckered plenty of them into a board game. We also learned that Uncle James actually works for a business that makes board games, so he’s got a few more new games in the mail headed for our house this week, and A’Dell’s really excited about that.
Baby Tucker did his part to entertain everyone at the party, too. He is quite a “ham,” and he loved having all eyes on him as he danced and showed them his cute little laugh. Baby Tucker (John Tucker Holder) is named after Grandpa, making him the 3rdgeneration of “big Johns” in the family, and we got a nice picture of them.
Later, as we sat around the dinner table, Grandpa Holder told us about the time that he was home alone on the dairy farm, 9 years old, and decided he “wanted to drive daddy’s truck.” So he took off with it, and got in a hurry on the way home “hoping to get home before daddy did” so he wouldn’t get caught. And well, you know this story’s gonna end in disaster, and it’s a story to be told for many generations to come. So grandpa, then 9 YEARS OLD, sped up to 60 MPH going down the highway in a truck he could probably barely see over the steering wheel or reach the gas pedal. He got home alright, but he took out the fence and a mesquite tree on the way, wrecking his daddy’s new truck. Then he had to set 11 fence posts and rebuild the fence all by himself (except for a neighbor) who “took mercy on him and helped a little” he said. That was back in the early 1950’s—another day and time. I’d like to see a 9 year old build a fence like that now.
He also shared that when he was really little; looking after the dairy cows was one of his chores. So to see across the farm, he would climb the tallest Oak Tree out there and sit on one of the branches as he counted the cows. He was just five years old then.
In a really gross, but comical, antidote he added, “When it was really cold outside, I would step on the cow patties as I walked across the field to stay warm!”
All the grandkids roared with laughter when he told us that (especially the boys). Who knows if that’s true or not, but I guess when Grandpa gets to be a certain age, you can get away with telling any tale—no matter how tall! To be truthful, I can imagine a little five-year-old boy in the 1940’s doing something like that… hopping from one cow patty to the next just to gross-out their sisters and mothers.
Boys!