No, you are not crazy. This post is being made after systematically deleting nearly every post on this blog.
I am retiring this blog completely.
If you are linked here, and you know about my real name blog, you can change this link to the real blog as it is, a) more interesting, and b) posted to on a nearly daily basis. Sometimes up to four times a day on weekends, because that's just how much of a loser I am.
So, good-bye to jnsys. Hello firstlast.blogspot.com. You can email me at jnasys @ gmail dot com, if you would like to read the new...er... blog.
It's been fun, folks!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Thursday, March 02, 2006
I have a treasure story to share...
It's funny how, when you get older, certain memories have become so common place, that you forget how truly wonderful and marvelous things happened in your life. I had almost forgotten about this, until a story in the paper brought it rushing back...
This is not a story of what happened to me, but it is a story of what happened to my cousin Cole, his mother, and stepfather.
To understand this story, you will need to know a few facts about the players. Cole was about 11 or twelve when this happened, I think. I am a little muddy on the details, but I am pretty sure that I was 13 at the time.
When I was seven, a terrible tornado hit my hometown, wiping out a good portion of it, including my aunt and cousin's apartment building. It was a beautiful yellow house, two stories tall, on the corner of Main and 12th Avenue. It was right on the edge of the historical district, if you could call it that. That night, we were lucky. I was supposed to stay with them overnight, but my aunt hadn't gotten back from the fields yet (she was bean-walking, by which we northwestern Iowans mean taking a hoe, and walking the rows of beans, weeding).
The upstairs neighbor's car ended up in the basement, where we would have taken shelter. The rest of the home fell into the basement and made a mound much higher than a seven year old girl. It still remember standing next to it, amid the rubble. So surreal...
Out of the rubble came three things.
On what had been the top step by the front door, in a row, they found a jar of change, and her diamond engagement ring from my soon-to-be Uncle Jim. Later, they found a drawer, still neatly packed, with some of my cousin's clothes, and their birth certificates. She was left with only her cut-off jeans, and the halter top she had been wearing when she left home that day, but she had her precious engagement ring, and her family.
Now, back in those days, (honest, I'm only 34, but this is the truth)... Back in those days, a divorce in the Catholic church took 10 years. Yes, you read that correctly. My aunt had been married previously, at a very early age, and as her new fiance was Catholic, she had to get an annulment in the church, even though her divorce had taken place when my cousin was very young.
A couple of years after the tornado, sick of the trailer they had been living in, my aunt and her fiance started building a house on his uncle's farm near a neighboring town. Uncle Eldon, as all of us called him, was especially close to my Uncle Jim, and wanted him and his new family to live on the farm with him. He lived in an old farmhouse on the property, and the new house for my aunt and uncle, was to be built at an angle to the old, but so close that you could touch one corner of the old house, and just about reach the other (it was the only place big enough for it).
I remember the look on my aunt's face, as she showed us the outline of where their house would be. They still had a lot of years left to wait for the annulment, but they were anxious to be a family, and she was thrilled about her new home.
Uncle Eldon doted on the family, and after the house was built, my aunt cooked for him, and watched over him as if he were her own uncle.
When I was eight, and Cole was six, my cousin Jamie was born. Three days later, my twin sisters were born. Because the kids were so close in age, we spent a lot of time on the farm. I loved getting to go to their home, and the farm was wonderful. There was a huge grove to the north, and Cole and I would play that we were camping, or having adventures in the woods.
Uncle Eldon was very quiet, and he was a little.... eccentric. He slept on his front porch, no matter the weather. Cole was the only one ever invited into his home. He ate all of his meals with my aunt and her family, and she did all of his laundry.
Years went by, and he was a firm, if increasingly frail fixture in all of our lives.
One day, when my cousin was around eleven, Uncle Eldon didn't show up for breakfast.
My cousin found him.
Afterwards, there was a lot of grief, and not a little uncertainty. What would happen to the farm? Would they have to leave their home?
My cousin led them with confidence to a picture on the wall. Behind it, there was a key to the safe deposit box at the bank. He also knew where the important papers were. Uncle Eldon had told him these things, in case something happened to him.
He showed them other things as well, and understand that my uncle Jim hadn't been in the house in years, and my aunt had never been, even though they had lived within reach of each other for quite a few years.
His mother's room was sealed off, left just as it had been when she died. The house had not been changed in decades, and was stuffed full of antiques, and other things (like dozens of the same shirts he always wore, still in their shrink wrap).
Then, my cousin showed my aunt the deep freeze.
In the deep freeze were a bunch of ice cream buckets.
When they opened the buckets, they found money.
By the time they were finished, between the bank and the freezer, they found well over a million dollars.
The will named my uncle and aunt and their children as his heirs.
----
This is a true story, although I may have some of the details wrong, due to the fog of twenty years. I wish my cousin would write the whole story for us, although I would never presume to ask. It's just crazy that I honestly had not thought of this for well over ten years...
This is not a story of what happened to me, but it is a story of what happened to my cousin Cole, his mother, and stepfather.
To understand this story, you will need to know a few facts about the players. Cole was about 11 or twelve when this happened, I think. I am a little muddy on the details, but I am pretty sure that I was 13 at the time.
When I was seven, a terrible tornado hit my hometown, wiping out a good portion of it, including my aunt and cousin's apartment building. It was a beautiful yellow house, two stories tall, on the corner of Main and 12th Avenue. It was right on the edge of the historical district, if you could call it that. That night, we were lucky. I was supposed to stay with them overnight, but my aunt hadn't gotten back from the fields yet (she was bean-walking, by which we northwestern Iowans mean taking a hoe, and walking the rows of beans, weeding).
The upstairs neighbor's car ended up in the basement, where we would have taken shelter. The rest of the home fell into the basement and made a mound much higher than a seven year old girl. It still remember standing next to it, amid the rubble. So surreal...
Out of the rubble came three things.
On what had been the top step by the front door, in a row, they found a jar of change, and her diamond engagement ring from my soon-to-be Uncle Jim. Later, they found a drawer, still neatly packed, with some of my cousin's clothes, and their birth certificates. She was left with only her cut-off jeans, and the halter top she had been wearing when she left home that day, but she had her precious engagement ring, and her family.
Now, back in those days, (honest, I'm only 34, but this is the truth)... Back in those days, a divorce in the Catholic church took 10 years. Yes, you read that correctly. My aunt had been married previously, at a very early age, and as her new fiance was Catholic, she had to get an annulment in the church, even though her divorce had taken place when my cousin was very young.
A couple of years after the tornado, sick of the trailer they had been living in, my aunt and her fiance started building a house on his uncle's farm near a neighboring town. Uncle Eldon, as all of us called him, was especially close to my Uncle Jim, and wanted him and his new family to live on the farm with him. He lived in an old farmhouse on the property, and the new house for my aunt and uncle, was to be built at an angle to the old, but so close that you could touch one corner of the old house, and just about reach the other (it was the only place big enough for it).
I remember the look on my aunt's face, as she showed us the outline of where their house would be. They still had a lot of years left to wait for the annulment, but they were anxious to be a family, and she was thrilled about her new home.
Uncle Eldon doted on the family, and after the house was built, my aunt cooked for him, and watched over him as if he were her own uncle.
When I was eight, and Cole was six, my cousin Jamie was born. Three days later, my twin sisters were born. Because the kids were so close in age, we spent a lot of time on the farm. I loved getting to go to their home, and the farm was wonderful. There was a huge grove to the north, and Cole and I would play that we were camping, or having adventures in the woods.
Uncle Eldon was very quiet, and he was a little.... eccentric. He slept on his front porch, no matter the weather. Cole was the only one ever invited into his home. He ate all of his meals with my aunt and her family, and she did all of his laundry.
Years went by, and he was a firm, if increasingly frail fixture in all of our lives.
One day, when my cousin was around eleven, Uncle Eldon didn't show up for breakfast.
My cousin found him.
Afterwards, there was a lot of grief, and not a little uncertainty. What would happen to the farm? Would they have to leave their home?
My cousin led them with confidence to a picture on the wall. Behind it, there was a key to the safe deposit box at the bank. He also knew where the important papers were. Uncle Eldon had told him these things, in case something happened to him.
He showed them other things as well, and understand that my uncle Jim hadn't been in the house in years, and my aunt had never been, even though they had lived within reach of each other for quite a few years.
His mother's room was sealed off, left just as it had been when she died. The house had not been changed in decades, and was stuffed full of antiques, and other things (like dozens of the same shirts he always wore, still in their shrink wrap).
Then, my cousin showed my aunt the deep freeze.
In the deep freeze were a bunch of ice cream buckets.
When they opened the buckets, they found money.
By the time they were finished, between the bank and the freezer, they found well over a million dollars.
The will named my uncle and aunt and their children as his heirs.
----
This is a true story, although I may have some of the details wrong, due to the fog of twenty years. I wish my cousin would write the whole story for us, although I would never presume to ask. It's just crazy that I honestly had not thought of this for well over ten years...
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