1st Person History

What Would You Ask?

mdahle — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 03:08:21 +0000

Given the opportunity to sit with your favorite person, what would you want to know? Here are a few ticklers to get your brain going...

 - What kind of trouble did you get into in grade school?
 - What did you want to be when you grew up?
 - What were you afraid of when you were small?
 - How did you pick on your siblings?
 - Who was your favorite relative and why?
 - When did you first experience awe?

A million more questions are floating around out there somewhere. What would you ask?

Nice Day with Grandma T

mdahle — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 03:05:30 +0000

(Note: This post originally appeared 9 -24-2010 on our originally blog)

Last Saturday I was the odd man out in my family.

My husband was playing in a golf tournament and my girls were at a ranch rodeo with friends and their Grandma.

So I headed up to Grandma T’s with a bucket of chicken, pasta salad, and a bunch of grapes.

Hang on. I’m going to sidetrack here a second.
My sister is getting married, and for table numbers she’s using wedding photos of her parents, grandparents, etc with a mini biography on the back. My sister gave me the job of getting all the stories together.

So I arrived with chicken and a mission.

I knew Grandma and Grandpa T courted via letters all through WWII, but I had no idea their whole relationship started with a letter Grandma wrote to Grandpa… she made the first move.

G&G first met when Grandma was 7 years old. At a wedding dance, she tried to get Grandpa to dance, but he was too shy and hid behind his mom. Fast forward nine years. Grandma was on her way to a dance with a few of her siblings and they saw a young man walking the same direction. So they stopped and picked him up.

It was Grandpa. They may or may not have danced that night.

Fast forward some more, Grandpa had gone to work for the CCC, Grandma heard that he was seriously ill, and she decided to write.

And that’s how it all began.

Recipes

mdahle — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:36:38 +0000

Mother’s Day is a big holiday in our family.

Every year Dad cooks a 20 lb. prime rib on the charcoal grill. My in-laws, aunts, sister, nephew, everyone comes home to Mom and Dad’s for a wonderful meal.

This year my Aunt Tammy brought pink salad. I haven’t had that dish in years. And by years I mean since my childhood. It was a very familar, comforting taste, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

It turns out, this was an old recipe of my grandma’s, who died when I was 8. It’s amazing how our senses of smell and taste can trigger feelings and memories.