Basking in Laxatives

During the time that Grandpa David Smith lived with us, in the mid 1970's, he was suffering from Alzheimer's/Dementia and would often get confused about where he was and when he was. Mom was given strict directions by his doctor concerning his diet. He suffered from Type 2 Diabetes and he didn't remember how to take care of it. He would walk around the house eating anything that was left out, regardless of whether he should or not (one time we caught him munching on the dry cat food and he just said "you know This is pretty good") . This tended to send him into diabetic shock. Because of his diminished reasoning ability it became necessary for our family to be very stealthy when we wanted to have a treat that wasn't on his diet. We would often wait until he went to bed before we pulled out the ice cream, cake, popcorn etc. One night we waited until we thought he had gone to bed. We were watching a movie and wanted to have popcorn with it. Mom popped her huge stainless steel bowl full of popcorn as usual and we all settled down with our individual bowls to enjoy the movie. Part of the way into the movie we heard Grandpa's humming coming down the hall from his bedroom("Ensign, Ensign buddy buddy Ensign"). We all hurriedly concealed our popcorn bowls under our legs or behind our backs etc and acted like we were just casually enjoying a movie together. Grandpa came into the living room, observed all of us trying to look as normal as possible, and exclaimed, "Well, it looks like you are all basking in laxatives". He then turned around, resumed his humming and returned to his room for the night. Since that time basking in laxatives has become an inside joke for those of us that were there.

Sty Wyse and Dythe Vadae

When Andrea and I were poor and attending BYU, we spent a lot of our free time over at Sheryl and Hugh's just hanging out or watching movies. Hugh traveled a lot at the time and Sheryl and the kid's, Matt and Adrienne, enjoyed the company. We would often rent movies on a Friday or Saturday night and take them over to their house to watch them. Sheryl would make popcorn and we would have a fun time together. One night we rented Thorn Birds, which was actually a mini series and was about 4 or 5 hours long. We got to Sheryl's house and Matt and Adrienne were just beginning Sty Wyse (Star Wars), for the 100th time. Sheryl told them they needed to brush their teeth and get ready for bed and then they could finish the movie. They wanted to pause the movie but we said we wanted to watch it while they were getting ready! Sheryl told them that if they hurried, they wouldn't miss much. We didn't want to wait an hour and a half to begin a 4 + hour movie, and they weren't interested in watching ours, so while they scrambled to get ready, we fast forwarded Star Wars almost to the end of the movie. When they came scampering back down ready for bed, they both stared at the TV in amazement and Matt exclaimed, "boy we sure missed a lot!" They never even questioned that we had messed with their movie. So they finished the last few minutes of the movie and went to bed! Poor Matt and Adrienne, we cheated them out of watching Sty Wyse and Dythe Vadae!

The Day my Dad became a Rock Star

My dad was a farmer, the gentleman type, a teacher by day and a farmer by night.
With nine kids to help him not always by choice,
While milking the cows we would hear his deep voice.
“Blankety blank cows!” we all heard him say,
As he fed and watered and milked them each day.

This story that happened involved mom and dad,
It’s a story that’s funny, but also quite sad.
But it wouldn’t have been except for old dad.

Mom in the kitchen, mixing up dough, for chocolate chip cookies, little did know?
There was a slight mix-up, not really her fault,
She’d forgotten to label the sugar and salt.
The discovery made, us kids mourn our loss.
Dad knew exactly where dough should be tossed.
“To the chicken coop!” That’s just what he said.
But by the next morn, half our chickens were dead.
Dad learned a lesson, that salt can be bad,
In as high a percentage as those cookies had.

Another good story I’ll tell to you now, when we put in a hydrant for watering cows.
We dug a big trench, a full 5 feet deep,
And ran water pipe so the water would keep,
Under the frost line from freezing, you see,
my dad and my little brother and me.

My dad in the trench, placing rocks at the base,
While my brother and I hauled the rocks to each place.
I rounded the corner on one fateful trip,
Just in time to see my brother’s hand start to slip.
Luckily, the rock glanced off dad’s fore-head,
But the look on Mike’s face was one of deep dread.
My dad stood there speechless, perfectly still,
Then he said, “If you don’t spank him, I Blankety, will!”

While my dad counted stars from the whack on his head,
I spanked my poor brother or else he’d be dead!

Boys and Cats

We always had cats running around our farm, at least half a dozen at a time. They were always underfoot unless you were 4 years old and then you couldn't catch one to save your life! They seemed to know that they should stay away from kids in that age range. Anyway, I remember one time when I tried all morning to catch one of those darned cats so I could play with it. After what seemed like hours I finally caught one and just to make sure I would know where it would be next time, I put it in a place that I would be sure to find it....., the empty galvanized steel milk can. Needless to say, dad discovered my hiding place when he went to put the milk out for the dairy truck to pick up, the next morning. I'm sad to say, after that we only had 5 cats running around instead of 6.

Dog Japp

One Thanksgiving when Emily was young, we were all sitting around the table waiting for the prayer and meal to start. Dad was cutting the turkey and he had a plate that he was putting all the skin and gristle on. When he finished he turned to one of the boys and said, "go give the dog that". Emily piped in with "Dog Japp, what is Dog Japp"? Hence the term Dog Japp has become synonymous with turkey trimmings that you feed to the dog (at least at our house)!