Two Stories, Plus Advice

I want to thank everybody for their support over the last week. I'm back from Pittsburgh, and will soon resume writing the usual action-packed blogs you so eagerly seek. I'm gratified to hear so many people actually went out and did a nice thing and thought of my grandfather. I'm sure he would have appreciated that.

To cap off this week's non-posting, two stories about my grandfather I heard this week. Both involve food. Apparently he ate with great gusto when he was a younger man, although I never knew him to have anything but a normal consumption of food.

-Sam would occasionally eat a banana that he had placed in a hot dog bun. He would also put mustard on this concoction.

-Once, he mistook a box of Bugles for cereal. He poured himself a bowlful, added sugar and milk, and ate the whole thing. When confronted about the odd choice for breakfast, he admitted that the cereal was a little salty.







It was my first experience at a funeral, and won't be my last, but to those of you who will be attending one, allow me to give you this piece of advice: Bring a cheerful baby. My sister brought her nine-month old daughter along, a little girl who does little but laugh and smile, and every time there was either an emotional moment, or a dull moment, or an awkward one, she would gurgle and coo and throw an object at a mourner, and that would break the tension of the moment. It made things a lot easier, let me tell you.