Sort of the last
trail .... it is in the sense that it is the driveway to my Dakota home. Around the bend in the distance is the house. The property beyond and on both sides of the road belongs to me and my children, and I have been thinking about building a second house somewhere in those woodlands, high on a hilltop so I can look out at the Missouri River in the distance. Be a nice place to grow old .... maybe ....
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Großvater
Today
is my maternal grandfather's birthday. He was sort of a full-blood German. I
say sort of because his/our ancestors went from Germany to Russia and spent a
couple of generations there before packing up and moving on to Manitoba,
Canada, and from there to North Dakota and then to Wisconsin and finally to
Minnesota -- so, who can know with exact certainty what genes may have entered
the family tree during those stopovers.
Whatever
.... he was pretty much confident he was one hundred percent German and he grew
up in a household where German was the everyday language, both spoken and
written. I have a few letters exchanged between his father and his mother
written in the language of the "old country." Who am I to argue with his claim
to be German?
Like
many people -- most people, probably -- I wish I would have spent more time
talking with him and learning about him. But, I was young and he was old and
the two often are like oil and water. I see it now as my loss, but I will not
dwell on loss and sadness because the moments when we were together were good
times and happy times.
Included
is my favorite song, "A Man I'll Never Be," from among those recorded by one of my favorite bands,
Boston, set to paintings by my favorite Impressionist artist, Claude Monet, in
one of my favorite places on Earth, Monet's garden at Giverny in France.
Grandpa was into polka and waltz and country music, but I will take a chance
that he would have approved of Boston and I know he would like Monet and the
flowers of Giverny because he maintained two gardens of his own –- one with
vegetables and another with flowers.
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Großvater....
2 comments:
Wow!!What a beautiful photo!!Have you ever lived there??Amazing!!
Whats the house like??
Gosh i should like to be there!!
If i was you a had moved there as soon as possible.
It is nice to read about your grandfather.He did some great work.
I hope you will show more photes from the place
I really enjoyed it
Best wishes Anita
Yes, Anita, I lived there for a number of years. My time there ended when my marriage ended. I enjoyed living there for a number of reasons, most of them revolving around being in the midst of Nature and for having the opportunity to do a bit of shooting whenever I wished to do it. I had a few shooting ranges set up and, on mornings when weather permitted and my mood was right, I would go out on the deck and "pop off" a few dozen rounds at targets arranged in the yard .... fun/fun/fun ....
The house is a rather typical "ranch style" home, with nothing really special about it other than the hilltop location which includes some absolutely spectacular views that go on for miles and miles. My son lives in the original house now, which is why I made the comment about "maybe" building a second house there.
My grandfather was a special man in many ways and he is one of my favorite people, which is why I have included some of my other "favorites" in this post about his birthday. In fact, he and my grandmother's brother were the two most influential men of my boyhood. I am grateful to have had both of them.
Thank you, Anita, for coming here today and for writing a comment for me. Your presence makes the day bright for me and, believe me, I need brightness in my life ....
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