For my whole childhood my dad's parents lived very near to us. This was such a fortunate thing for me. During the first few years of my life, we literally lived on the same property. My parents had a double-wide trailer that was a good home for our family of five. About seventy yards away my grandparents had the farm house where my father and his siblings were raised.
After high school, my dad, the youngest of six, had plied his living as a farmer. My parents lived on a few farmsteads along the way, all within a mile or two of this home base. My parents would farm the land around those homesteads, and as my grandpa got older he would help more and more back where he started.
At some point my parents and grandparents entered into a partnership. Not only were they working land all around the area, but they also had a large herd of cattle. They even built a couple very expensive Harvestore® silos, which could be seen for miles across the flat land of southwest Minnesota.
Eventually my grandparents retired. About a quarter mile down the road they carved out a little acreage from the farmland. Our family immediately began renovations to move into the farmhouse, which was home through the rest of my childhood.
I loved to visit my grandparents, riding my bike down the gravel road to see what they were up to. Sometimes grandma had her sun hat on, tending the garden. To call it a garden is an understatement as it surrounded their home on three sides; a vegetal moat with a gravel driveway instead of a bridge.
Evenings were especially nice for this kid who has always loved snack foods. I would consume vast quantities of the unholy mix of microwave popcorn, beef jerky, and dill pickles. Most human bodies are sixty percent water, but mine is sixty percent brine.
Plopping down on the davenport, I would snuggle under an afghan and set to my side order of visual and auditory consumption. The television was always on, and in the early evenings that would mean game shows like The Wheel. Then variety shows took their turn. I remember a rotation of Hee Haw, Grand Ole Opry, and Lawrence Welk. My grandpa, being a rabid Twin fan, would often have the radio on at the same time, which was broadcasting the latest exploits of state's nine from the 'CCO powerhouse.
This led to some arguments. My grandma wondering why that noise was needed. Too much noise! My grandpa quietly resisting. Of course, after my grandpa died and cable TV provided the feed, you can guess what my grandma was watching every night, religiously without fail.
More from the Blog
I wrote a few blog posts this month, but two were about Ruby on Rails so feel free to ignore:
Announcing
Oh, I am also writing at a couple of other places. I think I've told you about A Good Enough Newsletter before. We have started blogging as well. It's taking a minute to get the kinks out, but we plan to write fairly frequently. The blog is a collection of traditional blog posts as well as things we've learned along the way, which can get a bit more technical.
Ephemera
We bought a Mazda CX-5. Its actual-button touch screen controls make every other car touch screen interaction I’ve used look asinine. ❤️
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How weird am I? I own Pisces Iscariot, but not Siamese Dream.
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Not an inspiring set of phone number pointers from our log-processing service. (And, no, when I followed the error message format it did not save my phone number.)
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Was about to order a book last night, but then I searched my email and found I had ordered it a year ago. I wonder where I put that thing…
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[T]here is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.
– C.S. Lewis, speaking to J.R.R. Tolkein
Via Robin Sloan.
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Some links I found interesting:
- I love that the MN DNR has a climate journal back into history. There's a legacy journal as well, but even that doesn't have all the content that is actually out there, like the MN meme Halloween blizzard or this 1982 record breaker.
- Steve Wozniak's two-dollar bill story.
- What is the Most Successful Hollywood Movie of All Time?
- The Missing Semester of Your CS Education seems to be a good thing to step through while you're going to college for a CS degree.
Click through for more ephemera.