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BURYING GRANDPA
Le Center’s schools closed for summer vacationalmost a week ago and nothing exciting had happenedyet. My new Buck Rogers rocket watch said it wasnine o’clock, and my cousin Billy was still sloppingdown breakfast. I made tons of noise while waitingoutside on the back stoop hoping that would speedhim up. It was already too late to go fishing, but wewould probably try anyway. We hadn’t caughtanything but bullheads, so far, and they were theonly fish I could not eat, if I had both caught and orcleaned the ugly mud suckers. Billy would and did,though. He would eat anything yet he was as skinnyas I and almost as tall. Except for Eunice Sowers andMirabelle Beerson, I was the tallest kid in sixth gradein Le Center Minnesota, but girls at that age arebiological freaks and should not count. “Billy! That’s enough cornflakes. You’ve hadtwo bowls already, and your Dad will want somethingto puke out, if he ever gets up. Put your bowl in thesink, and go try to wake your Dad,” Aunt Maryshouted. I stopped whistling and whittling with mynew boy-scout knife, and hunkered down quiet. ‘Dang!’ Billy’s Dad had been on a toot, again.Usually, he just fell of the wagon on Saturday nights,but this was Saturday and a half workday for UncleBoog, at the Le Center Creamery where he was thenewly promoted Chief Cheese-maker and apprenticedrunk. Friday drunks were dangerous.Our Grandpa Kelly was an Irish barkeeper andthat made him an expert on boozing. Grandpa alwayssaid that no one was a drunkard unless they gotdrunk two days in a row. I hoped Uncle Boogwouldn’t qualify, drunk again on Saturday.It seemed hours and still no Billy, but timepassed slow waiting while our short and precioussummer vacation zoomed away. At last, the screen
 
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door banged open, and Billy came out quietly,followed by his quite healthy and surprisingly alertfather, Boog Kelly, who should have been at thecreamery. “Well, now who’s this starved bum sittingon my steps, waiting for a handout.” He said. “Damned if he don’t look like me brother’s child,Gary.” He tousled my hair with affection and said, “My nephew, Gary wouldn’t sit on the back stoop,like he wasn’t welcome at our table.” Billy winked, and started unlocking his bicycletethered to the porch railing, as if somebody wouldsteal that rickety hand- me-down bicycle. “Hello,Uncle Boog,” I said, hoping for a quick anduncomplicated get-a-way. “Tell your Mom, not to buy any cheese dated,June 6, 1951, as it won’t be Le Center’s finest. I tookthe day off to mourn and bury me Dad and my helper,ain’t quite got the hang of cheese making yet.” I thennoticed the large stoneware crock my uncle washolding. Grandpa had died last fall, racing the GreatNorthern Streamliner to the Lexington road crossing,turning Grandpa and his rickety old pickup into bugsplatter. Because the collision caused Grandpa’s freshbrew of homemade Irish whiskey to ignite and burn,cremation was the family’s logical choice for hisremains. Unfortunate because Le Center Lutheransbelieve that you arise from the grave on JudgmentDay, just as you are instead of how you was.I was curious why Uncle Boog waited untiltoday, to bury his Dad’s ashes and why he chose aFriday for a night of mourning, instead of Saturday,when he could sleep late the following morning. Iwas curious enough to ask, “Where you going to putGrandpa?” not at all sure that I wanted to know, orthat Uncle Boog would tell me the real truth. Healways teased, like Grandpa
 
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did when officiating at his saloon, always filled,including even non alcoholics folks there just to hearhis wild stories. Those listeners usually drank Kelly’shome made genuine Stomach and Nerve Tonic,thinking that it was alcohol free.That locally famous drink provided me and Billy’smy main source of income, until Dad started teachingme the value of a dollar working at Gunder’s Cosmeticsmail order house that he managed, for thestockholders. You see, Grandpa bought all the bottlesfor his elixir from Billy and me. We gathered all sortsof empty bottles, getting two cents for beer bottlesand a penny for ketchup or pop bottles. Grandpabottled his elixir in bottles Billy andI supplied. We had an exclusive, locked-in market.Grandpa brewed his locally famous nerve tonicin a large cauldron just like witches use. Some folkssaid, it was mostly alcohol, catnip and wild hemp, butGrandpa never let anyone watch him mix his drink, sothey could only guess.Uncle Boog, took a long time to answer like hewas just deciding, “Grandpa, always wanted to travel,and never did. He loved to visit with people, really getinside them and see what they believe. I think I willgo to the creamery, grind up his ashes with thepeppercorns for our pepper cheese, and let him traveleverywhere we send our cheese.” Uncle Boog,thinking on that picture, paled and set down the crockon the top step and holding both hands over hismouth to keep from up-chucking last night’s goodies,scooted back into the house. “He was teasing, wasn’t he?” I asked Billy,remembering how Uncle Boog fooled you except whenyou thought he was, he wasn’t. “Remember how hethreatened to tan your butt for selling Grandpa, that
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