Grandfather says he supposes you've noticed how many technical credits are listed following a movie. Amateur productions also need some of that kind of support. In productions Grandfather helped with, there were chronic technical shortcomings in ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: High-Wire Theater and Church Improvements

Grandfather says he thinks you might be interested in the story of Dan Blakeslee and Ralph William Blakeslee. Well, Grandfather's going to tell it to you anyway. Dan Blakeslee made his way up the Chilkoot Trail into the Yukon in 1899, built a ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: The Story of Dan and Ralph

Grandfather says he is a political anarchist, more than anything else. Then he favors youths dressed in black and wearing masks and hurting people and breaking things, you ask? No, Grandfather's anarchy is not violent; it merely avoids ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: Political Anarchy

Grandfather says nearly as far back as he can remember, he has loved to fish. He was on a footbridge over a creek at a family picnic when he was, oh, maybe 4 years old. When he saw minnows in the water, he bent a reed into an "L" and dangled one ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: A Fond Look Back at My Love of Fishing

Charlie Kidd has been gone for quite awhile now -- may God rest his soul. Charlie was from what Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation." Charlie was an infantryman throughout WWII, fighting through Africa into Italy and then onto the beaches ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: Remembering an Old Friend

Grandfather says years ago, Grandmother taught piano in the living room. She was, among other things, a model of deportment for the children. Well, one evening we were enjoying a pitcher of beer and a giant pizza at Pizza hut, when in walked a ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: I’m ‘Bout Half

Grandfather says he supposes everyone has weird dreams from time to time. For example, last night Grandfather had a cow hitched to a plow and walked her up a ramp. She broke through the ramp and got one leg stuck. Then Grandfather woke up, ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: Strange Dreams

Grandfather has some observations about "blessings." He sees where clergymen bless babies and the hounds in fox hunts. God's blessing is often asked for, by God-fearing families as they sit down to a meal and nations as they go to war. ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: Observations About Blessings

Grandfather says he was a soldier once, in the Army during Korean War times. Grandfather had developed a lot of stamina on his high school track team and, independent cuss that he was (and is), he stood during basic training forced march rest ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: My Life as a Soldier

Grandfather says he sometimes outsmarts himself. He believes in taking the high ground and absenting himself from lowlife, so he builds his abodes on higher elevations in remote places. But when Grandfather built his cabin in Alaska, up high on ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: The Alaskan Cabin on Chilkat Lake

Grandfather says all human institutions succumb to hubris, eventually. Grandfather says he thinks that's not all bad, although he misses some of them as they excelled in their heyday. The NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini comes to ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: A Quick Thought on Hubris

Grandfather says he is a veteran, and his son served during Desert Storm. With the help of the local newspaper, Grandfather compiled a list of veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Many of the letters that ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: The Veterans’ List

Grandfather says "sophistication" is overrated. It has been fashionable for snoots to say that you lack sophistication if you don't happen to share their taste for this-or-that school of art, music, or science. Good for you! On the other hand, ...

Continue reading Grandfather Says: Sophistication is Overrated