This is rather rough, but I want to share this rather rough picture of two of my favorite people on earth : Franklin & David.
Franklin and David are Dan's bachelor uncles. They live on the 'home place' next to the Meyer school house. Frankin is older than David, David just retired this past year at 65 yrs. old. Franklin has been retired for awhile. He worked at Hard Drives all his working life. David is rather gifted at fixing things and so worked as a mechanic at Arnold's equipment and more recently & for 15 years or so at a variety of photo copying companies, the last being Minnesota Copy. He must have liked the people there because he hosted a get together at the farm place a few years ago for them & knowing David means that you know that was a striking statement. It takes years to get to know David & many more to gain his trust & more yet for him to warm up to you. It is no wonder he is a bachelor. Franklin is a bachelor because he is just plain weird, painfully shy but a real lover :)
On to the story....
The week after Dan & I returned from visiting my parents in IA, Dan, Franklin & David headed up to Grand Rapids close to where they hunt to pick up the summer sausage they had made at a butcher shop from some of their deer trimmings.
They had to stop at the shack & pulled "near a ton" of snow off of the roof of it. I'll have to dig up some pictures of the shack. Believe it or not, it was a part of Dan's & my Honeymoon...... THAT we'll just let go.
Last week, Dan & I went over to visit them. Dan wanted to tell Dave & Franklin that he had been catching sunfish on Stump Lake ( we have been eating fresh fish a couple of times a week now) , & that they were about 3-4 to a pound. This is a typical piece of information that I receive and treasure on a daily basis from Dan.
On the way over Dan explained to me "if you are picky, you can catch 3 to a pound, but you really don't gain much. Once they are filleted out you get about the same amount of fish". This conversation will become important to this story later.
When we came driving into the yard Franklin was outside & it was pouring down rain. So we stood in the rain for just a bit , Dan & Franklin exchanged pleasantries, & soon Franklin waved from me toward the house and said "go on in, David is in the house". So in I went. When I entered the all brick, built in 1901 house built by his Grandfather, David was leaning over a piece of wood that he had cut to fit in the windowsill for his plants. He roughly tosses an African Violet in front of me on top of an old oil burner to show me what the shelf was for.
About that time Franklin & Dan came into the house & soon after we all sat down by the dining room table. David put a clipboard in front of me and handed me a pencil. On the paper was written "Ryan Harden, Jamie, Connor & Grace". I didn't have my glasses on but I could tell that he had spelled Haraden wrong so I pointed that out to him, he just kind of grunted & proceeded to talk to Dan about wanting to keep up with the family tree. Dan & I bantered back & forth about when Jamie was married, the birth dates of the kids etc.. with the expectation being fairly clear to me that I was to do the recording. But let me tell you that the damn pencil he gave me was as dull as a pencil can get. It took some restraint on my part not to say something about that, but I knew that such a trivial comment had the potential to completely destroy what I anticipated to be a pleasant visit. So I just left it at that.
By the time I looked up from smearing out all the dates, there were 4 bottles of liquor on the table in front of us , all delivered by Franklin & sitting there along with 4 empty unmatched small glasses.
I wasn't quite as clear as to the proper etiquite in this situation & everyone was just kind of sitting there looking through this vast array of bottle of booze so I said, "I guess I could go for a beer and a bump!". At which time Franklin hopped up , got us each a beer & then it was a regular pour fest full of discourse about who made what booze ( it was all home brew) , how this turned out, maybe next year a little less sugar would be best etc. etc. I guess they were just waiting to see if I was all in for a beer & a bump extravaganza ( duh).
Ok. my story writing is about exhausted ..oh. the important piece of info... so while we are all enjoying a beer and a bump & I commented on David's rhubarb wine ( " pretty good, a little sharp") Dan is talking rather loudly to Franklin who can't hear very well. While they are talking I turned to David & relayed the conversation word for word that Dan & I had had in the car on the way over : "if you are picky, you can catch 3 to a pound, but you really don't gain much, once they are filleted out you get about the same amount of fish". and told David that I knew that was an important piece of information & he just smiled.
It does not escape David that the world has about stopped at his place but is going faster & faster all around them. I'm not so sure that Franklin gets that.
Ta da!!! Dave and Franklin. God love them
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