Today was a fairly quiet day. Church at 8:00, a visit with Mother. Bobbie and I worked at Rhine from 1:00 til about 3:00. We left early because it was so slow - the Fourth of July Weekend you know. I shot one round of trap and three targets of pistol. Not too bad but nothing to write home about.

Mother and I were remembering years gone by. She has a cartoon on her refrigerator that is one of her favorites. It depicts Heaven with a quartet of souls who have "arrived" there singing barbershop songs. When she pointed it out, I immediately remembered the family picnics at Grandma and Grandpa Bowser's house. As the evening wore on the singing always started. The Bowsers, my Uncle Leo and Aunt Kathleen and Dad all had beautiful voices and loved to sing.

They would sing in harmony. They would sing in quartets and duets. And each person sang their specialty solos. The Bowser cousins with Dad and Grandpa sang barbershop. Dad and Aunt Kathleen would sing Blue Hawaii, Uncle Leo sang like Louis (Sachmo) Armstrong and on and on. Such warm fuzzy times and how we ate.

Grandpa Bowser's house was up on a little hill. Forming a "wall" around the yard were hedges that protected the yard from prying eyes and muffled street noise (not that there was much street noise on that little back street in Sheboygan Falls). Grandpa always read the Sunday paper on the front porch after church. Grandpa always wore his vest and his hat when he was outside the house. One Sunday, my Uncle Noel, then a teenager, walked out on the porch and told Grandpa "I think I can take you, Dad." Grandpa didn't say a word. He got up, took off his hat and set it on a table on the porch. He walked off the porch into the yard and motioned Noel down.

They squared off. Grandpa picked Noel up and tossed him over the hedge.

Noel said that he never challenged Grandpa again. Years later, he knew he could have beaten him but when men grow older they really don't want to prove that their Dad's are not still Supermen.

Have a nice Fourth of July.

I will be thinking of you

Mary