About 22 or so years ago, among other things, we started collecting Christmas Angels.

It, like all other collections got obsessive hoarderesque out of control crazy to be a bit much.

We had all kinds of angels, paper ones, plastic ones, cloth ones, country ones, Snow Baby ones, pretty ones, scary ones, ugly ones, you name it, we had have them.

The two I like to call The Baldwin Sisters, Judy and Ann, UP in North Carolina caught wind of this disturbing obsession hobby, and sent us a glass angel.

It had a light bulb inside and it lit UP.

Very cute, very nice, a “keeper”.

When the kids were little, lived at home, cared enough to call and not text , and were super excited about Christmas morning, the Glass Angel came in handy.

You see, when he was done leaving presents under the tree, Santa would turn the on angel before he swooshed UP the chimney.

What the old dog was doing to turn the little strumpet on is beyond me, but none the less, she was lit UP every Christmas morning.

And the kids knew they couldn’t come out of their rooms until the Angel was “lit”.

Amazingly, they were always really good about that.  Shelby and Donovan stayed in their rooms anxiously waiting to see the light come on, and if it wasn’t, they didn’t budge.

So, when the boy came over this past weekend, and put UP the tree, I was pleased to see the Glass Angel sitting on the table in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs.  Take that, Elf on a Shelf!

Some traditions take hold.

Some memories keep.

Some things matter.

And some things touch a little kid.

And a Dad.

Just this past week over on Facebook, the newly elected mayor of Wilmington, Ohio asked, “Do kids still gather on the Library lawn, or was just a 60’s thing?”

He was referring to the Library Corner in Germantown, where he grew UP.

You can tell Randy has grown UP.  It was the Library Corner back then, not the lawn.  And, you can’t do it any more.  There’s an ordinance against it.

But yes, there was a time, in the late 60s and early 70s when kids did indeed hang out on the library lawn.

Everyone in town referred to them as hippies.

Quite frankly, I doubt that anyone in Germantown had seen a real hippie, at least not in person, maybe on the news.

They were local teens, doing what teens do, drinking, smoking weed, fornicating having a good time.

You know, camaraderie.

And although hanging out on the Library Corner was fun, it’s not the real story behind the Germantown Library.

It’s a Carnegie Library, one of only 1689 in the United States.

There were 2,509 built by the industry giant Andrew Carnegie from 1883 through 1929 world wide.  And Germantown’s Carnegie Library is no longer the library, it houses the Historical Society of Germantown.  A new library was built across the street where the Royal Electric Building stood.  You might remember it as the building that all those “hippies” painted their drug-induced fantasies on adorned it with 1960s art; peace signs, flowers, and the like.  I think that infamous hell-raiser/trouble-maker/hippie, Sally Ann Moyer may have been the ring-leader, and some sources say her Aunt, DL er Delores Grunwald of the Germantown Press bought the paint.  Ah, the liberal media!!!!

Yes, it was a scandal.

To get a library from Andrew Carnegie, the city, village, or town requesting it had to follow the Carnegie Formula.  The formula was simple, just like the man.  The community had to demonstrate the need for a public library, provide the building site, annually provide ten percent of the cost of the library’s construction to support its operation, and provide free service to all.  Germantown did and does still today.  The Germantown Library was built in 1904 with a $10,000 grant.

My very best memories are not of the Library Corner, but of the library itself.

Miriam Kindig in her jersey dress, cardigan sweater, old-lady-comfort shoes, and pearls guided me to literary heaven as a Jr. High kid and well into High School.  She suggested the “right books” every time I darkened the door.

Which, I might add, was just about every day.

It was a great place to hid out from some of the people in Germantown I’d rather not remember.  You know who you are.

The tall stacks of books, the high ceilings, the tall wide windows, creaking floors and the wonderful smell drew me in along with thousands of other kids over the years.  I remember the first time I saw the bust of Andrew Carnegie in the foyer of the old building, and honestly being truly grateful and a bit awed that any one man would care enough to do what he did.

Once inside, Mrs. Kindig would guide me to biographies, novels, poetry, and steer me from books she knew might not be so well received at home.

She was a smart lady, and a wonderful one.  My library card number was 1941.  I know, it’s weird to remember that, but I do so because of Mrs. Kindig.  I mentioned that 1941 was the year WWII started, and she said, “Not really, Canada and the rest of the world went to war in 1939.”  It may have been the very first time I connected the rest of the world with a real living breathing person, and realized that there was more out there than Germantown, Ohio or the USA for that matter.  Mrs. Kindig was born Miriam Kern in 1895, her husband’s name was Paul, which she reminded me off often, and she lost a son, Roger in on March 31, 1953 while he was serving in the Air Force.  Valley View’s highest scholastic honor is the Roger E. Kindig Memorial Award.  The Roger E. Kindig Squadron at the University of Georgia is named after her son as well, allowing a closer than you think connection, and causing me to believe more and more in that six degrees of separation thing.

Mrs. Kindig was a great lady who dedicated her life to reading, literature, and Germantown.

Andrew Carnegie had a vision:  literacy world wide.  There are 109 Carnegie Libraries in the State of Ohio, built from 1899 through 1921, they cost $3,239,928.64 to build, and include the Libraries at Miami University in Oxford, Cedarville, Oberlin, and Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Andrew Carnegie spent over $45,000,000.00 on the project;  in today’s money, that would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,029,186,363.65.

Yes, Andrew, Mrs. Kindig, and the library corner – they all had an impact, and Germantown wouldn’t be Germantown without them!

So, if you drive by the library corner anytime soon, don’t expect to see any hippies on the corner, but you could say a little prayer of thanks for Andrew and Mrs. Kindig.

It’s funny to me how I’ve changed.

Things on my Christmas wish list have gone from things I really didn’t need to things I can use.

Maturity?

Gosh, I hope not.  I mean, really, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow UP!

My wardrobe is simple. I wear uniform shirts and shorts most of the year, khakis or regular slacks in crapo weather, so I don’t need a bunch of sweaters, shirts, ties and all that.

I don’t wear a tie any more unless their’s a wedding cake, coffin, diploma, or court date involved.

Shoes, New Balance, after all, I walk every day, but alas the kids are tired of buying those every year.

Books are always good, seriously, always a good idea.

Gift cards.  Kroger, Wal-Mart, Target, Q-T, will all come in handy!

But, there are things I need to buy once in a while that would actually make a good gift.

I spray the shower every day with Tilex, so why not a case of that?

Or paper towel, or yes, toilet paper.  We all use it.

I use Mentholatum Ointment on my feet every day;  it’s not like it will go to waste or go bad.

There are things I’d never do for myself: opera tickets, I’d like to see Wicked…but then, air fare is required, and TSA, airport check in…just not ready!  But the body pat down might be nice.

Maybe it is maturity, or maybe I’m just that boring now!

As to that Camaro or the Black Leather jacket, well, I’ve just given UP on them…really…not gonna’ happen!

I am, however, still holding out for the Cake Plate!

It’s Veteran’s Day, and we all think about the Veterans in our life today.

I’ve had several, and have posted about a few in the past; my Dad, and my Uncle Chuck.  Both served their country well in WW II, and both paid a price for it.  Daddy suffered from PTSD for years, and Uncle Chuck was crazy as a bed bug odd for the rest of his life!

But, today, I’d like to remember Grandpa.  Not MY grandpa, but my Mother-in-law’s dad, Herb Woodard.

Herb was born in 1909, he married a woman he really loved, treated her like a queen, spoiled her rotten, and put UP with her selfish behavior from 1933 until her death in 1995.

By the time I was 16, all my grandparents were gone. My Mother’s dad died when I was 15 months old, so there was no connection for me to remember.  My grandmothers died two days apart in 1966, one on Wednesday and one Friday of that same week, while we were at the Funeral Home Visitation for the first one no less!

Grandpa Brads died in January of 1968.  I remember it clearly, as it was just after the first Christmas we didn’t go home to Virginia since the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, West Virginia fell that November, and Daddy hadn’t mapped out a new route back home.  46 people lost their lives when that bridge fell.  The new bridge wasn’t completed until late in 1968.

He found one pretty quickly in January.

So, when I married in 1977, it was a new experience for me to have grandparents again.  The in-laws came with six grandparents, including a set of Great-Grandparents who were in their 90s.

I was closer to Herb over the years, mainly because he was around more.  The sun rose and set on my wife in his eyes.  Grandma was worse about it, referring to my wife and her sisters as “Diane and the girls.”  They had names, but you might not catch them if you talked to Grandma.  But that’s a story for another post!

Herb was the baby of his family.  His Dad, Andrew left the family when Herb was a youngster, as he would say, moved to another town, six miles away, and married another woman.  He started a new family there.

Herb didn’t see his dad much, and in all the years I knew Grandpa, he spoke of him only once.

In 1933, he married Grandma (Eula), a spoiled, but loving woman, and he doted on her.  When he knew that Uncle Sam was about to call him UP, he joined the US Navy and became a CB.

The SeaBees are the Construction Battalion of the US Navy.   The boys go back to WW II, it was a new thing then, and Grandpa was proud to be a part of it.  They built bases, bulldozed and paved roadways and airstrips, worked in a vast variety of war theaters.

Grandpa’s was in Alaska.

He often talked of Alaska and how he’d like to have gone back.  He never made it there, he spent too much time taking care of everyone else.

He doted on his granddaughters, cared for his sister-in-law through her final years, cared for his wife through the last stages of Alzheimer’s, going to the Rest Home and sitting with her every day, even though she had no idea he was there.   When she died, he looked at me and said, “Well, I’ve lost my job.”

He treated me like gold.  In all the years I knew him I only heard him say an unkind word about a very few people, you really had to be a rat for Grandpa to comment.

Everyone loved Grandpa; he was an unassuming man whom every one respected;  after very little thought, it’s easy to see why.

He was just a good guy.

Herb died 12 years ago today, on Veteran’s Day 1999.

It was only fitting that he got to ‘muster out’ on that day!

Thanks to all the SeaBees and other Service men and women who have served in wars past.  And thanks to the ones who are serving our country today!