Chasing Villy, Will, Bill

Posted on 04/03/2026 by Grumpa Joe

Sadly, my brother Will died this week. From this point on, I guess I can no longer say I am chasing him. He was born seven years before me, and when Mom had me, I finally filled the void left by our older brother Joe. I’m sure by the time I was old enough to talk, he didn’t want any part of me. My mother probably enslaved him to watch me, feed me, change me, and whatever else a mother would use her oldest child to do for her. That might explain why he became very interested in school and in helping the nuns after school, or any activity that would excuse him from being home.

Villy-Willy-Will- Bill, Little Brother Joe, and our baby sister Maria

My recollections of Will, or Villy as Mom called him, are vague, beginning in grammar school. Our bonding time during those years was limited, and my recollections of him pushing me around the block in a buggy are nil. The gap between us seemed to stretch, growing longer and longer. When I started first grade, he was in seventh grade. When I reached eighth grade, he had finished Leo High School, the University of Illinois, and was in the army and stationed in Germany. I finally remember writing him letters when he was in Germany.

I finally finished college in 1961. By that time, Will was married, working, and raising a family. Our time together was limited to meeting at our parents’ house for birthdays and holidays. The gap between us was huge, but by then, people were calling him Bill rather than Will.

Somewhere around 1969, the gap closed. I had begun working at Panduit, and Bill was searching for a new job. At a family party, I told him to try at Panduit. Unbeknownst to me, he did. Soon after, I was sharing the lunch table with Roy Moody, VP of Engineering. I thought it strange that he wanted to know about Bill. Three weeks later, I met Bill in the hallway at Panduit. We finally caught up to each other. Bill and I worked in separate departments, but we saw each other and spoke almost daily for the next 35 years.

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Making a Good Day Great!

Posted on 02/09/2025 by Grumpa Joe

Today, I planned to get a number of things done. It started with a breakfast omelet loaded with chopped garlic, onions, and accompanied by wheat toast and coffee. Cooking the omelet was a good thing, and provided me with a sense of accomplishment followed by the reward of eating the omelet. Next, I watered my house plants, and soaked my orchids under the spray on the sink. I sent my daughter-in-law a birthday card. The kitchen was calling me back, so I chopped onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and put them in a large pot with green peas and a ham bone loaded with meat. Once the goodies were covered with water, I put the soup on the stove to boil and simmer.

 

While the soup cooked, I mounted a fixture for my new flat screen TV. At this point, my day slowed to a crawl. My son-in-law came over to finish installing an electrical outlet for the TV. Jeff is one of my favorite people so I spent time talking with him about ponds, and his HVAC business. While he worked, I sat reviewing my monthly bills so I could pay them off.  Jeff disappeared for a short time, but came back with my grandson. I actually got a chance to work on homework with my namesake.

After a brief review of the meaning of antecedents on the internet, my grandson and I were underlining pronouns and their antecedents when the phone rang. It was the leader of my Wednesday night mens group asking if I minded if we brought the wives with us this evening. I immediately responded that it would be fantastic to bring the wives.

My list of goal steps for the day went to hell this afternoon, but I can’t get into a snit about it because the activity that came to me was more important than my original plans. How much better could it get? Visiting with my oldest grandson, followed by dinner with my wife and friends. Goals are good, but fun with family and friends is better. Visiting with family and friends is one of my “high payoff activities.” In fact it is number one on my list.  This activity carries the highest priority and is the most important thing in my life. All else pales in comparison.

What are your High Payoff Activities?

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Lessons from My Grandfather’s Hermit Lifestyle

Posted on 27/08/2025 by Grumpa Joe

 

My grandfather knew how to live. Granted, he was a hermit, but he knew how to manage on a very small pension. My recollection of him dates back to when I was ten, he was seventy-two. He was living on a small farm in southwest Michigan. His house was small and without plumbing. It did have electricity and hand pumped water in the kitchen. Gramp’s pension came from working in a coal mine when he was younger. The pension wasn’t very much, perhaps thirty dollars a month. Somehow he managed to live on that amount. He smoked Camels, and drank an occassional bottle of beer. I never knew him to work. My earliest recollection of him does not include work at a job. He was sixty-two when I was born, so he was near retirement then. When he did retire, there was no social security, only his meager pension from the mine.

Gramps lived on a farm, but I never saw him plant anything. My mother always planted the garden. She also raised the chickens, pigs, cow, and a horse. Gramps just supervised.

Grampa Jim got the Hungarian language newspaper in the mail every week. His job was to read every issue of the paper from cover to cover. Most of the news in his paper was old, but it didn’t matter, it was all new to him, and he read the paper faithfully. He was a great socializer. Once or twice a week his friend John picked him up in a model T, around three o’clock in the afternoon. Together they drove the quarter mile to the corner store. This store was special. They sold gasoline, kerosene, groceries, and had a beer hall too.  Come to think of it, it wasn’t much different from today’s gas stations. Only the beer hall and kerosene is different. Gramp’s buddy parked at the pump and self served himself a gallon or two of 15 cent gas. Then went to pay and to have beer. The two of them sat in the beer hall talking over events. Nine times out of ten, Gramp’s beer outlasted his buddy’s.  Gramps had more than a half bottle of beer remaining when his buddy went dry. John had a wife so he beat it back home before she missed him. That left Gramps alone with his beer.  He wasn’t alone for long, because more customers came to the store, they checked to see if anyone was sitting in the beer hall. Soon, gramps had another party to chat with. He had company non-stop throughout the time he sat in the beer hall. Every one knew him, and loved to talk to him. Meanwhile his beer got flatter and flatter and flatter. Eventually, the bottle was empty.

On many days, gramps didn’t get home until after nine o’clock. By that time we were all in bed, and the house was dark except for the kitchen. Mom was still up doing chores while she waited for him.

When summer ended we returned to the city to start school.  Gramps was free again living his simple life. He did have to cook for himself after Mom left. I don’t think he ever washed a dish, only rinsed them off. While we were visiting Mom insisted he change clothes and she washed for him. His wardrobe consisted of what he was wearing and he wore until even he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Gramps loved the solitary life, but was always happy to see us come for a visit. He was equally glad to see us go home. When he got older, Mom convinced him to come into the city for the winter. He did, but by March he disappeared back to the farm where everyone in the township knew him, yet he could be alone when he wanted to, and he wore the same clothes for as long as he wanted, and eat greasy foods off of dirty dishes. He enjoyed the sights, sounds, and scents of his farm and nature.

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Happy Easter, Hallelujah

Posted on 17/04/2022 by Grumpa Joe

God Bless America on this sunny but cold Easter morning. I fully intended to attend 7:30 mass this morning, and set my opportunity alarm to wake me at 6:15. It did the job, but instead Grumpa shut it off and talked himself ( 2 nano-seconds) into letting the snooze alarm give him ten minutes more. (HINT! The snooze doesn’t work if you turn off the alarm.) It was 7:15 when I opened my eyes again from a really wonderful sleep, I momentarily panicked. Not to worry I told myself, Catholics invented 9:00 o’clock mass for those who miss 7:30.

After not attending mass for two years because of the COVID-19 shut down, it was heartening to see so many families back to meet their yearly obligation. Actually, the obligation is to attend every Sunday, but many of us stretch that into twice a year, Christmas and Easter. On those two holidays Catholic churches swell with attendance. Most Sundays are well attended, but our fellow Christians do not fill every pew and spill over into the atrium like they do on the two holiest days of the Church calendar.

Nine o’clock is the children’s mass, and as I said, there were a lot of kids there. I sat in a pew behind a family, Grandma, Grandpa, Son, Daughter, in-laws and three kids between ages 18 months and four years. A little distracting, but nice because it reminded me of the days when wife Barbara and I had to corral three kids in that same age range. I remember once during mass, Barb was holding our youngest son Mike over her shoulder while he swilled a bottle of formula. When he finished, he did his best impression of Joe Montana by passing the bottle over the heads of several pews into the Sanctuary. This kid was great at sports, but never played football, even though he had a great throwing arm at eighteen months.

It is funny how seeing kids opens one’s mind to memories that have been locked up for fifty years. Someday, I will write a book full of those memories just so my kids can have a laugh about their own antics. In fact, that is such a great idea I will begin by logging the incidents the way I did for my childhood auto-biography titled Jun-e-or.

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Defining Who We Are

Posted on 25/04/2021 by Grumpa Joe

WASN’T THIS US? 

A little house with three bedrooms,

one bathroom and one car on the street.

A mower that you had to push

to make the grass look neat.

In the kitchen on the wall

we only had one phone,

And no need for recording things,

someone was always home.

We only had a living room

where we would congregate,

unless it was at mealtime

in the kitchen where we ate.

We had no need for family rooms

or extra rooms to dine.

When meeting as a family

those two rooms would work out fine.

We only had one TV set

and channels maybe two,

But always there was one of them

with something worth the view.

For snacks we had potato chips

that tasted like a chip.

And if you wanted flavor

there was Lipton’s onion dip.

Store-bought snacks were rare because

my mother liked to cook

and nothing can compare to snacks

in Betty Crocker’s book.

Weekends were for family trips

or staying home to play.

We all did things together —

even go to church to pray.

When we did our weekend trips

depending on the weather,

no one stayed at home because

we liked to be together.

Sometimes we would separate

to do things on our own,

but we knew where the others were

without our own cell phone.

Then there were the movies

with your favorite movie star,

and nothing can compare

to watching movies in your car.

Then there were the picnics

at the peak of summer season,

pack a lunch and find some trees

and never need a reason.

Get a baseball game together

with all the friends you know,

have real action playing ball —

and no game video.

Remember when the doctor

used to be the family friend,

and didn’t need insurance

or a lawyer to defend?

The way that he took care of you

or what he had to do,

because he took an oath and strived

to do the best for you.

Remember going to the store

and shopping casually,

and when you went to pay for it

you used your own money?

Nothing that you had to swipe

or punch in some amount,

and remember when the cashier person

had to really count?

The milkman used to go

from door to door,

And it was just a few cents more

than going to the store.

There was a time when mailed letters

came right to your door,

without a lot of junk mail ads

sent out by every store.

The mailman knew each house by name

and knew where it was sent;

there were not loads of mail addressed

to “present occupant.”

There was a time when just one glance

was all that it would take,

and you would know the kind of car,

the model and the make.

They didn’t look like turtles

trying to squeeze out every mile;

they were streamlined, white walls, fins

and really had some style.

One time the music that you played

whenever you would jive,

was from a vinyl, big-holed record

called a forty-five.

The record player had a post

to keep them all in line

and then the records would drop down

and play one at a time.

Oh sure, we had our problems then,

just like we do today

and always we were striving,

trying for a better way.

Oh, the simple life we lived

still seems like so much fun,

how can you explain a game,

just kick the can and run?

And why would boys put baseball cards

between bicycle spokes

and for a nickel, red machines

had little bottled Cokes?

This life seemed so much easier

and slower in some ways.

I love the new technology

but I sure do miss those days.

So time moves on and so do we

and nothing stays the same,

but I sure love to reminisce

and walk down memory lane.

With all today’s technology

we grant that it’s a plus!

But it’s fun to look way back and say,

Hey look guys, THAT WAS US!

Filed under: Aging, family, Memories, Society | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

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