By Todd Guthrie
Guest columnist for Charles M. Guthrie
published by the StarTribune
November 20, 1966
IT LOOKS LIKE the same old story this Thanksgiving and Grandpa tells me its my turn to earn a buck by writing an article for him about the family reunion. Some people might think it would get a little boring by this time but it is always fun to eat turkey and punkin pie and cranberry regardless of the same old faces.
I told Grandpa that my brother Dave and Mark and Cary, which are my cousins, already had wrote about the last three Thanksgiving blasts and it would be pretty hard for me to come up with a fresh angel and this should make it worth more than one buck, especially since everything else is higher on account of the grate Society but he said it was one dollar or nothing and if I was not interested my kid brother Mike would be glad to do it for one buck.
LORD HELP US if Mike got the job as he is only a second grader and a rotten speller and will say anything that pops into his head no matter how crazy. And if he did an article he probily would make Gramps seem even dummer than he is because Mike has not forgot what Gramps did last Christmas when he and Grandma and Uncle Tom were in Rochester to spend Christmas with us.
Me and my three brothers and Mom and Dad and Grandma and Tom got up brite and early to see what Santa claus left but Grandpa must of figured what he would get was not worth getting up at 5 o'clock for and Dad and Grandma had to drag him out of the sack.
All the while Mike was yelling like a stuck hog as the saying goes and giving Grandpa dirty looks and the old gent made things worse by saying one of the rules was you had to eat breakfast before opening the presents. I knew he was only kiding but Mike starts yelling again and tried to kick Gramps in the shins.
Dad did not have time before Christmas to put all the stuff together. There was a King Arthur castle with a mote and drawbridge and stuff that was still in the box and another one of a western fort and stockade that wasn't put together either. So after the presents were opened Dad started working on the castle and asked Gramps to put the fort together for Mike. He said all you had to do was follow the directions. Personaly, I did not think Gramps was up to it and wished Dad had asked Tom to do the job and I guess Mike felt the same way. He was looking at Gramps as nervous as a cat on a tin roof as the saying goes.
Gramps read the directions and asked for a pair of plyers and said he would have it put together in no time. Fifteen minutes later he started scraching his head and talking to himself and looking at the directions again. Half an hour later the fort looked like it already had been attacked by the Indians and Grandpa gave up.
"Impossible," he grouled. "The bum who thought up this torture should be hanged by the heals from a Sickamore tree except hanging would be to good for the scounderel." By now Mike was yelling again and Uncle Tom and Grandma were having convulshuns.
MY COUSINS are from Rhinelander, which is way off in Wisconsin and when we are all together there are eight of us without the grownups. All of us are boys and Gramps says he would trade two of us for one girl but Grandma says he is only joking and it does not matter if you are a girl or boy as long as you are healthy.
We probily will have Thanksgiving at our place instead of at Grandma and Grandpas where you dont have to worry about scraching the furniture. Uncle Tom will try to keep the boys in line so the cleanup job will not be to big. He says Mark and Cary and Dave are old enough to behave themself but they are the worst of all except Mike. Its I and cousin Paul that keep them from turning the place upside down as the saying goes.
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