Down on the Farm

Mads Nielsen was a farmer and a dairyman.  In the morning he would milk his cows then go to the Danish Creamery dairy in Fresno for his day job.  Then he'd come home in the night and repeat.  If he didn't have the money for gas, he would have to ride his bicycle.  He relied on an old wind up alarm clock to get him up on time.  One time when my grandfather, Donald Nielsen, was little, he disassembled the alarm clock to see how it ran.  They couldn't afford to replace it and had to guess at the time so Mads could get to work on time. 

Dinner couldn't be held until after the cows were milked.  One Thanksgiving, your great great grandmother, Marie Laugesen Nielsen, was late coming into dinner.  When the family went to check on her out in the barn they found that a cow had stepped on her and she couldn't push her off, leaving her trapped.

I've been working on the railroad

James Knight Rogers, my great grandfather, was a conductor brakeman on the railroad.  He worked out of the CALWA railyards, which was also where he lived, so he was often able to go home every night.  Often, when a train went onto a siding, the engineer and brakeman had to wait for a switchman to come out to the yards to uncouple the train.  Given that this could take a while, and James was anxious to go home, very often he would uncouple the train himself.  While he was perfectly capable of the work, it was against union rules.  When he was eventually found out, he was told he would have to file paperwork to collect all the back pay.  He didn't want the back pay, but it was union rules.  He gave the paperwork to my grandmother, Billee Rogers, to fill out, promising her the money just to get the paperwork done and out of what little hair he had.

The Formica Table

In December1947,  my grandmother moved home to Fresno where she and my grandfather bought their first home together on East Iowa St.  Being that this was still shortly after WWII, and with all the GI's coming home and setting up housekeeping, household good were in short supply.  My grandmother had her heart set on getting a formica table for her dining room.  She went to a Jewish store in Fresno somewhere where they actually had one in stock.  My grandmother was quoted an outrageously high price, but she was so happy to have found one that she gladly paid it.  The storekeeper delivered the table the same day.  Billee later realized that, since the shop keeper was Jewish, she was supposed to bargain with him which was why she was quoted such a high price to begin with, and why the shop keeper delivered it for her for free.  The table came with them to their final home in Concord.  It was given to my aunt and uncle in 1968 when they married.  Then, when they no longer wanted the table when they moved in 1972 Billee took it back and gave it to my parents who kept it until Pat threw it away finally in 2001. 

Alex is growing up

Today he lost his first tooth, his bottom, center right one.  It's been lose since Saturday.  He couldn't stop wiggling it today.  This evening I took him into the bathroom to have a look at it, then I asked him if he wanted me to pull it.  He kept wanting to know if it would bleed, and I said it would a little.  He didn't want me to pull it, but he asked me how to do it.  I explained, then after he hemmed and hawed over it a bit, out it came.  It was the first tooth he got, so it makes sense that it was the first tooth he naturally lost.

Improvements

Pat likes to change things around the house.  Right now, he is putting new legs on our futon to raise the height of the futon by about 6 inches.  This will allow us to put the bins from our old train table under it to store more of the kids toys.

Same Old Same Old

I know I don't have much of a life, but since no one reads this but me, who cares!  Today I sharpened pencils at Alex's school, for an hour.  Hey, they had a big box of color pencils that were all broken.  It's useful work all the same.  Then I picked up Daniel and took him to WalMart to get Diapers and Avatar.  We also got 3 new cars toys, Tex Dinoco, the Dinoco Chick Hicks, and Antonio who's a white car who shows up in Radiator Springs at the very end of the movie.  This evening I talked to Marie for over an hour about many shocking things, then I put the kids to bed.  End of story, end of day.

Daniel's Nickname

Around here we call Daniel "The Bun"  Here's why.  When he was around 5 months old and growing fast I started calling him Daniel Bunyan after the folklore human.  This was shortened to Bunyan, then Bunny, finally becoming Bun, or The Bun.  Occassionally he's called Bunner.