This weekend we celebrated one of my grandma’s 84th birthday.  We all got together at her house for dinner and desert.  This us to be something we did nearly every week when I was growing up and all of us kids were small.  Now many of us kids have our own kids and busy lives.  Which means we don’t get to see each other very often.  My kids got to play with their cousin (first cousin once removed to be technical) and had a blast.  They played with their great aunt and uncles and laughed.  It was nice to see energy and life in my grams house that hasn’t been there is so long.

We got to telling the stories we remembered from our own parents childhoods.  The ones that get told over and over again by us kids about our parents, aunts and uncles.  Like the time my uncle stuck his tongue to a metal pole and then had it ripped off.  Or the time my other uncle feel down in the sewer.  Or the time my dad and some buddies accidentally started a bulldozer and ran.  Or the time my aunt fell out of a car.  Good stories.  Well, this weekend I was reminded about how much parenting has changed.

My dad told a story that had me laughing hysterically.  He was about 7 and the street was being repaved/tarred and he and his buddies were playing in it and he came home covered in tar.  My grandpa who was a hard man.  He is a bit rough and old world didn’t hit my dad or loose his temper, he simply handed my dad a rag and a can of gasoline, stood him in the backyard and told him to clean up.  “But don’t rub to hard or you’ll set yourself on fire,” he said as he walked away.  My dad said he cried hysterically the whole time he rubbed it off his harms seriously thinking he might actually catch on fire.  We all laughed hysterically.  My dad said he certainly never played in tar again.

I can’t imagine telling something like that to my kids by in the 50’s parenting was very different.  But I’ll never get that image out of my head and every time I think about it I laugh just a little.

Thanks for the laugh gramps.  Miss you.