Saturday Fun Challenge: Relatives & Memories

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), answer the question:

1)  Memories of the ancestors we knew and loved need to be told to the younger generations.  

2)  Tell us about your memories of a grandparent that you knew and loved.  If they all died before you knew them, tell us about a parent or a favorite aunt or uncle.
3)  Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.

My mother liked to say, “If all else fails, read directions!” So, in that vein, I’m ignoring part of the directions today and jumping to the second part. I knew one set of grandparents, my maternal side. My father’s parents had died before I was born. However, I have written about them a few times before. Instead I’m going to jump to the aunt or uncle part and recall an incident with one of my aunts and uncles.

It was during spring break of probably 8^th grade. My parents and I had left with the camper for a trip. This year we had traveled to Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania and were touring around exploring the area and its historic offerings.

Sunday at noontime we pulled into a family type restaurant on the edge of downtown Gettysburg and were sitting in a booth near the door waiting for our meals to arrive. Mom and Dad were deep in a conversation about something. I was bored and looking around the restaurant. That’s when I interrupted their conversation by abruptly blurting out:

“Uncle Burton and Aunt Louise just walked in!”

Dad was not pleased that I interrupted him and what’s more was telling what he assumed was an obvious lie. They lived about 200 miles from Gettysburg after all. Dad started to give me a bit of a lecture about it, particularly about lying. He only just started however. Just then a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Apologize to my niece little brother.”

It turned out that as it was a nice spring day, they had gotten up that morning and decided to go for a ride. Their ride had taken them south across Pennsylvania from their home near the northern border to Gettysburg on the southern border where they driven by the restaurant we were at. Uncle Burton had noticed a mini-motor home in the parking lot in an unusual gold/beige color and immediately pulled in. He and Aunt Louise walked in the restaurant looking around expecting to find us.

Although it is unusual for brothers to run into each other by chance so far from home, it was not out of the ordinary for them to take a trip like this. Both my aunt and uncle were retired and enjoyed driving around the countryside. They would often take random trips just for the enjoyment. I remember a time a few years later when we were visiting them and I wanted to go to Wendy’s to eat. There were no fast food restaurants near their house. Uncle Burton piled us all in his car in late afternoon and we went for a ride. Near suppertime, we pulled into the Wendy’s near Clark Summit on the north side of Scranton, probably almost 50 miles from their home.