Monday, November 15, 2010

Happy Birthday!
















Veteran...
Scholar...
Physician...
Pater familias...

and yes...

Lawn vacuumer.

This picture is begging for a "Caption Contest"

posted by Joe - Wednesday's Child @ 11/15/2010 02:44:00 AM   4 Comments

4 Comments:

At 6:39 AM , Blogger Emilia said...

Captions, sure, but WHAT is the story behind this photo?

 
At 9:36 PM , Blogger Joe - Wednesday's Child said...

Okay, kiddies. This is one of the most fun, most apocryphal, most revealing tales in the Stenzelsaga.

It would seem that our PaPa may have a long, long, long, long, long, long, long history of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - with predictable consequences in terms of public perspectives about what happens in the Stenzel family.

A cursory study this archival picture shows Mary Ellen and her neighborhood girlfriend from two houses down, Sherry Hollenhorst, pretending complete and total unfamiliarity with the knelling figure in the background operating the Hoover vacuum cleaner.

Any currently living Stenzel who was alive at that time will immediately notice the absence of any backyard deck or cement slab behind the backdoor in this picture...

It should be known that our dear Pater familias also suffers from claustrophobia, which prompted him to augment stately Stenzel Manor with a diningroom/poolroom addition.

As fate would have it, the insensitive contractors rudely refused to remove all the dirt that they excavated and dumped onto PaPa's beloved lawn as they opened the space beneath the foundation for the poolroom.

Poor Pater familias subsequently spent many a sleepless night staring up into the inky darkness of his bedroom ceiling, night after night, until he finally hit upon an obsessive-compulsively motivated sollution for removing the intolerably offensive dirty dirt still mockingly embedded between each and every single blade of lawn grass.

As the ever-present Stenzelfan droned on throughout the nights of his despair, it was in fact, and indeed, the noisy fan that allowed his OCD mind to crystallize around his final solution.

In what his beloved wife chronicles as nothing short of a religious epiphany, our Pater familias sat bolt upright in the marital bed and repeatedly ejaculated, "The HOOVER! The HOOVER! The HOOVER! The HOOVER! The HOOVER!"

For those readers less than 40 years of age, in this particular case our beloved progenitor was referring to the Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner popular in the 1960s era of intense competition between the U.S. and Soviet space programs after the U.S.S.R. had been the first to launch a satellite and an astronaut.

Our dearest Gram uncharacteristically challenged her betrothed for the sake of all that was then considered Catholic, moral, and reasonable (in the context of what was then likely to attract the contempt of ever-observant neighbors), and she gracefully, graciously capitulated to the preferences of her vacuuming husband as the highest expression of her uncompromising love and commitment to her husband.

For those very, very young Stenzels, it is very important to understand the difference between the words "grateful" and "gracious." A gracious person is kind and courteous; a grateful person gives thanks to someone who has bestowed a gift.

Gram and Papa have each given us the gift of life and love. As with any loving mother and father, there have been no storied accounts of any set of the most loving parents in the entire universe in which some reasonable disagreements have not occurred.

No God would never force his children to act against their personal moral beliefs; sometimes as any person lives and learns, that person's beliefs change accordingly.

Right now, I am believing that every single person in the Stenzel family is unconcerned about lawn-sand.

I believe that we all want as much love and tolerance for one another as is possible under the current cultural circumstances in our increasingly Un-United States of America.

In the end, this whole post has been about honoring my love for my dad.

 
At 12:33 PM , Blogger pete said...

Bravo!

 
At 9:41 AM , Anonymous Daddy said...

Dear progeny, one way or another.

The vacuuming picture is backwards.

Somewhat after we moved into N. Lilac Drive and noting that our back yard was nothing but pure lake sand I had some 15 dumptrucks of black dirt hauled in to cover the area all the way back to the back of our lot some 2 inches or so thick and then seeded and nourished the lawn into a nice stand of grass.

Then, noting that no child in the baseent could escape in case of fire, a basement stairway was installed. This project left a significant residue of sand on the now flourishing lawn near the house. I knew not what else to do but vacuum it with our trusty Hoover.

You might also note that the metal lawn cart by Mary Ellen and Cheri H.
is still in my possession and is colored blue.

As to the allegation that I have a compulsive obsessional disorder, I plead guilty. It's just the Monk in me. It bothers your mother to no end that I still straighten pictures, etc., in our friends' homes and
various doctor offices!

Now to the matter of our first born, Joseph Paul.

Your mother was in the early stages of labor late afternoon of October 30th and "Mr. Know-it-all" decided that since it was the first baby we had plenty of time.

So I took her with me to Mahowald's, Mankato's principle sporting goods store.
There I purchased my first set of duck decoys, 14 of them and now collector's items, made by Herter's, out of Waseca.

While I was doing so the mother-to-be was clutching anything that she could grasp in obvious discomfort.

We then went to our second story apartment on N. 6th street and I called Dr. Halvorsen to advise him of the labor. By that time I was a bit nervous as evinced by my partially downing a Glueck's Stite, at that time 12.5 % alcohol. As we prepared to leave for Winnebago I feverishly opened a second bottle, forgetting that I had not finished the first.

Upon arriving at the hospital a lady, Mrs. Slama, multiparous, entered the door in obvious distress. Both Mom and Mrs. Slama were whisked away, Mrs. Slama delivering shortly thereafter.

At length I was told to gown and was taken to the delivery room. Dr.
Halverson, knowing the I was a premed student had me stand back by him and proceeded to teach me step by step the birthing process while your Mom labored on with the help of a lady anesthetist.

Somewhere around 10:31 PM this huge meconiumed-stained, ten pounds, ten ounce baby emerged and was promptly taken to the nursery where he was cleaned up and deposited into a nursery crib, a rather contrasting large baby compared with the other rather puny seven pounders!

Your mom then enjoyed 5 days of convalescence while visited by a multitude of friends and family, The five day stay was not unusual in those days. I, in the meantime, commuted back and forth, continuing my premed studies bragging to everone I met. When the day of discharge finally arrived the total hospital bill, nursery and all, was $14 dollars after insurance.

If any of you feel that these articles are blog-worthy, have at it.
Comments most welcome!

Your Daddy

 

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