Thursday, January 20, 2011

LIFE TWISTS








Old Trunks likes life twists. Oh, not the kind when you go skiing in the flat lands of Kansas and break you leg like Hank did the other day.

The kind that is so remote. The meeting of someone to whom you are related and never knew existed. That kind.

The phone rang at Sinkler Optical last week. The lady on the other end of the line wanted to know if they sold glasses suitable for someone in their 80's. My sweet Thomas assured her they did. Mrs. H arrived with her daughter. It is hard to push a wheelchair in this bumpy snow but they made it into the building. Mrs. H found glasses she liked and a pair her daughter approved of.

That isn't the twist. The twist is, Mrs. H was raised around Willow City, ND. That isn't such a big deal except, that is where the Zimmermann's are from. Mrs. H had not lived there, but her family had. MST went on to say that is where his mother was from.

Mrs. H: And what was her name?
Tom: Zimmermann
Mrs. H: Any relation to Charlie?
Tom: Yes, he was my grand father
Mrs. H: My mother's sister married a Zimmermann!
Tom: Then we are related!

Her daughter had phoned to make an appointment after hours to pick up the glasses. All the way home to the nursing home, all Mrs. H could talk about was the wonderful man at the eye place that knew some of 'her' people.

The task at hand was to find pictures of the people she talked about, clean them up and sharpen them so Mrs. H could see them when she comes in on Friday night at 7 to get her glasses.

It is an exciting find as we know little about that side of the family. Our albums are filled with the Johnson line.

The picture on this blog is of Charlie. It was colored and so faded from years of hanging on the wall. The rifle Charlie shot the deer with is now in the ownership of his great grandson, Les. Les hunts, Tom's son's do not. It was fitting that he get the rifle--a put together model with no serial number--and a fit to find a way to send it to Darrel, Tom's brother, for Les. This was long before 9-11 and even then the rules were st rick. We sent it to a gun dealer and Darrel picked it up there.

Advice? Talk to people. Tell them who you are and where you came from. Who knows maybe you will have a magnificent life twist, too.

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