Decade 5

1999-2009 (JJ, Jimmy, Nick)
J.J.
Wow! The 5th decade! Years 41-50… We celebrated 3 more weddings! JJ and Violett, Jimmy and Juliette, Nick and Kirstin. 8 more grandkids Coco, Zoe, Becca, Grace, Claire, Maciek, Josephina, And Micah, with two more due any minute!!
It was hard to say good bye to Uncle Herb and Grandma Zoe and we’ve even had a cancer scare for Kay….

There are a few memories we’ve forgotten to include! So here they are:
We have to talk about the corn picking days and trips to the pig farm to see the
Pigs getting slaughtered!
The corn day would start with an early morning phone ring from Kay’s friend Swede I think. (Swede and DeVaye also celebrate their 50th anniversarywith Kay and Mary to the DATE!)
When Swede called to say the corn was ready, we would all go to the farm in Hastings that Swede was picking and, as he was combining one end, a suburban full of kids was raiding the other end . Then it was back home to shuck and peel Corn! We then moved the benches out from the kitchen (hey, remember we had BENCHES instead of chairs in the kitchen?!)
This is where we would boil and bag the corn. We all would eat corn the WHOLE day and that was all we were allowed to eat.
I’m not sure why we went to see the pig slaughter… I guess it was dad’s way to show us what other people do on the weekends and I don't remember having any pork chops after we got home.

Nick:
Any time you’d ask dad for money, you had to shine his shoes and you would get a crisp $2.00 bill. By then a number 2 with a coke at McDonalds cost $3.12 tax included. And you couldn’t ask mom for money when dad was around! Well you COULD, but it would have been a bad idea.. and you would have received a nice warm glass of “shut the hell up”!

That’s when mom invented the very first stimulus package..
Mom would always stash money in her pants, sweatshirts, and jackets for us to take when we needed it… No matter how often you raided the pockets, there was always money back in those same pockets the next day. Best of all, she kept stocking her heavy winter jackets throughout the summer, nobody ever checked those….. (except ME!) But as we were sharing this story… MANY of the brothers and sisters thought that THEY were the only ones who knew about the money in mom’s winter jackets! Just goes to show how generous Mary is!!