Gramp's Centennial

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of my patriarch-grandfather's birth.  On June 28, 1912 "Jack" was born in a small farmhouse southeast of Argos, Indiana.  He was the youngest, and ornriest, of four children that they referred to as "the stair steps".

Birthplace southeast of Argos, Indiana

Grandpa relayed stories from his cantankerous youth to me often.  There was the time he hoisted livestock to the rooftops of unsuspecting farmers.  And the times they would relocate outhouses only a few feet and hope that the night-time user would fall to a surprise.  Or sometimes they would hoist the outhouses to house rooftops.  And one time during a big Fourth of July celebration in downtown Argos he and some friends rounded up a number of stray cats and dogs and set the dogs loose chasing the cats through the legs of horses attached to buggies that were lined up downtown.  He mentioned that one often, which tells me it must have provided great pleasure to the prankster boys watching the mahem unfold.

The "Stairsteps"

Somehow he got my grandmother, a gentle and calming soul, to marry him.

Gramps loved horses, cigars, his truckpatch, chewing tobacco "grandpa's candy", and Ford trucks.  He would never touch a drop of alchohal and stayed clear of places that served it.  He reroofed his house at 78 and outlived my other grandparents by more than 15 years.

Gramps and his brother

Without thinking about this centennial I'm sure, my aunt planned the first gathering of this clan....our first reunion.....this Saturday at our farm.  I'm sure if he would have made it to 100 he would be pleased to meet all of his great-grandkids, particularly his namesake-my Jack, and would be cooking up pranks to pull.

Happy Birthday Gramps.