8th June 2012
Dear Cassi,
Yet another of the quirks of Grandpa Leland
was his tendency to hire his grandchildren to do things around the house. Again,
I can only hear stories of this, as I was too young to take part in the actions
but grandpa made everything a game.
He would have the grandkids over for the
weekend and pay them to wash the kitchen floor. This was nothing to do with a
mop and bucket mind. No, Leland was nothing of the mop and bucket sort of folk.
He would dowse the floor in soap then water, and have the boys run about with
sponges on their feet. Then he would bring the hose in and wash it all out the
back door.
Grandpa Leland had installed tile that went
a few inches up the wall to make this possible and when he was done the kitchen
shined. This is what I mean when I say the grandpa was very much alive. All his
world was mirth and fun so as even to make washing the floor a party.
He also hired the kids to paint his car
with interior paint for the walls of a home. This made the car a site to see
and that was how he liked it tooling around in what little he drove heads
turning in astonishment.
With this car he would take the grandkids
to Saturday breakfast at the ice-cream shop. He’d get the lot of them out of
the house without a shower or grooming and have the blurry eyed bunch still in
pajamas as he drove along.
Saturday morning when the roads were empty
he would love to pull up to a red light like this and have another car pull
alongside. He would spy the other driver looking over at him in his funny house
paint car and all his half sleeping grandkids and give it some gas.
At this point the other driver would pull
into the middle of the intersection. If this ever caused a wreck they have
never told me but that was Grandpa Leland. He was just a peck too much alive.
Let your mirth harm no one,
Richard Leland Neal
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