HOM: Visitation Rights

We had a few visitors fly in that summer to take advantage of the second bedroom in the trailer. Sharron came up from California and then Lyn's Mom & Grandma (Dick's Mom) visited. Sharron's visit was the first, and when we picked her up at the airport she had gotten acquainted with a girl who was coming to Glacier for a job. Sharron told her I'd be glad to drive her to the Park. This would have been better if she was heading for West Glacier instead of East Glacier, but at least it was a pretty trip, the girl was cute, gas was cheap and Red was roomy. We were still buying household stuff, and Lyn just gotten a set of new Corelle dinnerware that was advertised to be unbreakable. Sharron had gone to bed, tired out after the trip, and had only been asleep a few minutes when Lyn demonstrated the new dishes to me. "Watch this -- they bounce!" and she dropped a handful of them on the floor. She was right, they did bounce --- and so did Sharron. She came stumbling out of the bedroom rubbing her eyes and wondering what exploded, and was a little crabby after she got the explanation. I thought it was funnier than anyone else did, which is my normal situation. Ruth & Grandma came out a few weeks later to see how things were going. I suspect it was their first time east of the Mississippi, because they asked serious questions about problems with Indians and whether it was safe to go outside at night because of bears. They took the resulting teasing quite well. Grandma Francis had a dry sense of humor and a habit of mispronouncing proper names that really endeared her to me. Next to Ri, she was my favorite in-law. With her, "Helena" became "Heleeena", "Butte" appropriately became "Butt", and the "Buttery's" store became "Butterflies." After she listened to me smart-mouthing Lyn, she commented "You don't enjoy peace, do you, James?" True. Peace used to get boring. But that didn't last long either. She died not too long after that trip, and it saddened me. She was a neat lady. TBC (Me) (Blacktail Books)