Family

My Mom has been writing about her family memories. She has been working on it for a few months now. She just gave me the second part to read over. I hope there will be much more to come. Here are a few paragraphs about my Mom and my uncle - two of the most original people in the world...

My brother Mike and I spent a lot of time riding in his 1966 Volkswagen convertible, a red cutie with a black top. Mike said it looked like a baby buggy when the top was down. Mike’s car was as unique as he was. One rainy day, we drove over to a store in our neighborhood called Pic ‘n Save, a store that sold cheaply-made merchandise that they couldn’t unload in dime stores like Woolworths. We found a package of Colorforms, those vinyl cartoon-like things that stick by static to another vinyl sheet. I think Mike paid a quarter for one with bugs and animals. We took it home and he brought out the superglue and glued these vinyl stickers all over the interior of his car. The ones I remember most were the family of ladybugs marching across his radio buttons and the slithering snake right above the “fasten your seat belt” insignia in his car. At this particular time, Mike had quit smoking, something he would do a thousand times during his life. So now that Mike was no longer a smoker, there was no need for the ashtrays in his car. He turned them into planters, placing gravel at the bottom for proper drainage and his African Violets thrived in the front and back seat. The VeeDub was not in the best condition, and during this rainy winter, one of the windshield wipers had flown off while we driving. The little arm that held the wiper blade was still there, creating a nasty scratch on his windshield. Mike pulled over and we ransacked the car to find something (Mike suggested something like a little sponge – which of course, he didn’t happen to have in his car) to cover the end of the wiper arm so it wouldn’t scratch the windshield. What we found was a glove, which Mike slipped over the wiper arm and we were pretty pleased with our impromptu repair. As Mike started the car, we both laughed hysterically as the glove was now “waving” as we drove along.
Once while cruising in the VW, I found a Marine Band harmonica in the glove compartment, a souvenir from almost everyone’s attempt to play a little blues on the harmonica. As we goofed around with the harmonica while driving down El Cajon Boulevard, Mike put the whole thing in his mouth. Which meant, of course, that I would have to give it a try. I put the harmonica in my mouth and instantly discovered that I have a much smaller mouth than my brother. Even though the harmonica went in, it definitely did not want to come out. As I turned and looked at Mike, I started to laugh, which produced the typical “eee-haaa” harmonica sound and the harder I laughed, the more harmonica noises I made. My brother had to pull the car over because he was laughing so hard. Another side effect of the laughter was the clamping down of my jaw, further cementing the harmonica in my mouth. The more we tried to calm down so we could try to pry this musical instrument out of my mouth, my panting and laughter kept the harmonica medley going. I had tears streaming down my face. We finally realized that if we didn’t get this harmonica out, we may have to go to the emergency room and face real doctors who, while they might get a laugh out of my situation, probably have more serious things to attend to than someone with an instrument stuck in their mouth. By now I’m completely exhausted, and I guess the fatigue helped me out. I relaxed enough for Mike to get his fingers between my cheek and the harmonica and angle it out.

>>>I miss my uncle and I love my mom. Mom, keep writing!<<<