life on the ponderosa: June 2008

One of my earliest memories was from around 1965 when my Grandad Todd took me to the little movie theater on main street in Lakin Kansas and we saw "The good, the bad and the ugly." It was a western starring Clint Eastwood. Todd was an amateur historian of the old west and he went into great detail as he explained to me what parts of the movie were accurate portrayals of western life and what parts were Hollywood embellishment.

I was about 5 years old and I remember it was a very violent movie and my first exposure to images of people killing each other. On the way home, I remember him saying, "well, this movie wasn't really meant for kids your age, so I figure it would be a good idea if we don't mention this to your mother."

Even when I was a kid, Todd (we always called him Todd) never treated me like a kid. If I was big enough to ask about something, I was big enough to hear the answer, and he never sugar-coated anything. He, like all of my relatives and like most Kansas farmers, pushed us to be ready for life. Start working as soon as you are big enough to be useful, start driving as soon as your big enough to reach the pedals, and learn how to shoot at 12.

What is all of this flat land? Kansas. It's where we come from and we went back this month to send off our Great-Grandfather, Todd Vincent.

Douglas Pai and Dad were able to go to Kansas just before he died so we could say adios. (Doug with Great-Grandma Flo above). Todd passed away this week, just after we got back to Thailand.

The trip took about a week from start to finish. Aside from saying goodbye to Todd on behalf of his sister and mother, who could not come, Doug played a lot of Wahoo with his Grandma, drove Grandpa's pickup around, rode the tractor and helped plant the milo crop, photographed a rattlesnake that we saw while we were out checking the field. We had canceled flights and got re-routed both coming and going and our bags got lost for 2 days. On top of all of this, Doug, who is in his second week of Kindergarten, had homework in two languages to keep up with while we were traveling.

A pretty eventful trip for a little guy of 5. Maybe this will be one of his first memories.