Live. Laugh. Create. Inspire.

This is a guest post by Uncle Jarod- J’s brother. His is a much better writer than I and I’ll gladly post a story from him any time. He sees life through a lense of humor and this makes him good company! Enjoy and thanks Uncle Jarod!

This story starts with my great-aunt Fanny whom we all love dearly. To really understand the story, you have to understand Aunt Fanny. Fanny is in her late 90’s, she stands about 4’11”, weighs in at no more than 85 lbs., and I would venture that the last article of clothing she bought was sometime between 1967 and 1972. Other than her groovy Brady Bunch wardrobe complete with butterfly collars, suede jackets, bell-bottom slacks, platform shoes, etc.; my favorite thing about Aunt Fanny is that I never have any idea what is going to come out of her mouth. In our family, she is famously quoted as saying, “You know, I can’t hear a lick, and I can’t see a thing, but thank the Lord I can still drive!” On another occasion she called the police station to complain about men firing shotguns in the air outside of her house. What she had actually heard was a sonic boom, and the dispatcher at the police station told her, “Ma’am, those were airplanes.” Fanny’s response was, “Well, I don’t see what sense it makes to go firing shotguns at airplanes.”

Up until this spring Fanny lived at her house alone in Comanche where I would mow her lawn for her occasionally in the past few summers. Last summer I stopped by to mow one morning and I found her in the laundry room doing her best to mop up a water leak from the washing machine. What she didn’t realize was that her arm was completely covered in blood. She had apparently caught it on a rusty nail and had a sizeable gash on her forearm. I pointed the cut out to her and told her that we should go have someone look at it. To that advice she replied, “Well, there’s this nice fella down at Dollar General who could probably help me out.” I told her that I was thinking more along the lines of making a trip out to the hospital. So we loaded up in my car and went to see the doctor. On the way to the hospital we marveled at the new high school that was recently built (roughly 30 years ago) and at all the people who were “adding on to their pick-up trucks.” This last comment I didn’t come to understand until later.

So we arrive at the hospital, and to the doctor’s question of how she cut herself, Fanny answered that she thought it was her cat. Fanny doesn’t have a cat. So I told Dr. Davis that I thought it was a nail. He handed Fanny some more forms to fill out and left the room to check on another patient. Fanny knew little in the way of answers for the paperwork, so I dug through her purse to find all of the necessary insurance information, numbers, addresses, etc. We had already filled out her age to which she had answered 94. While looking at her information I discovered that she was actually 96 and told her so. Her response to this startling news, “Well, I was wondering about that a few years ago.”

Eventually we completed the forms, and Dr. Davis came back in, patched her up, and sent us on our way. As we approached my car in the parking lot, Fanny asked, “Is that the same pick-up truck we drove out here in?” I said, “Yes ma’am.” “Well, you’ve gone and added onto your truck too!” I was driving an FJ Cruiser at the time and what I figured out was that every SUV Fanny saw was a pick-up truck that the driver had personally ”added onto.” In fact, Fanny’s younger brother stopped by to check on her later that week, and when he saw the bandage he asked her about it. She told Uncle Wayne, “Well, I cut my arm and this nice young man stopped by and drove me out to the hospital in one of those pick-up trucks that he went and added onto.”