In 2006 newsie682 and my friend Kelly had a nice Christmas dinner with Luke and Kate , and Jillian and Allen and Susan and I over. I mostly wanted to upload the photos cause most of the night we just opened presents, chit chatted and relaxed at her house.

The one interesting thing I remember was the appletini's that someone made. I was drinking one of these as all the girls were opening presents and it totally went down the wrong tube. Because of all the sugar content in those things, I coughed horrendously for at least 10 or 15 minutes. I am glad I didnt die right there in the christmas presents.

I remember that I had a childhood bully named Dane Fife. I remember that him and his sidekick Trevor came by my house one afternoon and started saying "Is this where you live?"

Because he was my bully and I thought he was making fun of my house I lied and said "No it's just my summer house". How lame.

But it get's even lamer. Dane clarified and said that he was talking about our mailbox. It was a very big mailbox and he was inferring that I lived in it. Very lame.

I remember that there was this one spot in the fields where there was a good sized hole. It was not quite long enough to lay down in but it was waist deep. There was a rusted out spring mattress next to it and we would sometimes bounce off the mattress and into the hole. We called the hole "Old Bessie". It was a landmark of my childhood and of the fields.

One time Doug and his buddies had acquired some BB guns. They were out shooting one day and they apparently went to a sewer plant and they shot these damn bottles full of holes. All this bleach was leaking out and an employee picked up one of the se bottles of bleach and it ruined his pants. I reprimanded them and disciplined them as well as bought the guy a new pair of pants.

The BB gun thing kept on going. talorp85gt and his buddies shot cars driving by. And I had to buy rear glass for the car that they shot up.

I also had a barn that had broken windows and I bought some new ones. About a week later. And there was holes in it. Now Mike shot it all up!! Give a kid a BB gun and he will shoot holes in it. Things never change. Kids will always get into mischief.

I was born and raised on a farm and after the second world war... when I came home, my dad and step mother lived on a farm that belonged to Verdas folks out by Ortonville, MI. My dad was interested in buying his own farm, but land was too expensive. He ended up buying 160 acres for 3600 dollars in the upper peninsula of Michigan. To make a long story short, I had empathy for my dad... and I said, “maybe I will go farming”.

I was working with a friend (Neil Bradent) and he was looking at repossessed tax lands to buy up in the same area. I told him about my Dads property and the prices. The next summer I found out that he bought a farm up there. So I said to myself... “well hell if he can do it.... then I can do it”. That was before the Mackinac bridge was built (in 1954).

We decided we would move up there together as a caravan. I had an old dodge truck and he had a jeep. So we set off to make our fortune up north.

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