My grandpa Bud (left) and my dad (right)
No new episode today, but I should have one out tomorrow. I've heard a few comments from readers on this little story, so glad you are enjoying it, and I'll work on making updates more regularly. Most of my time has been spent on the second revision of my novel, but thankfully that is nearing completion. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes.
Today I want to share another humorous anecdote from my life, and this one is about the fellow pictured up above. My grandpa Bud died several years ago, and during his funeral I saw something that gave me a chuckle and I thought I'd share.
But first, a little about the man himself. Otto Smith was born just before Christmas in 1921. He was the youngest of 12 (twelve!) children born on a family farm outside of Helena, Montana. Growing up on the farm, it was nice to have that many people around to help with the chores, I'm told. (I asked my father recently if they were catholic. nope. just very prolific)
As a young boy, Otto decided that he wasn't too fond of the name his parents had given him. He took a pencil and some paper and wrote down all of the nicknames he could think of, and picked his favorite. From that moment on, he'd decided he would be called Bud. For the rest of his life, he introduced himself as Bud, and that's what he went by.
About the time he was picking out his new name, Bud fell ill with Rheumatic Fever. It's one of those diseases that is easily treated these days, but in the 1920s, could be easily fatal. Bud was bed-ridden for a year with it. In the end, he pulled through, but his long childhood illness made him ineligible for the military when WW2 came around in 1939.
You can still find this brand if you look hard enough.
Instead, when the war started, Bud found himself working as a baker at Eddy's bakery, a job the government declared as 'necessary'. Because it was a necessary occupation, he wasn't allowed to quit. And because he wasn't allowed to quit, he was paid a pittance for his work, a dollar a day.
After the war, the now twentysomething Bud and his wife Clara moved to California in pursuit of better paying jobs. He might have succeeded too, if every man returning from the war hadn't had the same idea. After several months of living in hotels while looking for an affordable home, Bud gave up and moved back to Montana. (good thing too, or I would have had a very different life to be sure)
Bud went back to work as a baker, but after a couple of years doing this, he developed an allergy to flour. As you can imagine, a baker being allergic to flour created a bit of a work conflict. My dad tells stories of how Bud would come home at the end of the day with his hand looking like ground hamburger, cracked and bleeding all over. Bud moved from the bakery to the delivery truck. He spent years on a delivery route, putting hundreds of miles a day in behind the wheel.
Eventually though, his flour allergy progressed to the point that he couldn't even drive the truck any more, and he was forced to move on to other jobs. But Bud never lost his love for the open road. Bud was a car guy through and through, and it wasn't unheard of for Bud to drive several hundred miles in a day, just to drive. (Bud liked speed too, when I got my first car, a 1966 Chevy Impala, Bud told me you have to make sure to get it up over 100 mph once in a while to blow out the carbon build up. My dad vehemently denied that was necessary.)
Old age and a condition called macular degeneration eventually took Bud's eyesight and put an end to the roadtrips. But til the day he died, Bud said that one day, one day they will come up with a cure for his blindness, and he was going to buy a new truck. (I can just picture my 95 year old grandpa in a one ton diesel that he can't see over the steering wheel of tearing down the interstate at 90 miles an hour.)
The last time I saw Bud was not a happy visit, and it's not the way I prefer to remember him. Bud had dementia, the result of a stroke he'd had. Bud (bit of a hardhead too as it turned out) didn't got to the hospital for several days after his stroke, and by then of course, the damage was done.
When Bud did finally pass, his funeral was a small affair. He'd managed to outlive all his friends and his 11 siblings. It was decided that instead of a formal funeral, we'd have a small gathering of his kids and grandkids.
Bud was cremated, and was set to be buried next to his wife, Clara, the love of his life who had predeceased him by a nearly 30 years. We stood around Clara's grave and shared stories of the two of them for about an hour.
When they time came, my uncle Wayne opened the box that Bud had been placed in and that was when I saw it. Something was stuck to the bottom of Bud's urn. Something that is instantly recognizable to anyone in America. A small, golden oval.
Made in China
I couldn't help it, I started laughing. Here I was at a funeral, trying to stop myself laughing while we all take turns trying to peel off the little sticker. (you know how sometimes they just wont come off) Bud always had a good sense of humor, and I like to think that would have given him one last grin, despite the fact that he was laid to rest with little clumps of cheap adhesive stuck to his underside for the rest of eternity.
