I remember going to a movie with Dad at the Capital Mall, and someone caused the sprinkling system to go off -- everyone running out of the theater to avoid getting soaked.

I remember two kerosene lamps in the house growing up, each with metal clips to hold a tapered glass chimney in place, a dial to adjust the brightness by moving the flat wick up or down, and either colored oil or colored glass in the base.

I remember there was a phase I went through in junior high school when I wore scarves around my neck with every outfit.

I remember taking a weight lifting class as a scrawny freshman in high school and maxing out on the bench press at around 120.

I remember thinking "I wonder when my kids will ever grow up" - and then later thinking "How did my kids grow up so fast!"

I remember Donna was not in the best of moods one morning in Iowa City in 1993 after she discovered not only that she'd left her car's sun roof open during a night of thunderstorms, but also that neither Jen nor I knew how to drive a stick shift and she'd be driving the entire 14 hours to Allentown herself.

I remember having a high school crush on the organist at Immanuel Lutheran Church - whose name I can't recall. (I just remembered several days later that his name was Leon Reschke.)

I remember my junior year of college visiting my former roommate Larry in some kind of group home after he'd climbed to the top of a Carnation plant silo and threatened to jump.

I remember about 1957 we went to Tulsa for the first time to see Hazel and Johnnie, and the busy highways and big buildings were quite a sight to see.

I remember most of our traveling when I was a kid was to Kansas to see Wanda near Louisburg, Aunt Anna and Uncle Willie near Gerard,  and Grandma Luethje, Uncle Herman, Aunt Martha, and Aunt Louise and Uncle Fred in Independence, and of course we made trips to the panhandle of Texas and western Oklahoma all during the 1950’s to pull cotton. 

I remember Louise's laugh.

I remember going to see Mom’s cousin Arvezina in a suburb of Kansas City, where she lived right on the state line between Kansas and Missouri with part of her lot in Missouri and the rest in Kansas.

I remember in maybe 1957 when Bill Acorn and Daddy took their pickup trucks full of school kids 50 miles to Muskogee for the state fair, and Mrs. Couser and Mrs. Harris also drove their cars full of kids.

I remember 1986 as the year we got our first minivan, first color TV, cable TV, and I got my drivers license and went to Sky Ranch.