In Memory Of - Hugo Schaefer

We lived in Michigan during the 1980s and our left side neighbor was Hugo Schaefer and his wife. He was up around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. every morning and would be outside shoveling his driveway, sweeping his driveway, or picking up the endless twigs in his yard. I remember thinking he was old at the time, but apparently he was just in his early 60s and had barely retired from Dow Chemical.

Until reading his obituary, I wasn't aware that he had been instrumental in creating what we know as saran wrap. Of course, even though this amazed me, we did have other neighbors that invented silly puddy, Styrofoam, and made major contributions to the development of aspirin. That's what happens when you grow up in a town of chemists. I mowed lawns, babysat and delivered papers to these types of people. I don't think any of it rubbed off on me, but it's pretty neat that they were so smart.

Hugo warmed up to us the minute we moved in even though he probably didn't realize he was signing up for a loud Mormon family constantly on the go or who had children who made their way across his manicured lawn to ask questions about what he was doing or how his tools worked.

I still remember being so proud of myself if I could wake up before him and go get our driveway, his driveway or the other neighbors driveway shoveled before he got up. I think I only accomplished that once if I'm honest with myself.

I still remember him picking up all the twigs in his yard and then bringing out the golf balls to practice his swing. It seemed to be his reward after cleaning, fixing, sweeping or whatever he was busy accomplishing. His wife never came outside much and most of the time I only saw her when I went to collect the newspaper bill. My brothers would go over to his house a lot while I was at school and apparently they have even more fond memories as he patiently answered their questions or requests to help him with his tasks.

Our street didn't have many kids our age, but it was great that we had the chance to get to know quite a few adults that were probably secretly happy that there were some grandchildren type kids around. I'm glad we got to be part of that experience.

Good times and good memories.

Hugo is the second from the left at one of our annual neighborhood picnics.

Memory Lane - nooks and corners

I came home from work the other day and did what I always do. I put my keys and blackberry on the bookshelf and then went around my sofa chair and put my computer bag next to my church bag and stack of "to do" papers. It's a perfect hiding spot from the front door, but very accessible to me when I'm sitting and working on my laptop or watching the tube.

This is my favorite corner for keeping what I use on a daily basis. It's also grown to include a printer, purse, scriptures and other books I read. One would think I would use my extra bedroom for this type of stuff, but the reality requires me to have everything easily accessible while I'm doing my day to day activities in the main part of the house.

Growing up, my bedroom was my "corner," but now that the entire house is mine I guess I had to create a "mini-corner" to fit the bill.

I'm realizing that special "corners" or "nooks" aren't so rare when I look through old family pictures.


This was a special corner, for many reasons, in our Michigan house. First, the cabinet is built into the wall and accessible from the living room behind it. We would often try to crawl through the cabinet into the other room. One of the benefits of growing up in a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired home.

Plus, we stored the little record player (shown) in that cabinet so you could access it from either room. But, as you can see, the record player never strayed from the corner. We took it out and played it right there. In fact, it looks like the record that is playing is the Mary Poppins record. You can barely make out the men in black dancing on the roof. All of the songs heard in that corner are completely memorized and when someone says a trigger word at family gatherings we all start singing the tune. "Cast off the shackles of yesterday..." or "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" or "Hound dog howdy kidlets...this is huckleberry hooouuuunnnddd."

The boys found little nooks and corners everywhere. Little Scot apparently had a special corner in the garage. The horrible yellow paint with perfectly matching burnt orange carpet scraps to complement the decor. I'm sure that it wasn't that clean either even though sweeping the garage was one of the Saturday "duties."

Here's an interesting corner. When it rained, it became apparent that the deck had a slant because water would always pour down in one corner creating a puddle and a steady stream. For some reason we thought it was great that we could get our hair wet by standing in that location. Not sure why it was different than the rain pouring beyond the deck, but this special feature provided cheap entertainment for quite a few rain storms.

Another tidbit of thought that may provide little value beyond a fun memory. However, a bunch of these little trips down memory lane are starting to add up.