Hello Yall,
When it comes to blogging, I am the worst person at keeping up to date.
Anyway, last weekend was prety eventfull and interesting.
On Sat. Mary and I went to Gravel Lake outside of Lawton.
We have a great uncle on my dads side of the family who has a trailer out there.
Anyway, we were all set for a night of camping....I had loaded up the car with the tent,
air mattress, portable grill, cooler, everything we would need.
When we got to the place, the family had gone into town to pick up a few things, and we were not sure at first which place was uncle Larys. Fortunately, a neighbor had seen the strangers and informed us which trailer was Larys and said they may have gone out on a boat ride.
We walked down to the water and saw a few boats out but not Lary.
Another friend of the family saw us kind of trying to find somebody and helped us out by calling Lary on the cell phone.
Lary told us to make ourselves at home so we went back to the trailer and had a seat in the sunporch rec room of the place.
As soon as we entered we saw all kinds of fish mounted on the walls, ball caps hanging where the fish weren't and a pair of antlers hanging up holding about another 3 or 4 hats.
The first thing I said upon entering was "Yup It's A Daily House".
When Lary returned, my dad and his girlfriend Joan were with him, and we were getting ready to unload the Aztec.
"You guys don't need that stuff" my dad said...we were going to be sleeping on the pull out bed in the sun room, Dad and Joanie would be on the pull out bed in the living room, and of course Lary and his wife Lynne were in their bedroom.
Anyway, Dad said, " I hope you guys have extra room in your car"...they had two boxes of old yarn and a trash bucket full of knitting needles from Joans place up in Afton...about a half hour from THE BRIDGE.
Well, I was not so sure we had the room, but Mary took care of everything and somehow got it all in the car.
After a lite snack, Lary Dad and Joan had decided that a trip to the St. Julian Winery in Paw Paw was in order.
About this time Lynne came home from work, so we all piled into Larys truck and off we went.
Now getting into the truck was an adventure in itself, because it is a BIG Ford F-350.
It sets up pretty high, and has a step bumper, but we found that we still needed the milk crate in back to get in and out.
Anyway, this was actualy a very cool trip...I have lived in this area all my life and had never been to any of the wineries in Paw Paw.
We took the tour of the plant, and tasted a couple of wines each...and Mary and I came home with a bottle of Blue Heron, the #1 selling Michigan wine, and a bottle of Chery Spumante.
When we got back to the lake, the guitars were taken out and we headed down to Larys pontoon out at the dock.
Another of Larys friends, Dave, joined us and we had a very neat little jam session out on the pontoon.
Dave is a little bit of a blusey player, Dad is the old country player, and I mix in a little bit of both with some more contemporary country...all of which blended nicely.
We played for about an hour or so, and then went up for supper.
After supper, it was back down to the water for a tour of the lake...very nice and quiet...and then more music.
The next day, we were up around 8 to deep fry a turkey and a chicken to take to the 54th Dailey Reunion.
This is allways a great time, allthough sadly, I don't know even half of the people there.
Anyway, each time we go is allways a great time with way to much food, and each timwe we come away with a little family history.
This was no exception. My Dads Grandparents were Ralph and Dora Dailey.
These two are very important to the family history, because they had 16 children.
No that is not a typo.
Of the 16 there are still a few living today, one of which, Aunt Iona, was celebrating her 79th birthday.
She is not the oldest, Susie, is 91 and the oldest surviving sibling.
One of my great uncles had asked Dora how she and Ralph had gotten 16 kids.
Her reply was that they lived near the railroad tracks, and every morning a train went by at about 4:30 and woke them up. She said it was to early to get up and to late to go back to sleep.
Anyway Iona had brought in a picture of Ralph and Dora taken around 1910.
Ralph passed away in 1940, but Dora was with us until 1981.
They lived in Pullman, Mi. which is in Allegan county.
During WWII, 6 of the brothers served in different branches of the Armed Forces, and there was a large plaque at the VFW post in Pullman to honor all the men who served from Allegan County and all of the names are on there.
There is a newspaper clipping from the Pullman newspaper honoring Dora and her 6 sons, and this is hanging in the VFW in Pullman.
There is also a family story that has Dora being thrown out of the VFW for starting a bar fight.
Now I don't know about you, but when I think of Grandmothers, I think of Apple Pie, Cookies and things like that. BAR FIGHT is not real high on the list of things I think of.
Well, that is a bit of where I come from, I have a family tree at home that traces us back to a Jeremiah Daily who died in 1777 here in the states.