Talahi Diaries, May 5-7, 1967

In 1966, when my grandparents decided to purchase a summer house near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, they were given a little red diary by their friends Grace and Army. They were to use this diary to record all their time at the cottage. My grandfather made several entries at first, but then stopped after about a year. Several years later I found the diary and started to make entries every time I was up at the lake, and this continued for the next 30 years or so until my grandparents decided to sell the house a year ago (it's still on the market, by the way). I'm going to transcribe all of my grandfather's entries here, in chronological order, but I'm going to start with his entries from the weekend of May 5, 1967, because this is where I randomly opened the diary just now. As it turns out, these were the last entries he made, so it's sort of appropriate. I'll offer any associated memories I have with a given entry. Won't this be fun? ;-)


May 5, 1967 (Friday):

Drove up from O.P. [Oak Park] w/ Grandma & Grandpa Toti & Hankie. Fixed nice fire in fireplace. Arrived about 7:30 pm after having burger @ Marengo. [Grandpa]

When we'd make the two-hour drive from Oak Park to the lake house in Fontana, Wisconsin (one of three villages on Lake Geneva, the other two being William's Bay and Lake Geneva), we'd often stop at a burger joint named "Yum-Yums" in Marengo, IL. If ever a place warranted the "joint" moniker, it was this joint. A hole-in-the-wall right across from the local high school, it served shakes, malts, and "char-broiled" burgers, including my favorite, the "pizza burger" which of course had mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on it. The color scheme was late 60s "harvest orange" and brown, and it had the requisite booths with faded vinyl seats in said color with rips where the stuffing was coming out, cigarette burns on the tabletops, and a juke box in the corner. It was great.

Grandpa and grandma Toti were my grandmother's parents, and thus my great-grandparents. They lived about 800 miles away in Eveleth, MN, but my grandfather would drive them down to the Chicago area once a year or so to visit.

May 6, 1967 (Saturday):

Hankie woke up about 5:45 am. Built kite for Hank. Broke 1st time but Hankie got to fly it at College Camp Field. Poppy did a lot of yard work - Nice day. [Grandpa]

My grandfather made this kite out of a paper bag from Carson Pirie Scott and strips of wood, and some rags for a tail. The night before we'd glued and tied the sticks together in a cross and the cut the bag to a kite shape and glued it to the cross. I was anxious to play with the kite right then, but my grandfather told me the glue would have to dry first. I was very impatient. He also made a kite string caddy and wound what seemed like miles of string around it in preparation for the next day's event. I of course was so excited to fly the kite that I woke up really early; I remember the sun wasn't up yet, and see now that it was 5:45 am. My poor grandfather. I still can clearly see my grandfather struggling to get the kite aloft in the relatively calm morning. I still don't know where College Camp field is in Lake Geneva, maybe someone can enlighten me.

I'd never heard my grandfather refer to my great-grandfather as "poppy" in my life; it was usually "Fred", and occasionally "papa", rarely "Bona Fede" (his real name), but never "poppy". I don't know what that was about.

May 7, 1967 (Sunday)

Left for O.P. about 7:00 pm on May 6th [Grandpa]

I don't know why he entered this on the next day rather than on Saturday, but I include this entry for completeness.

And yes, my grandfather called me "Hankie" his entire life.