Kara O'Neal
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Get What You Want...

11/26/2017

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Picture
The cement is white, making the blinding sun reflect right into your face and the sweat bead at your hairline.  Texas in the summer…

The parking lot is full of cars for this is the only grocery store around for five miles and he parked all the way in the back.

The handles of grocery bags are cutting into his fingers and he’s carrying three in each hand.  It was, of course, his idea to go to the store because he is going to make goulash.

He is breathing hard for he is in his seventies and his strength isn’t what it used to be.

My brother is with him and Bill is walking fast, trying to get to the car where there is air conditioning and a chance to get out of the blazing heat.

But, the older gentleman stops and tells Bill to wait.  





Bill turns around and to his surprise, he watches as a seventy-year-old, already well into retirement, with sweat sliding down the sides of his face, sets his heavy burden down to pick up a penny on the ground.  

He puts it in his coin holder, picks the bags back up, and says, “Okay.  I got it.”

He is my granddad.  A genius.  A hard worker.  Son to immigrants from Spain.  A survivor of the depression.  A college graduate in a time when college wasn’t important.  A pharmacist.  A husband.  A father.  A no-nonsense kind of guy who used the word “hooey” a lot.

For 50 years he served ice cream (Blue Bell only) and medicine to people in a pretty small town in South Texas.  His father started the store around 1919 and he kept it going with his brother.  It was Granddad’s idea to put the pharmacy in the ice cream parlor.  I sometimes wonder if he was the first person to think of it…

A drug store.

It had stools that swiveled.  I sat there and swiveled and swiveled and swiveled and ate vanilla ice cream.

Granddad was funny.  And he could do magic tricks.  And he would empty out the mustard and ketchup bottles, put string in them, and then hide behind the counters, preparing to jump out and “squirt” you.

He LOVED Wil E. Coyote.  We would watch those cartoons and half the time I would crack up just because he was laughing so hard.  I never really thought they were funny.  I don’t know why the coyote kept going after the road runner.

I am an adult now and I would have to say that I find them a lot funnier in my old age.  I wonder what that means…

Granddad devoted his life to his parents, his family, and his church.  

When we sat down to dinner, he would come around and kiss the top of our heads before we said grace.

And he always said, “Get what you want, but eat what you take.”

Which means -- never take on more than what you can handle.  But, if you take it on, then do it well.

God bless him…

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    Kara O'Neal

    An author who has too much to say is dangerous.

    The subjects on this blog:


    Monday Memories -- My Childhood

    Wednesday Words -- Books!

    To be a guest on my blog:

    Contact: kara@karaoneal.com

    Monday Memories: Cast

    Kara -- Me
    Maria -- sister
    Wendy -- sister
    Bill -- brother

    M'Lynn -- mother
    Drummond -- father

    Grace -- mother's redheaded friend
    Liam -- Grace's husband
    Gorgeous (Georgie) -- oldest son and friend
    Phillip -- middle son and friend
    Andrew -- last child and friend

    Jo -- mother's "big idea" friend
    Noah -- Jo's husband who builds things
    Jack -- oldest son and friend
    Roxi -- middle daughter and friend
    Lela -- last child and friend

    Alex -- friend who travels the country and lives in Dallas
    Blossom -- friend who lives in Dallas and sells houses

    Miss Holly -- next door neighbor
    Kirk -- middle son
    Scotty -- youngest son

    Lou -- uncle on my dad's side who likes baseball
    Evaline -- my dad's sister who's crazy funny
    Luke -- oldest son and my cousin
    Han -- younger son and my cousin

    Clark -- my mother's brother who bleeds maroon

    Alexander -- my eldest cousin on my dad's side

    Dawn -- cousin on my dad's side that is the same age as Maria

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