This story, you could say, starts more then a lifetime ago. You could also say it started a month ago or maybe just a week ago, depends on how you want to look at life. I see it as fluid things coming and going and time that is ever changing. You can't get it back once it's gone! So use it wisely, to remember the past, to enjoy the present and look forward to the future.
Norilyn, my GWAPA Fiancée and I went to Gerten's Greenhouse. She showed me all of these Fairy's for gardens and was so excited on creating her very own. I always enjoy seeing her smile with excitement! So I said, that's a great idea but if you are going to do this, please let me get the container. I told her that next time I'm at a swap meet with Dad, we could find something old and super cool!
Well Norilyn is a Nurse and when my Dad and I walked the swap meet looking for who knows what, low and behold here was a beautiful bed pan shiny white from the early 1900's with the instructions and everything, but the cost was way too much so we decided to move on. Guess what? One aisle over was a blue speckled bed pan and the price was right. Dad and I didn't even think twice, this is perfect! We, of course, joked and laughed about it all day.
Fast forward until the next time Norilyn was over. I have her sit down and shut her eyes. Then I go get this prized possession to set on her lap. You guessed it, she opened her eyes, laughed and then said, where is the real container? That's it, Dad and I said. She was not too pleased.
Fast forward to later in the week. We stop by Rogers house. Roger was my Grandpa's partner on the St. Paul Fire Department and has been a family friend ever since. He owns a few old cars and has lots of rusted yard art out in the lawn. Norilyn points at some of it and tells me she thought we would get something like that for her. I told her, go ahead, ask Roger what he thinks of the Bed Pan idea. So she asked him what he thought two goofballs would get her for a container. He didn't know. After she tells him what we got her, he laughed and said you should've met his Grandfather "He's the one that started that whole line of thinking." My Grandfather got Roger a Bed Pan, after a surgery with a cactus in it. I of course, knew that story. I've been lucky to know Roger. He has told me lots of stories about my Grandpa, who I never got to meet. He also told her," that sounds like a welcome to the family kind of gift!" So after all of that, she decided to build Bed Pan Island! Everyone who has seen it has laughed and enjoyed it.