Some thoughts from Darl

There are so many things I remember about Mom while I was growing up,
it would take volumes to write about them.
I will try to send some as I think about them.
When I was in the 1st or 2nd grade, I was having trouble spelling.
Mom used to sit with me for hours going over the words
and I remember as if it were yesterday,
the one word I was having trouble with was together. 
Mom told me to spell it like this
to-get-her,
I thought she had to be the smartest mom in the whole world
and from then on I always looked at words
to see if they could be broken down into smaller words.
She also taught me multiplication and one of them I will never forget,
(as sure as a squirrel climbs a tree 7X9 is 63)
When I was in my mid 20s I worked for a company called Materials Research,
I was the head of the drafting department.
The owner was a Chemist and the smartest man I have ever known.
He would walk into our drafting department and test us
by asking a question to see who could answer it first. 
He walked in one day and shouted out "what is 7X9?"
He was impressed I answered it so quickly!

Mom will probably remember this:
When we were young kids living in Walnut Grove
just down the road from where Shirley and Larry live now,
we had a two story unit and us kids had bed rooms upstairs.
Every year the newspaper would run a Christmas story
that would start about 2 weeks before Christmas,
and every night we would crawl into bed,
and Mom would come up and read us the next part of the story.
They were exciting times.

Probably the one thing that I will remember the most
that touches my heart every time I think about it
is when Sharon, the boys and I stopped by Mom and Dad's
in Strasburg to say goodby before moving to Nevada.
When it came time to hug her goodby,
she grabbed me and hugged me so tight it almost took my breath away
and she just wouldn't let go.
I have tears in my eyes right now just thinking about it.
So I did the same to Doug when we left them that early morning in Georgia,
because to me 1000 words could not express as much love as that one hug.