Magic Man…

mail0010Grampa, Laurie, Launi and Andy–1959

The other day–my dear, life long friend Kim over at Manning Family Tree—–tagged me in a photo file game. I’ve never done this sort of thing before so I was intrigued.

These were my instructions:

“Go to your photo files…
Select the 6th photo folder…
Select the 6th photo in that folder…
Post that photo along with the story behind it.
Then challenge 6 blog friends to do the same!”

The 6th file was a folder filled with scanned pictures from my long ago and far away past. The 6th photo in the file is of my Momma’s daddy–my sweet little old grampa–Clyde Mitchell, snuggling us kids in front of the Christmas tree. He was a good,  solid, quiet fellow–very nature-y. Loved camping and fishing and….hunting. Ok, well that isn’t so nature-y but it was back in the day when they actually ate what they bagged–so I don’t feel so bad about it.

copy-of-mail

I need to show you this other picture though. When my grampa was a young man he worked for a magician and escaped from handcuffs and chains and stuff.  That’s my grampa with shackles  around his wrists and ankles. Up at the top of the picture it says “Escaped in 3 minutes.” He was even hypnotized and stuck in a store window, on a mattress for a few days. Apparently people came from far and wide, at all hours of the day and night to see when he would finally get up. I bet that sold a ton of mattresses!

I remember a few things about him. One is that he used to sit out in the yard and let squirrels take sunflower seeds from his bare hands. He like to tease my grama by trying to trip her with his cane. He loved to eat nasty looking half cooked eggs and toast for breakfast. It was hard to watch. He gave us kids fifty cent pieces whenever we would come to visit to spend at the dime store–but we never did. I still have one of them. He passed away when I was 11- so that was about 200 years ago…or close.

He was very strong and gentle and I remember that we loved him very much. Still do.

The End

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PS– I’m tagging:

Susette at–All Good Things Come

April at— (Un)controlled Chaos

Kathy at—Rantings

Lyndi at—The Clan Lou

Jillian at—Finding Forget Me Nots

Jodi at—Johnsons

Thanks Kim–that was fun!

4 Replies to “Magic Man…”

  1. Oh sweet stories Launi. You always share the cutest things. But yikes! I gotta do it too? Okay, I’ll be brave and try it. (give me a day or two)

  2. Ohhh… I love stories about that Grandpa! 🙂 I’m glad you got ‘tagged’! I’ve been rearranging my pictures in all sorts of weird ways, so it’ll be interesting to see what picture it ends up being! Thanks!

  3. Glad you played along. I loved learning about your Grandpa. And I’m glad you added the magic man photo. It was a very interesting story. And I learned even more about you in the process. Thanks for sharing.

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