Marcie "Mom" Glanzer's Column
Tuesday, August 2, 2006
Archives
4.7.05 4.14.05
4.29.05 5.16.05
6.4.05 6.12.05
7.31.05 9.14.05
10.20.05 10.26.05
11.22.05
12.07.05 1.20.06
2.27.06 3.5.06
3.27.06 4.03.06
4.26.06 6.9.06
6.18.06 06.30.06
07.21.06
"The Dirt on Ryan"
A
few days ago I pleaded with Ryan’s public to help us vote granddaughter Emerson
who was entered in a photo contest, to victory, promising to dish up some little
known facts on Ryan if she was successful. Well, we’ve done it!! Finally,
after several close attempts, little Emmy is a winner! Jordan will receive a
huge canvas with a photo done in pop art, thanks to all who voted her a 10! As
promised, I am now going to “dish the dirt” on my special little guy.
Back in the early 80’s when Ryan was about 3 and little sis Jordan was 1, I
ventured out on a blustery December day with both in tow. Our destination was
Huron and a visit to our doctor as Jordan was due for a checkup. I dressed both
children warmly against the frigid winds and set out. My first stop was the old
Sears and Roebucks building which was located on main street of Huron. It was
an ancient, crappy structure which was mainly used for their catalog orders. It
would soon be Christmas and I had an order that was ready to be picked up.
Since I can’t parallel park to save my life, we had to park far away and walk
the block or two to the store. This wasn’t an easy task as I had to carry
Jordan, hang onto Ryan’s hand and haul my purse and diaper bag along. We got
into the store and just as it was my turn to be waited on, Ryan began
complaining that he had to go potty. He was not wearing diapers anymore, so
this was an emergency as any mother of young children will profess to. But
where to go? This old store didn’t exactly have public restrooms and I didn’t
know of anywhere nearby that did, either. I decided he was serious about going
so asked the clerk if they had a bathroom we could use. We were led down these
creepy, creaky wooden stairs into their dark dungeony basement and shown the
bathroom which consisted of a rusty looking basin and toilet. I dreaded putting
Jordan down on that concrete floor, but had no choice. I helped Ryan with his
pants and Snoopy underwear and he began to pee. Unfortunately, he accidentally
began going out the other end, too! He wasn’t able to stop and we had a mess of
massive proportions on our hands (literally!). The poor kid had diarrhea! I
couldn’t take him back up those stairs and down the street with a bare butt, so
did the best I could at rinsing his underwear and jeans out in the sink.
Meanwhile, Jordan began to wail. I had to force Ryan to put these soaking wet
clothes back on and got our things together and beat a hasty retreat. We had to
immediately go to Pamida where I purchased a brand new outfit for Ryan. We had
things under control once again. A few minutes later we were at our next stop,
the library. We had just begun to pick out a few books when Ryan got this
horrified expression on his face…I grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, but
alas, we were too late. Once again, he’d done it. Another outfit down the
drain. Into the car and off to the store for more clean clothes. At the
doctor’s office, I told him how Ryan seemed to have diarrhea and got some
medication for him. It didn’t kick in time and on the way home, guess what? By
now, I was a frazzled mess. I wasn’t able to do all the errands I had planned;
all I had done all day was clean up crap. Finally, back at home, I felt I could
relax. At least he could run to the bathroom now. I had spoken too soon…Ryan
did it again. Now I lost my temper! I couldn’t yell at him, I knew he couldn’t
help it, but I was so angry that I punched the wall in the hallway and my fist
went right through the drywall! There, just like in a cartoon, was the shape of
my fist, forever to mark this horrible day. I was so ashamed of myself…I ran
and got a picture and hung over the hole, and later wallpapered over it. The
only good thing to come out of that day was that Ryan got a couple of new
outfits.
Now, on to happier times. This was also during the winter, which one I can’t
remember, but we had gotten a lot of snow and conditions were perfect for
sledding. We loaded up a couple of sleds, bundled up from head to toe and the
kids and I started out for an afternoon of fun! Here was my first mistake…we
took the car. An Oldsmobile that was about the size of a Sherman tank. Mistake
#2: there are no hills near Carpenter, where the heck did I think we were going
to sled? Mistake #3: Listening to my kids. They urged me to drive to the
gravel pit which was located in one of our pastures. It was sort of a hill, in
that someone had dug the earth up at one time to extract gravel. It sounded
logical to me, so off we went. This gravel pit was located on a dirt road, not
a regularly traveled route, so nobody had driven on it all winter. What was I
thinking? The road was clearly drifted with feet of snow, but all I heard was
the chanting of 3 excited children…”come on Mom, gun it! Floor it, Mom…you can
do it! Just get a run at it!” With all of this cheering, I even began to
believe it was possible to plow through, so try I did!! I floored that gas
pedal and off we went, quite a ways considering how deep the snow was. It
started to dawn on me that if I let up on the gas, we were not going to make
it. Reason should have also told me that if I couldn’t get down the road, how
in the hell was I supposed to turn around and get back out? But reason wasn’t
with me that day and I dug that car so deeply into the snowdrifts that it was
buried…oh, crap! There was no use trying to back up, it would only be a waste
of gasoline. There was only one solution, and that wasn’t a pleasant one.
Someone would have to hike all the way home and tell Dick what had happened. He
would be so disgusted to think that I didn’t have any more sense than to try
something so stupid. I could already picture him shaking his head and
swearing. But there was no other way…a tractor was the only answer. Ryan
volunteered to be the runner and run he did! We stayed by the car and watched
as his red stocking cap bobbed up and down as he ran, yes ran, the whole way
home, nearly 2 miles. It wasn’t long before we spotted the exhaust of the
tractor as Dick and Ryan made their way slowly down the road towards us. By
now, Jordan, Alex and I were laughing hysterically, picturing his expression as
he neared the car and saw how it was buried. When we finally got pulled out,
not much was said, just “Get the car home”…the wheels were packed with snow, and
there were huge trenches where the wheels had plunged headlong into the snowy
drifts. I was rather proud of the Oldsmobile, and Dick would never have
admitted it, but I think even he was a bit impressed that we made it as far as
we did! Needless to say, we went home without ever doing any sledding, but we
still made some memories that afternoon!
When Ryan was in 7th and 8th grades, he was forced, yes
forced, to go to confirmation classes at the Lutheran church. These classes
were held on Wednesday nights after school. It didn’t matter if you were out
for sports, the classes were mandatory and all the youth had to complete the
classes. Ryan and another friend, Dusty, never took these classes too
seriously. They even skipped out a time or two and got caught which did not go
over very well with Pastor Ann. The other night I was visiting with Dusty and
he began to reminisce about the confirmation days. He told how they were each
supposed to make a puppet and act out a story from the Bible and what did Ryan
come up with? He had seen the show with the lady who had Lambchops, so he
invented “God Chops”. This is according to Dusty, so I don’t have proof of it,
but it does sound like something Ryan would do. I guess Pastor Ann didn’t find
the humor there, either. I can’t even remember what the two of them had done
one particular day, but I got a phone call on a Wednesday evening. “Is this
Marcie??” the caller asked. “Yes, it is”, I replied. “This is Pastor Ann…Ryan
has something he wants to say to you!” Oh crap…I knew it couldn’t be good and
it wasn’t. He and Dusty had both had to phone their parents and confess to the
latest crime. Was I ever glad when the day came for them to be confirmed!! I
was so proud. Little did I know that Ryan would start a campaign to see how few
church services he could attend in a year. I feel the sweetest revenge would be
if Ryan were to meet and fall in love with a very religious girl who forced him
to attend every single Sunday!
Finally, one last tidbit. This is something that occurred when Ryan was in high
school; I would say he was a junior, so maybe 16 years old. In Carpenter we
have a café that is run by one woman all by herself. For some reason or
another, she needed an afternoon off and was trying to find someone who would
take over the café for a few hours. I got a phone call, and hated to say no,
but I knew I was no good working in the café. Ryan was sitting in the kitchen
and overheard my conversation. He waved his arms and hollered, “I’ll do it!!
Alex and I can run the café for one afternoon” I had my doubts, but Sherry was
desperate and took them up on their offer. Their foray into the restaurant
business was to begin at 2PM. There shouldn’t be many people in, maybe a few
would stop by for a bottle of pop or a candy bar and that should be it. They
could close at 6:00PM. The two boys were anxious to start work and waited for
their first customer. Boredom soon set in and Ryan decided to try some of the
soft ice cream. He had one bowl, then another…Alex asked if he could have one
too, but Ryan told him “NO” we might run out. He then proceeded to eat several
more bowls until it was all gone. At around 5:00 I called to see how things were
going and was told that they had a couple stop in for supper and that they were
trying to fry chicken strips and cook a hamburger. Oh my God…they hadn’t a clue
as to how to do any cooking! I jumped in the car and raced uptown. This is
what I found…Ryan had turned on the deep fat fryer but didn’t give it time to
heat up, he just plunged the chicken into the cool grease. The strips were
absolutely soaked in heart clogging grease. The woman specifically requested a
well done hamburger…for some health reason she couldn’t eat anything that was
undercooked. When Ryan got the burger cooked, he put it on the bun. That’s
when he noticed how bloody it still was on the inside, blood oozing out onto the
hamburger bun. The next step was to add a nice slice of onion, but neither boy
knew where Sherry kept them. A hunt in the refrigerator turned up a couple of
surprises. It seems thawing meat blood had dripped into the bottom of the
fridge and it was now filled with swarms of ants. Finally they spotted what
they thought was an onion and cut a nice slice and put it on the burger, topping
it with yellowed lettuce. It turned out that the “onion” was actually a potato,
and the woman returned the burger to be further cooked. Meanwhile, her husband
was munching on the greasy chicken strips and requested a glass of milk. Alex
gave him a glass and set the entire carton of milk on the table. When the man
went to pour it, out came big sour chunks! The milk was outdated by at least 3
weeks! The only good thing about this was that the people were strangers and
hopefully would not be reporting these two boys to the inspectors. Evidently,
they ended up living as we never heard of a death from food poisoning. That
was the first and last day of their restaurant employment!
Well, there you have it. An inside glimpse at the life of Ryan... Of course
there are many more stories I could recount for you. but had best save them for
another column. Who knows when I may need another favor and can dangle the
promise of more dirt in front of you!