We would also call my Dad and try to go visit him while we were in town. He lived in Battle Creek at first and that was easy to go visit him. He still lived in the house I lived in when I went to live with him in High School. But, then he moved to Kalamazoo and so we had to drive over there to see him. We never spent much time with him, just a couple hours. We were never very close and you run out of things to say very quickly. They always seemed happy to see us. Dorothy would jump up and go get us a plate of cookies or treats of some kind and a drink. The kids always liked that. I tried to stay as close as possible to my Dad, but it was hard. I think he wishes things would have been different. One of highlights of the holidays was getting the Christmas check for the kids from Grandpa Hoag. For a lot of reasons, I think I have turned into my Dad.
Two things which really stand out for me while we were staying at my Mom’s house. One was when Kimmy fell off the porch railing and hit her head on the cement below. She and Katy were playing on the porch of the trailer and Kim went backwards off the railing down to the cement to crack her head a good one. Boy, were we scared. We took her to the hospital emergency room and had her checked out. One or two of the men from the Battle Creek Ward came to the hospital and gave her a blessing. I think she had a mild concussion and she had to take some kind of medicine for several months after that, but eventually she didn’t have any long term effects. (Of course, those of us who know her might disagree with that. 
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The other incident was when David asked to go a nearby grocery store for some reason and I let him go. He had to cross the busy Columbia Ave to get to the store and on his way back, he just walked right out in front of a car. Cars were moving at 35 miles per hour or better, so he got hit pretty bad. The first we heard about it was when a cop showed up at the trailer to tell us he had been taken to the hospital. Well, that ended the vacation. We didn’t even get to Quincy on that trip. David had his leg broke very badly. So bad, that they had to put a metal rod down through the center of the bone to hold it all together. He still has that rod in his leg today. Makes flying a little more interesting. For some reason that I don’t remember, we had two cars on that trip. David spent the trip back home stretched out in the back seat with his leg out straight. It took a long time to heal.
Dad