Three Thing Thursday: The Storm Edition

Welcome to another edition of Three Thing Thursday, where I share three four things and you share three things. Or, you can share four things or five things, whatever you want, but today instead of three I'm sharing four.

That sentence above is brought to you courtesy of a serious lack of coffee this morning and a low-pressure weather system that has stalled over the county. Or is it a high-pressure system? I won't know until I've had my coffee and visited wikipedia.

This special hurricane edition is brought to you courtesy of Ida.

Oh, Ida.

1. Thanks to Hurricane Ida, which they say is no longer a hurricane, we're in the midst of what the weather folks are calling a "historic nor'easter." May I say that all of the nor'easters in this area are historic, in that you can't wait for them to be history. The tide floods the yard and the wind is relentless. And the rain. Oh, the rain.

2. It's Wednesday morning as I write this. Ordinarily I'd be at my paying job, but it's a holiday. (Can you hear my cries of joy and ecstasy?) Because there's a good chance our current will go out, I'm queuing this post up early. Winds are supposed to reach 50 miles per hour, and we're already well on our way to that number.

3. "Current" is the old-timey way of saying "electricity" around these parts. My mother utters it without batting an eye, and now I do too. So, in anticipation of losing current, I wrote this post well in advance. If you don't hear from me for a while, I'm treading water and trying to hook up a generator. Chesapeake Bay Woman doesn't have the patience or knowledge to hook up a curling iron, so hooking up a generator ought to be something. Else.

4. Or, the weather forecasters will be wrong, once again, and tomorrow it will be bright, sunny and 75 degrees.

Either way, I still don't know how to hook up a generator.

Now it's your turn. Please share three--or more--things, whatever you want, anything at all. Be sure to include step-by-step instructions for hooking up a curling iron generator.

(Those instructions can be separate from your three or more things. Thank you.).

The General

These crab pots and that flag live down Onemo at the public landing.

Today is Veterans Day which has little to do with crab pots but does have a little something to do with the flag. Based on my proclivity for rambling, however, by the time this post is over with I'm liable to have linked crab pots with veterans, so let's not rule out a connection just yet.

My paternal grandfather was known as The General in Mathews County where he retired, but his grandchildren called him Gus. Both names were not exactly on the mark - he was a Brigadier General and his first name was Gustave. (Hence my mother's hesitation at awarding her goose that name. However, both had a Take Charge Attitude, so she acquiesced. The family name lives on in a fiery-tempered goose with his own Facebook page.)

Gus graduated from West Point in 1920 and was stationed everywhere from San Francisco to the Phillipines. I have pictures of him on Corregidor in 1929 and the German freighter Kulmerland off Singapore in 1930. There are stories of him rubbing elbows with This President or That Very Important Person, and he certainly had a long list of impressive military accomplishments.

But what I remember about Gus doesn't involve his career, which he rarely referenced. What I remember is how he called us his Vikings. (Probably because we were blond-haired kids who ran amok like savages. No offense to any present-day Vikings out there, but they did have a reputation for destruction. On the other hand, they were excellent explorers and navigators who later established a successful football franchise in Minnesota.)

Ordinarily an aloof man, he greeted his grandchildren with bear hugs whenever we saw him. His military career prevented him from seeing his own 3 boys grow up, so as if making up for lost time he cherished every visit. In later years, he'd tear up after hugging us goodbye, even though we were only going next door. Just next door.

What I appreciate most about Gus, though, were the life lessons he instilled in his grandchildren. Refusing to sit still during his retirement, he started a daffodil farm and hired us as his farm hands every spring. Although the work was hard, the rewards have lasted a life time.

After living all over the world, Gus retired to bucolic Mathews County in 1954. If not for him, I wouldn't know this peaceful paradise. Impressive military career notwithstanding, Gus knew and appreciated the gifts that abound in this charming coastal community, and he understood the importance and beauty of connecting with the natural world.

He was a very wise man.

p.s. Regarding crab pots and their relevance to Veterans Day, here's the connection: Without my grandfather--the veteran--I wouldn't live in Mathews, which has a history of watermen--who use crab pots. See?

p.s.s.t. Chesapeake Bay Viking has a certain ring to it.

p.q.r.s. What do you remember about your grandfather(s), assuming you knew him/them?