The Grandfather's Club has dissolved but the grandkids live on. Making memories.

I miss the life of crime I shared with those guys. It wasn't all that long ago we'd go off and commit the crime of endangering children by letting them ride in the back of an open pickup on sultry summer evenings.

The kids remember it, though. They remember the sights and smells from the bed of a pickup driving through PA farm country at the dizzying speed of about 30 mph.

There's a guy I know of that used to really have fun with his kids. He'd have them leave that back seat section down, the one that connects to the trunk when they got someplace like a store.

When they returned to the car he'd open the trunk, pick up the kids like cordwood, chuck them into the trunk and growl about not wanting to listen them all the way to Cincinatti.

Sometimes the oldest would scream when he slammed the trunk shut. He'd reopen in and shout, "Now what?! Just shut up until we get to Grandma's! I want some peace and quiet from you little yard apes!"

Slam.

Of course the kids would squirm into the back seat, stay low and fasten their seat belts out of sight of the nosy busybodies, giggling and laughing. They knew what kind of a show they were putting on.

Sometimes a woman would screech and he'd tell her to mind her own business. Once they got reported and stopped by the police and after the cop inspected the trunk the kids got out of the car and they demonstrated to the laughing cop what they did.

Say what you will about this kind of thing but it creates memories.

Not too many kids are even going to remember dad or mom doddering all over them and carefully adjusting their seat belts when the got into the back seat. They won't say a word about that in later life.

Of course those kids that do have that kind of memory are going to remember that for the rest of their lives.

Dad will be long dead and gone and the kids will be grandparents themselves but when they get together every so often one of them will say, "Remember how dad used to throw us into the trunk?"

And that will be met with gales of laughter.

Make memories while you can. I look back on every minute the Grandfather's Club and I got together.

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY