My Uncle Bill was a big man, a rancher in the beautiful pine covered mountains of northern California. He married his high school sweetheart the week after they graduated. They were married for 56 years. Uncle Bill and Aunt Glady lived on top of Chalk Mountain, 10,000 acres of pristine mountain land. He was an outdoorsman as much as he was a business man, and he loved a good practical joke. Aunt Glady was the quiet one, always attending to everyone’s needs.
Each morning she would rise at 4:30 a.m. to begin preparing the morning breakfast, feeding 12 ranch hands, 4 kids and numerous dogs. She started her day at the stove and ended her evening in the same place. The dinner bell rang promptly three times a day, calling everyone back to the table for more of her homemade delights.
Uncle Bill loved Aunt Glady’s cooking, every time, every day! He also loved to tease her, which he did often. His favorite trick was to hide the food while she was cooking.
More than once I found the smoked sausage on the back porch sitting atop the firewood stack, surrounded by those hungry dogs. But the one trick he pulled, and I mean pulled, only once, was my Aunt Glady’s knickers. Yep, he came up behind her one morning, in front of all us kids, and gave Aunt Glady’s knickers a swift pull and down they went around her ankles.
I thought she was going to die of embarrassment, she was so quiet and shy. When he pulled up her dressing coat to expose her bottom, he suddenly stopped his howl, for there in front of him, were another pair of knickers…his! Aunt Glady never came to the stove without an extra dish of smoked sausage, and never without an extra pair of knickers!
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