Some of my memories of Grandpa and Grandma Hibbard (Mert and Doris):
10. I recall Grandpa telling many fantastic stories about bears & hunting bears. While some might have been terrified, I was glad to hear them since Grandpa seemed bear-sized & figured if we ever trapsed through the woods, he could wrestle the bear. When Uncle Mike shot a bear with an arrow & tracked it down, which we later had in some enchiladas, I was even more impressed.
9. In addition to the Zane Gray novels, there was a rug that hung in the cabin: some elk out on a prairie with a mountain in the background. He has it in his room now. The colors in the warp & woof & how they made an overall pattern were a curiousity sparker in me then & still.
8. Grandma (Doris) seemed to have an endless supply of bacon & eggs (more than one way), toast & cereal in the cabin & elsewhere.
a. Take the bacon from package.
b. Put as many strips of bacon as you want in the pan.
c. Fry until they have reached the desired point on the chewy crunchy scale.
7. Camping in the garage & the attic when we had reunions at the cabin or in a trailer out west: family gathering to renew the bonds of kinship & watch C.H.I.P.s on TV.
6. Mark & I dug up a dog skeleton from along a fencerow near the cabin after we trapsed through a cow pasture or two. Though we attempted to re-assemble the skeleton & persuade family members to let us take the box of bones with us or ship them to us (for scientific research, of course), all our persausive words were ignored. We seem not to have suffered excessively from either touching the carcass or from the incomplete science lesson. Grandma was polite about it though.
5. After I graduated, while most of the family went to New York for Grandma's funeral I went to camp & prepared for a trip to the Ukraine. It seemed the right thing to do. It had been sad to see her lose weight during her battle with cancer, but I was glad for the glory that she had prepared for.
4. Often when Grandpa & Grandma visited, they would bring along some Indian crafts (Navajo jewelry, baskets, blankets, etc.). It seemed like a taste of olden days to me: relatives traveling long distances & purchasing goods for trade.
3. Can't forget the time a silver cup (banged up) from when grandpa was a child was discovered that had Grandpa's name on it ... i inheritted it (since i have the same name) & still have it in my office. [Though I didn't chose my name, I am glad that folks call
me "Mert" rather than "Tony." Mert rhymes with cert, shirt, and dirt, etc. Tony reminds me of frozen pizza.
2. The summer that we visited Grandpa after his accident that took him out of driving. He had talked a few times about moving to Arkansas to drive truck there. Mark was in Haiti, & we went to pick him up not long afterwards. But seeing Grandpa survive & overcome the temporary paralysis accident somewhat was regarded by me as a miracle. {One
teacher at school seemed to sneer at the idea that there was anything miraculous about the healing. It was a common thing to her.}
1. The Pursuit of "Place"
In June 2004, while Grandpa was still up in the cabin, we visited him & stayed with Aunt Erma. One day while driving around with him, he pointed out lots of old family property. While the sale to a lumber company had been painful, he seemed pleased that some Amish were moving in to cultivate some other acreage [Don't recall if they were on former Hibbard land or next to it, but he respected them]. The simple, quiet ways which hark back to an earlier era seems right in line with what Grandpa desired. As Grandma is quoted as saying in a newspaper article about the cabin, "He was born 100 years' too late." Beyond the grave plot along the road, the childhood shool house where he had played 6-man football (and led their team for 4 years straight to state championships, undefeated), the little diner where he ate and enjoyed hamburgers & fries, the cricks [creeks] hills, valleys, flowers, wind ... all these things that God has made, where he had grown & he had at times raised his family, yet looking for a better country. Not quite satisfied with the hills of New York, nor the mesas of New Mexico & the Southwest ... he kept looking, all the while remembering where he had come from.
+ "Preach to me." Years ago, when grandpa visited El Dorado, he took me on a trip to fish in a crick near a deserted stretch of land that was bordered by miles of oak bottoms & loblolly pine. We put out our lines & caught nothing. We had Wendy's burgers (the square - old fashioned kind) & fries. ... In the months before Sheila & I left El Dorado [that _mythical_ city of gold] last year and at other times in 1997, he & I would also go to Wendy's. The difference was I would be driving ... somewhere, anywhere, and he would say, "Preach to me." ... When he was in the hospital, he said repeated the refrain, & I reiterated the good news & closed with an invitation to look to Jesus (There is, after all, no sermon without an application :-). The love of God in 1 John & the hope of eternity from Revelation 21-22 comforted & calmed him while he had a stroke that the nurses & doctors & various evangelists & nothing else could overcome. He slept that night, while everyone else was gone. I've traveled many wonderful places, eaten many diverse foods, studied many things, learned a little bit of a few languages. I've read too much & written about the same, but faith, hope & love, these last. The Language of Love, Jesus, He will never fail.
May Grandpa obtain the promised Land he so deeply desires
when his "cabin beyond the clouds" is fully prepared:
simple & enduring, well-founded & untouched by fire.
May it be said of him:
"He was not a man of his times, but he sought a better Day."
Your brother, son, cousin, nephew, etc.
Merton Joseph Hershberger
satisfied