Loving grandparents

Grandma and Grandpa Poston were very special people to me. I remember many fun things I had with them over the years. I sort of feel ashamed at myself for not spending more time with them because they were such wonderful people. Grandpa Poston always had some sort of cool thing to give me. I remember he gave me a few different watches and many of these little models. My family and I often went and visited them, which I always enjoyed. I remember many more memories with my Grandma Poston compared to Grandpa Poston because Grandma Poston lived a lot longer. When Grandma Poston started getting older, we moved her to the Green View Inn. The Green View Inn was a great place for her because she did not have to cook or clean.
Plus there were many other older ladies there for her to play games with and eat her meals with. I think putting her in the inn was one of the best decisions we made. It is kind of a shame that we did not put her in the Green View Inn sooner. I had to do some community service work for confirmation in 8th grade, so I decided to do it at the Green View Inn. I really enjoyed the time I spent there because all the old people were so nice and caring, plus I got to see my grandma a lot. We would eat meals together and play games from time to time. I can remember helping out with different activates by passing out popcorn or just helping setting up games.
Helping out at the inn was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed spending time with my grandma. It was nice to stop by her room and visit her while I was working. I miss both my grandma and grandpa, but the memories I had with them will always remain with me.

A brother more than an uncle

I don’t even know how to describe Mike Kowal because he is a man who      has just about done everything for me.     Sure he works at Lou’s Performance from 8-4, but then he either goes home and sleeps or he heads out to Green to visit me. Mike is my uncle, but he is more like a brother to me. He will talk about anything that is on your mind, even shaving. Where did all this shaving talk ever come from anyway?. Well a few summers back Mike and I were getting suits for an upcoming wedding that we had to attend. So we went to the suit shop and ordered some suits, but we had to go back in a few days to try them on.  So a few days after we ordered the suits a guy named Dave called and asked to talk to Mike to tell him what time to come down to the suit shop. Sure enough Mike was shaving so I told Dave “He’s shaving right now, what time should we come down?”
He told me the time and we went and got our suits, but we always laugh about me telling the suit guy that Mike was shaving and that little story is why we always laugh about shaving.
Besides shaving, we have done many fun things over the years. Some memories stick out better than others like the time we tried to cross state route 224 on bikes. We always went on bike adventures and we usually ended up who knows where.  One time we made our way over to state route 224 and we needed to get across because we could not ride on the side because of construction. After a little while we came to the conclusion that it would be too dangerous to cross. We ended up going back the way we came and I got a flat tire. Nick Kowal came to the rescue and took us back to the crib. What were we thinking trying to cross 224. Overall it was still a very fun bike trip.
Another fun time was when I had career day in the 8th grade. I shadowed Mike and I had fun learning all about cars. Plus I even cleaned up his work area for him, but I am sure that it is a mess again.
Mike has taught me many valuable lessons in life like to just relax and enjoy life. He also always told me to worry about one thing at a time, which I have really been trying to do more of.
The memories are endless from sled riding in the winter to swimming in the summer. Mike is always a happy loving man and I respect that in person. He also helps out so much with my haunted crib that I have every year at my grandmas. I cannot thank him enough for all he has done for me because I really appreciate it and I love him very much.

Always a lesson learned

Nick Kowal is a man some of us don’t see very often because he is always at work. An hour here, 12 hours there and
16 hours over there. He works anywhere from eight to 16 hours a day. When he is not working he is usually sleeping or playing a game of golf when the weathers nice. When my Uncle Nick is not working or doing other activities he is likely taking me sled riding or swimming. I remember when I was younger we would go swimming to Eastwood Park in Ellet. We would spend hours floating around in the water and going down the many slides.
As I grew older we spent many hours in my uncle’s neighbor’s swimming pool. The pool had a diving board and the owner kept it clean and always let us swims for hours. One time we were swimming and a storm was on the horizon and the owner came our and said “get out of the pool you hillbillies, a storm is coming”. We still laugh about the good times we had swimming and dedicating dives to people we knew. Besides swimming we often went sled riding to Goodyear Metro Park.
Besides having fun my Uncle Nick always taught me many valuable lessons. He always told me to never play around windows, doors or stairs because they are all very dangerous. Another great lesson he told me is to never put your drink near an edge of a table because more than likely you will spill it. When we would go out to eat to Duffy’s Restaurant I would always put my lemonade right on the edge of the table just to see if he would notice.
One final thing that I will always remember about my uncle is I would always throw all his money on the floor after he came home from the bank. The funny thing is that I just did last week!

A wonderful woman

Grandma Kowal, or should I just say Grandma K? I have had a lot of great memories with her and I still continue to make memories with her daily. She is one very special person to me. She has always been a grandma to me, but in a sense she is more of a mother to me. We have had a lot of good times together along with many silly times also. I remember she would always sit outside and watch me play with bubbles in the side yard. I would blow all kinds of bubbles because I had this neat bubble machine. Some days we would bake cookies or just play a good game of uno. When I was younger I was never much into newspapers. I would jump in a pile of newspapers from time to time, but I would never sit down and read them. Grandma K. loves to the read the newspaper each day. When I was young I couldn’t wait until she was done reading it so that we could play. Things are no longer like that now as I sit down with her most weekends and we look at the paper together.
Another thing we would always do was color. We would sit in the dining room for hours coloring different pictures from one of my many coloring books and we would try and see who could stay in the lines better. Along with coloring we would watch cartoons or whatever was on TV.
Meals
Every day for lunch my grandma would always make me peanut butter and cheese crackers. She would spread peanut butter on four crackers and then put a cracker on top to make it like a sandwich. She would also do this for the cheese crackers. The funny thing is that I just had some of these crackers last weekend because I love them so much. Dinner was always good as she would make one of her excellent meals.
Overall the love
Things changed over time as we went from coloring books to laptops (I think grandma better stick to the coloring book), but no matter what memories and good times are still happening. My grandma always told me to worry about one day at a time and not worry about things that are far off. She has been there to talk to when I needed her and I really appreciate that. She has been so loving and caring throughout.

Memories were made

Grandpa Kowal was a man I loved greatly. I only got to spend eight years of my life with him because he passed away in 1998. My grandpa loved to fish and spend time with me. I remember a lot of memories I had with him, but I
could have had more. One of my favorite things to do with him was to play cards. We would sit in the living room for hours and play cards. Mostly we would play war and uno, which were some of my favorite games. When my
grandpa would get up to use the bathroom or to get a snack I would swap all my cards so that I had all the good ones and he would have all the scrap. One time in a game of war I had four aces and he wondered how I had such good
cards.
I think after a while he caught onto my tricks. He always loved playing games such as Candy Land and Trouble and some days we would play board games for hours.
Before I could say the word grandpa, I would call him MAA. When I was young, I had nicknames that were easy to say for every member in my family. My grandpa and I would sometimes build houses out of decks of cards, but we spent a lot of time outside when the weather was nice. I had a little battery powered car that he loved to watch me drive around the driveway. We would always go to the local ice cream stand to get ice cream. I usually drove my little car and he would walk because the ice cream stand was such a short distance. He was a nifty man as he always came up with some kind of silly way to fix something that was broken. He built a manger that we still put out at Christmas time. Some of the things he made were nice and some were let’s just say interesting items.
We had a small pool behind my grandma’s garage and he would come back and watch me swim. I had a lot of good memories in that pool as I would spend hours floating around and enjoying nice days.
I was very sad the day I found out he passed away and it hit be like a ton of bricks. He was such a good man and it is tough to lose a grandparent when your eight years old. Some days I wonder what life would have been like if he was still around. I know he would love some of the things I have done such as taking care of the yard and some say I am following in his foot steps. I would have loved for him to read all my articles that I have written or even just to be there to talk to. Day after day I sit here and wish he was here, but he is not going to be. All we can do is reflect on the great memories we had in the past.