Kith & Kin

Mom (Jan Skaggs) looking young, slim, and attractive. Late 1950s? As I go through the photos in this album and reproduce them here, I am so thankful she kept the album and labeled many of the photos with names and dates! Keith, Dad, and me on Dad’s Schwinn, June 1965. I remember riding the bike this way. It was always a treat to go riding with Dad—and a little scary, as I balanced on that bar. And uncomfortable too! We would ride to downtown Fredericksburg, crossing railroad tracks on the way — bumpity bumpity bump, hold on tight! I assume this is the Cleveland Airport, June 1965. No one was hijacking or blowing up planes yet, so security was quite lax. It was fun (and loud!) to watch them take off and land. L to R: Steve, Keith, Dad. My first cousin Jill Skaggs, daughter of Dad’s brother Leo and his wife, Bonnie. What a cutie! Two more first cousins, Eddie and Kathy, son and daughter of Dad’s brother Eddie and his wife, Shirley. I wish I could have known my Skaggs cousins better growi...

Author’s Note: I wrote this story over twenty years ago. As I often do, I’ve taken an actual event and related it, I hope, with some humor. Is every fact strictly true? No, but at least 90% of it is. Or maybe 80%. Either way, I hope you enjoy it! So my brother Eric and his wife, Aimee, want us all to go to Acres of Fun to let the kids play and for a game of Laser Tag. I am almost forty years old; I do not want to play Laser Tag. It is stupid and pointless. It is beneath my dignity . . . way beneath it. But I do not tell anyone that I am feeling this way. I do not want to be petty. So we get to Acres of Fun. It takes about three hours for the guy at the desk to figure out how to charge us for six kids and four adults. You’d think they’d never had a group this big come in before. So then Eric gets us all paid for (he and Aimee are paying for this, which is another reason I have vowed not to grouse), and the kids go over to the “Soft Play” zone. You know, that’s like a McDo...

Merry Christmas from my mom. . . . the nut. I haven’t been doing this blog very long, but I knew when I began it that the time would come when I needed to write memories about my mom, and I knew that could be emotionally draining for me. Nobody had a more profound effect on my life than Mom did, with her wonderful qualities and even her faults. I know God is in control of everything, but I can’t help feeling cheated that she went as suddenly as she did. On the other hand, Dad suffered for weeks and months before he passed, and I wouldn’t have wanted her to go through that either. On this date, Thursday, December 1, 2022, Mom would have been eighty-five years old , having been born in 1937. She was godly and wise. She was stubborn. She was a good listener. She had a temper. She was a faithful friend. She could be blunt. And she was unquestionably . . . a nut. She had a wonderful sense of humor, something any mother of four sons needs in abundant supply. So to avoid growing ...

Uncle Tony Thompson, Nov. 1987 Uncle Tony was a family legend. Uncle Tony was my father-in-law’s brother. His name wasn’t actually Tony. It was Charles Thompson Jr., and, as it was explained to me, he was referred to when young as “Junior.” At that time, many sons in Italian families were called “Junior,” so since “Junior” sounded Italian, someone decided to call him “Tony,” a more official-sounding Italian name. And it stuck. He was what we in our family call “a real character.” He exemplified the kind of person a true follower of Christ should be—but he was also one of the funniest people you could ever meet. And he wrote fascinating letters, many of which my mother-in-law has kept. Quotations below are all excerpts from letters Uncle Tony sent to his brother, Paul (my wife’s dad) and Paul’s wife, Kathy. The letters are generally typewritten and rife with creative spelling and punctuation choices (which I’ve reproduced when quoting him below). SIBLINGS Dad Thompson (Paul) and...