The week, 2nd edition

This is the piece I shared at Grandpa's funeral. It's a bit revised from the first edition:

"It's Saturday, it's Saturday. Time to get ready for Sunday. First, to breakfast, the breakfast of champions! It begins, as always, with apricot juice, or patiently peeled orange, carefully sorted into each bowl, in order to share both the best and the worst. Now comes a bowl of oatmeal with walnuts and a generous scoop of honey. Bread finishes the meal. Then it's off to scrub the potatoes, or make the jello, but only fruit jello with canned fruit and that's only for company. After a long day of work, it's time to unwind with the Lawrence Welk show and the Champagne Lady.

And now to Sunday, a new week begins. The Spoken Word rings through the house. With scriptures in hand, it's time for meetings. The cheese toast is crackling. And mostly, the organ is singing its familiar tunes with its robust and favorite singer, until it's time to play Upwords alongside the worn dictionary and beloved companion. There shall be music wherever he goes.

The work week starts again on Monday. It's off to battle, to battle the noxious weeds, the dandelions and morning glory, with a trusty brown knee pad as shield and a sturdy dandelion digger as sword - the same used by various young invincibles to threaten loss of toe or worse in a treacherous tossing game.

There's a birthday on Tuesday, which must have cake! Out from the freezer it comes bedecked with the candle, the special 8 candle, and only after song can the rowdy group dig in. "Get out and walk."

It's Wednesday, which means it's Ice Cream Night. The night would go as it always does; "What do you want, Boss?" "Whatever's good." Within a few short minutes, a small bowl arrives, brimming with melting ice cream, with indentations where a stray finger eased the scoop into the bowl.

It's Thursday now and maybe raining outside. The saw in the shop is whirring, or maybe the lathe. Sawdust flies to every recess of the room. A tremendous sneeze answers, scattering stunned children in its wake. A break for lunch means fruit or cookies for dessert. Two please! And maybe later, it's the sewing machine binding ever lengthening strips together as the next braided rug forms in tight, flat rows.

It's Friday and shopping is the order of the day. In comes plastic bags of bananas, cereal, milk, and generous packages of meat, ready for the roaster on Sunday. A short walk retrieves the little students at the elementary school or the bush stop.

Hardly a day goes by without some work on a word puzzle, study of the daily paper, and a slice of homemade bread, dressed with delicious jam. In the fall, it's canning and passball. In summer, it's weeding and the print shop. In spring, it's waking the yard. In winter, it's pruning and shoveling.

On every bridge, there is a road to travel. On every road is a sign to read, and very few make it through life unread by one well-seasoned Traveler.

Adios. Au revior. Aufvedersehen."