My Uncle Ronnie and his family are here visiting from Minnesota and are leaving tomorrow. Yesterday we had a very big thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing and lots of other food. Uncle Ronnie is a chef at a restaurant and made a very delicious pumpkin pie for desert. Uncle Ronnie is my Mom's brother and he has a wife named Cindy and two daughters, My cousin Katie and cousin Samantha. Samantha is one year older than me and Katie is only 9. They are both very funny and like to giggle when Uncle Ronnie tells a story. My Dad and Ronnie seem to get along well, but my Mom and Aunt Cindy don't seem to like each other very much because of something that happened when they were kids growing up in Minnesota. No one talked about that story, but Uncle Ronnie told a different story about a rafting trip down the colorado river last summer when he and some friends put too much stuff in the boat and the boat "sprung a leak" and began to "sink like a stone" when they were rescued by another boat with four woman who turned out to be "lesbians". They knew this because one of Uncle Ronnies friends tried to ask her out for a date and was "rejected". Everyone at the dinner table laughed a lot when he said that, including me even though I didn't know why it was funny. After dinner we played a game called Braniac or something that Uncle Ronnie brought from Minnesota. I had to draw and act and even sang once as part of the game, but me and cousin Samantha still lost.

At school, we printed the final edition of the Red Hill reporter before winter break and it was shorter than the previous 2 editions because we ran out of time and had to leave some things out. It did have story in it by a girl named Jenny who wrote about her cousin Grant who fought in the Iraq war and died last year. He was only 20 years old and was a very good guitar player and liked to surf near Venice beach. He only joined the army because he could make enough money to go to college and now Jenny's uncle (Grant's father) is starting a scholarship in Grant's name so that someone else "with Grant's interests" can go to college and study music. Jenny brought a picture of him in and we put it on the front page of the paper. We also put in an "editorial" written by me and Tom (with help from Mr. Grady) about being thankful for being alive and for the freedoms we share, especially the freedom of speech which many people take for granted, and for the sacrifices people have made so that we can enjoy our freedom.

Happy Thanksgiving

I found this picture in Grandpa Jems locker of my Dad and him at the very first Jem Bigsky carnival days in his hometown in Missouri. I guess since the first carnival was in 1978 (when my Dad was only 22) then this is a picture of them 27 years ago, although there was no date on the back. Grandpa and I talked about the first festival in his honor and what a good feeling it gave him. He said that it was "strange" because he hadn't been back for almost 10 years despite his parents and son, Don, living there. He said that he wasn't getting along with any of them at the time, but it turned out to be a good time to "reconcile" with his parents who, even though they didn't want him to go to California and never supported his career, were finally proud of him. His Dad, my Great grandfather, died 2 months later and his Mother, my Great grandmother, died in the Spring of the following year. My uncle Don and Grandpa Jem still weren't getting along very good even after the first carnival days and it wasn't until "the late 80s" that they began to talk more frequently. When I asked Grandpa why they didn't get along, he said that "it was just two stubborn men acting stubborn". Grandpa said that when Grandma died that Uncle Don and him talked for four hours about Grandma and "life" and since then they have gotten along "pretty well". When I asked why my Great grandparents and him didn't get along, he said that my Great grandfather was upset that he didn't stay and help out with the family business and instead had "crazy" dreams of being a singer and an actor. Grandpa Jem said that he just had no interest in running a hotel and "cleaning up after people", but Grandpa Jems first job when he got to California was working in a hotel since that is what he knew how to do. I laughed and said that it is what my writing teacher would call "ironic" and even funny and Grandpa Jem said that his father found it to be anything but funny. "He didn't talk to me for almost a year until I called him to tell him about my first real movie part", Grandpa said. Even then he'd barely acknowledge him and refused to come out for any of his movie premieres. "But when they saw me being honored at city hall at that first festival, my mother wept and the old man almost choked holding back his tears", said Grandpa describing that day in the photograph. He said that it was the best day of his life, "besides when the kids were born or the day when I married your Grandmother". I asked if they gave him a key to the city and he said "not then, but they unveiled a statue of me with 'old yeller' in my lap". That statue still sits on Main street near the park and it caused a stir one year when the town forgot to clean off the bird poop before the annual carnival days. "I was wrong to get so upset" said Grandpa, "those birds still treated me better than the movie critics in Hollywood".

Today's word is "reconcile" and it means, "restore friendly relations between; reunite" and its usage is "she wanted to be reconciled with her father".

I am taking a break from my math homework and want to update everyone on what has been going on at the Lazy Eye ranch. I find that I have to take lots of breaks when I am doing my math homework since it usually gives me a headache. Some of it we have to do on the computer at school and we can finish at home by putting it on a compact disk. Grandpa keeps wondering why I never have a lot of books in my bookbag and I tell him that a lot of my school work is on the computer and with the internet and the schools learning program, we don't need a lot of books anymore. "Why don't they just make it so you can insert the information right into your brain?", Grandpa said. I said "those people only exist in outerspace movies and they are called cyborgs". Grandpa said that maybe he wouldn't worry about losing his memory if it could all just be stored on a disk and put into his head when he wants to remember something. I said that maybe it will happen someday and he said "lot a good that'll do me". I said that maybe he does have a machine of sorts already to store his memory into. He said "I am not touching that computer of yours" and I said "I am not talking about the computer exactly". Grandpa then paused and said, sounding frustrated, "Then what?" "Me!", I said in a louder voice than I was planning on using. "Oh", said Grandpa, "I guess you're right Jem", which made me stop because Grandpa Jem usually doesn’t call me by my name, our name. Usually he calls me “boy” or lately he has started calling me “young man”. I said that I want to have many stories of his to put into my project for school and for my blog (which are starting to become one and the same). He seemed happy about that and said "I guess I never did get down to writing those memoirs". I said that it is about time. Mom happen to overhear most of our conversation and she seemed like she was crying about something. I asked her if she was crying and she said "no my son, just chopping onions in the kitchen". "Oh" I said, kind of suspicious of her and went to the kitchen to get some water and realized that she actually had been chopping onions, so maybe she wasn't crying. I don't know.
So, with Grandpa finally convinced that my "pestering" him for stories will help him as much as me, we are planning a day together this weekend so that he can have some time to think of as many stories as possible for a few days and then spend a whole afternoon or more telling me them. I said that I will borrow a tape recorder at school or hopefully a video camera, which made him seem unhappy and he said "lets keep my face out of this". I said "what about the photos" and he said "the old pictures are ok, just not this old picture" as he pointed to his face.
"Its a deal", I said and we sat down for dinner. I could already tell that grandpa was thinking a lot during dinner because he hardly said anything. I just hope he was thinking of some good stories to tell.

I have been really busy this week editing and helping to print out the second edition of the Red Hill Reporter and it is 2 pages bigger than the first one. The story Grandpa told me about him singing with Marlena Dietrich was in the paper along with the picture of him with his guitar "old yeller". The paper is all printed and it is delivered around school tomorrow. We are working on making the paper into something that can be read on the internet, but it may be awhile before the school gets its website going, Mr. Grady said. Hopefully by the time we return from winter break, which will be after the new year, anyone in the world can read the Red Hill Reporter. We only have one more edition before winter break so I am excited about that.
Gretchen wrote about her Great Aunt Romona that never lost at a card game called Michigan Rummy (even though she lived in Iowa) and would play men for money in every bar in town and take all their money. Gretchen even wrote about a how her aunt played for a Buick (some sort of big car) and won it on the last hand of the game from a famous Michigan rummy player named "Johnny Cats". She won so often that she was always accused of cheating, but no one ever caught her and some even threatened to kill her. She had to eventually stop playing in Iowa because the police were after her for illegal gambling and she moved out west in the 1970's and continued playing in places like Colorado and Arizona. She eventually died in Arizona while trying to make it to Mexico. Gretchen's grandma never could retrieve her sister's remains and only rumors remain about how she actually died, but Mr. Grady wouldn't let us print what those rumors were because they were very violent stories and as Mr. Grady says, "Rumors are not facts". So I want to know what the dictionary says about that. A "rumor" is "a currently circulating story or report of uncertain or doubtful truth; gossip" and an example of its use "rumor has it that he will take a year off". I wonder what makes a report become more truthful and less "uncertain"? I guess I will have to ask Mr. Grady about that. I also would like to know if anyone reading this knows the answer to that question. He did mention to me the other day that maybe I should ask more questions directed to the people reading my blog in hopes that they'll respond and make my blog more "interactive". I guess I'll wait till next time to look that word up. So, I guess I hope more people write comments, but I understand if you don't have time. Either way I'll just keep writing ...
Jem