Duck 911!

Here is one of my own Gonka Stories:

Gonka loved the outdoors and had a special way with animals.  Not only could he understand them, but they understood him, too!  One day Gonka heard a duck quacking in his backyard.  He went out there and he saw a mama and papa duck.  They were hungry, so Gonka went back in the house and got them some bread to eat.  Day after day they came back for more bread. 

One day he heard the papa duck quacking in the front yard.  It was not the usual “I want bread” quack; it was a “Help Me!!” quack.  So Gonka grabbed his shotgun and went back outside.  The papa duck quickly led Gonka across the street to the lake where Gonka could see the mama duck was having a fit!  A raccoon was trying to get the eggs in her nest.  Gonka fired a shot in the air and the raccoon ran off.  The ducks were so grateful they couldn’t say a word!

A week later Gonka heard the papa duck in the backyard.  He went out and what do you think he saw?  The mama and papa duck with all their little ducklings had come to say Thank You!

Gonka often visited the duck family at the lake and watched them swim around. 

Favorite Things Collage

Hold to Light Postcards

On a hold to light postcard, the scene is in the daytime.  However, when you hold it to the light it becomes a night time scene with the windows lit up.

It is hard to take a photo of a "hold to light" postcard with it being lit from behind.  I had to get Frank to hold up the card in front of a bare light bulb while I took the picture.  Both of us were swaying just a little, so it took a while to get a photo that didn't look like we were both on crack.

The hold to light postcard was first made in Germany.  They had a special process that no other country could figure out.  When WWI started in 1914, Germany stopped making them for other countries. 

There are 3 very thin layers of paper glued together to make it. The top layer has the picture on it with holes cut out where the light will shine through.  The second layer is translucent and has the colors that will shine through the little holes.  The back layer looks quite solid, but is also is translucent and a message can be written on it.  There are 2 layers of glue that hold all this together.  Surprisingly, that type of postcard feels even thinner than the ones we have today, even with its 3 layers of paper and 2 layers of glue!

This first postcard is my oldest and most valuable one.  I bought it at a postcard show here in Orlando about 20 years ago for $35.00.  It was made to celebrate Edison's new incandescent light bulb, at the Paris World Exposition in 1900.

Here is the daytime scene...

And this is how it looks when held up to the light!

By the way, here is a photo of men assembling the star
on top of the Palais de Electricite.

This was given to me as a Christmas gift by my Bible Study group in 1999.  Somebody found it on the Internet and that was a big deal since what was the Internet and how did you get on it??

This is also a favorite.  It looks even better in person.  You are supposed to look at hold to light postcards with a 60 watt lightbulb, but because of the camera problems of taking a picture smack into the light, I had to use a 7 1/2 watt night light!

The man who sold me this at a postcard show didn't know what he had.  I got it for just $10!  When I got it home I discovered that someone had put a stamp over the moon on the back!  I had to carefully get that off as it was blocking the light.

This card was made in England by a totally different process. Notice how the sky completely changes when held to the light. There are no cut out holes in this for the light to shine through. There is one scene on the front, which is transparent but very strong.  Then there is another scene (moon, clouds, lights) printed on another transparent sheet of paper.  The back sheet is transparent, but doesn't look like it is, and the message and address go there.

This is an advertising postcard for Dingman's Soap

This 1904 British postcard is pretty unusual.  It has no holes, and the front is in black & white.  When held to the light you see the children in color and an angel in the background! 

The Midget Story!

By my cousin, 
Chip Arpin

(Time frame: late 1950's - early 1960's)

Well, This might be as good a time as any to try my best at one of my favorite Gonka stories. I wish that we had a tape recording though! 

Gonka was a fast driver...there is no other way to put that. his typical speed, by HIS estimation was always 60-65 mph. This was a very rough estimation, to put it mildly! He once bought a car that had a very loud buzzer alarm would go off every time the driver exceeded 70 or so mph...and the alarm was constantly buzzing away. Gonk had an amazing ability to completely ignore such tones...along with certain voices...like my poor Grandmother's. The alarm would make her almost as nervous as Gonka's driving, and she was really letting him know about it too! But to no avail....his response was "OH, Good LORD, they're just crazy to think you can hurt a car by driving it!" Then, he would continue on, passing people left and right, with the alarm and "Ammama" as we called her, both letting him have it "with both barrels" as Gonk would say. We were all glad when he had the alarm removed. 

Well before alarms were invented, Gonka had a fair amount of business to attend to in northern Wisconsin, near the Flambeau Flowage and further north toward the Minnesota and Upper-Michigan borders. Gonk did a great deal of driving; thousands of hair-raising miles and not a single fatality, that we know of??

The old gentleman had an amazing capacity to down-play even the closest of close calls with a shrug and an "OH boys, what are you screaming about? I saw him the whole time". This, after another near head-on collision passing a "d___ farmer" with the audacity to go less than 70 miles an hour! The car coming the other way would somehow find a way to stop or get off the road in time for us to miss colliding head on. Gonk was so casual about these occurrences that we started to think of him as a sort of real Mr. Magoo with slightly better vision. We loved being with him so much though, that we never hesitated the chance to jump in his back seat for a second.

We were not along for the infamous "midget incident" however and have to take Gonk's version of what happened, which I believe to be absolutely true (within reason). Gonka was on one of his "business trips" up north and was travelling...oh...60-65 miles an hour along an old fashioned highway, which was no doubt very narrow, by today's standards. It was also very hilly country. As the story goes, Gonk came up over one of those hills to find a little truck at a dead stop right in the middle of the road! His thought at the time was that it "must have been a bunch of farmers looking at a bear", for some reason. Well there was no time to stop and no room to go around them, so his only option was to speed up (one of his favorites) and try to go OVER them! There must have been a little incline right before their vehicle and if anyone could make a car fly, it was Gonk. And he almost made it, too. Except that he ended up coming down right on top of those "poor farmers" and flattening that truck like a pancake!

As usual, Gonk was unhurt, and apparently unfazed by this unfortunate turn of events, so he got out of his car and climbed down off the wreckage to survey the damages. His first thought was "There can't POSSIBLY be anyone alive in there"! He always said that SO matter of factly that it really floored the listener! The truck was completely crushed, nearly right down to the pavement. Gonk was pondering his options, probably wondering how in the world he was ever going to get his car off that wreck and get back on the road....when lo and behold a pair of arms reach out of the window of the truck. The hands at the end of those arms were holding, of all things, a baby! A live baby too. In fact it was a live baby midget! and after Gonk took the baby, then another child was handed out, and yet another. Then the mother got out, then the father...when it was over, it turned out to be an ENTIRE FAMILY of MIDGETS! "That's the only people who could POSSIBLY have survived that accident"! Gonk shook his head and laughed in amazement. We have never seen the "official police version" of this little episode, but suspect the 60-65 part of it may have been altered slightly.

Gonk also never did say what that little maneuver cost him, but I'm willing to bet that little family was driving a brand new truck on future bear watching expeditions.

Old but Flexible

(I have kept copies of some of my old letters.  It's pretty easy to do that now with email.  This was written last summer to my sister, Marianne, when we got our kitchen redone.)

Hey Mair,

Wahoo!  You got your purse back, just like Daddy that time in Quebec when the robbers got his wallet (although you still don't have your wallet).  I know you were upset over losing your goodie pouch, your special notebook and your journal!  

I have had no access to my computer for over a day because they moved everything out of the kitchen (again) to put the new flooring down.  They finally finished tonight at 7:15!  I was about to chew my arm off!  I took pictures, but was too pooped to post at that point.  It looks beautiful and even though the wood is only 3/8 of an inch thick, Frank and I both feel taller in the kitchen. 

I went to the mall on Saturday and tried on some clothes and bought a dress for Adam's wedding.  I was home for about 3 hours when I realized I had my pants on backwards!  This just shows you how adaptable I am.  I really am quite flexible in all kinds of new situations.  Although I found it difficult and a little annoying to sit down, I just accepted it.  Little things don't bother me much.  It wasn't until I tried to stuff a Kleenex in my pocket that things became intolerable and I had to search out the cause of the problem. 

  

Then it hit me -- for 3 hours Frank hadn't noticed that I had my pants on backwards.  Would he have let me go to church like that??  (I would certainly notice if he had his pants on backwards!)  He is very laid back and I have noticed that as we get older, both of us just do whatever is the easiest thing.  Do you remember that "Cosby Show" episode where Cliff's dad sat on his own hat and the grandmother saw it but didn't say anything about it?  That 's the kind of people we are now.

Love You, Chris

Sweet Dreams for Gonka

(Date: 1970's)

Gonk had many criteria that perspective hotels would have to meet, before we actually unpacked our bags. The beds were the highest priority....firm, but not "hard as a bankers heart"! the place also had to have some kind of fresh air....not that crazy "Chinese BLOWER HEAT" (central heating)! that was death itself. So if there was no window to open, he would sometimes prop open the door to the outside a crack, using a chair or whatever he could find. He could get pretty creative with his fresh-air systems. 

Humidity was also very important in order for the sleeping environment to be truly "high-grade". He would often run very hot water in the tub for the steam and heat it would create....especially if it was the middle of winter and he had the outside door open.

I will never forget the time we had found a particularly first class Days Inn around Southern Indiana. Gonk had all of his systems running smoothly and the beds were VERY high grade (I think he may also have consumed the correct medicinal dosage of very mild brandy before bed.)(Doctor's orders). He was up every 40-50 minutes adjusting the crack in the door, and the water in the tub, along with his own fluid levels...this was pretty normal. After about the fifth or sixth "correction" at about 3:25am, he said to me in what seemed like a booming voice...."Chip!...I'M SLEEPING VERY WELL....VERY WELL"!

Neither of us ever forgot that fine establishment, or that night! I think knowing Gonk truly made a Christian out of a lot of people.

I love and miss him still.

Undivided Attention

Hanging Out With Gonka
By Chip Arpin

Maggie Blair and Adam Garland
in front of Gonka's house in 1998

The Fourth of July always reminds me of Gonka and his front porch.  He lived right across the street from Riverside Park in Neenah, Wisconsin, on Lake Winnebago, where all the 4th of July festivities took place. Gonka was very patriotic of course, and would be proudly displaying the flag...while sitting on his rocker looking out on the park. We would go and have a piece of watermelon rhubarb, or some such seasonal treat while listening to his adventurous tales. 

For some reason, memories of Gonka and his house are very vivid for me. I think this may be partly true because he was SO "present" that when I was with him I became more so myself. When you are out in nature, fishing, and especially hunting you have to be intensely aware....if you want to be successful...or in some cases stay alive! Gonk spent so much time like this that I think he developed this "quality of attention" most all the time. I think he just took it for granted, like everyone had it. Otherwise he would have invented a pet name for it. When I was with Gonk, I always felt like I was "basking" in his full attention. For this I will always be grateful.