Hutchins wisdom

Me Grandpa Hutchins, he was I think a wise man. In fact, he offered me one of the best pieces of wisdom anyone has ever offered me.

When faced with a bunch of chores you really don't want to do, do the toughest one first.

I believe he's absolutely right about that. I've found that it makes work easier in the long run. It's almost as though once you have that toughest task out of the way, then do the next toughest, you build a moment that gets work done more quickly. You begin (at least in my experience) to almost look forward to the next chore. And each task does, I really believe, in fact become easier.

Hutchins wisdom. Try it when you're up against the wall. It will help, I guarantee it.

The parental sign

We all have that memory, don't we? That one thing which mom or dad or maybe a grandparent would have which told us, 'That's enough'. Maybe it was a stare, perhaps a grimace. But it could be a phrase. For my mother, it was a phrase.

While sitting with Mom yesterday she began talking about her father, me Grandpa Hutchins. She knew he meant business, and knew it was time to back off, with one simple set of words from her paw.

Whenever her and her siblings were becoming a bit too loud and rowdy her mother, me Grandma Hutchins, would say to her husband, "Mal (short for Malachi) do something to make these young'uns mind!"

Grandpa would say, quietly for he was quiet man yet somehow forcefully, "I wish they would."

That was the turn of phrase which made Mom and her brothers and sisters pipe down. She and they knew that the next step would be an action and that it would be unpleasant. When Grandpa Hutchins said, "I wish they would", they had better. It was as plain as that.

Christmas 1972

It was, I think, Christmas 1972. I'm not really sure anymore as even I was still young then, but I do know that it was the only Christmas which me Grandpa and Grandma Hutchins from North Carolina spent in Detroit.
The living room was dark except for the lights of the Christmas tree. I was sitting alone on the couch when Grandpa had come into the room and sat opposite of me. And that was it. We sat there, never exchanging a word, for what in my mind seemed hours.
I'll never forget it. It felt to me then and now like the best time we ever had together. Oh, we got along great (it was a sorry man who could not get along with Clarence Malachi Hutchins) and had many good discussions and good visits over the years. Yet that night is my favorite time with him, my favorite memory.
How a house with 11 people could have stayed so still, so quiet while he and I sat there I don't know. I'm not sure we even looked at each other. We looked at the tree with the softly glowing lights. It is etched in our history.