Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of times spent with my uncle Bill DeHardit. I’ve been told that he discovered my first tooth, but of course I don’t remember that. I can sort of remember him taking me for rides on the "cac-cac," which is what I called his big orange tractor he used to drag the road to my grandparents’ home and cut a rough path through the adjoining woods into "baboon country."

Uncle Bill liked to experiment with paper airplanes, some successful, others not so much. We had our favorites for which flew the highest, which flew the farthest, which had the longest hang time in the air and which flew hardly or not at all, but looked the coolest. We made some out of light cardboard which we launched with a homemade sling shot. He also showed me how to make a grilled cheese sandwich without using the stove. You just mash the cheese between two pieces of hot toast with your fist so quickly the cheese ...