Skip Granger, 1960
My ”great uncle” Ernie was actually my real uncle, but he was really GREAT!! He worked with my father at Christmans Dry Goods in Joplin and would take me to Bob Miller’s Coffee Shop on Main Street for the twice daily coffee break…a noble tradition that no longer exists. He drank a cup of coffee and smoked a Camel cigarette while I had a Coca Cola.
Later, he bought a farm south of Joplin and called it ”Whimsey Acres”, where he taught me to shoot a 12 gauge shotgun… actually I was facing uphill behind the house, and he thoughtfully stood behind me to catch me as I pulled the trigger! It was 29 acres since the 30th acre was a church and cemetery close to the house. He put a split log fence in front and a high entrance arch with the words ”Whimsey Acres” on it so that you knew what to expect while you were there! It had a creek running through it where we loved to fish. It was a town kid’s paradise!
This is also where my sister and I learned how to shoot and hang a bull by its legs from a tree after shooting it in the head to bleed it before butchering. It just happened to be my sister Brenda Jane’s favorite bull…BJ…so named for Big Jersey, but she thought that it was for her!
My aunt, Annie (Anna Faye), also taught us how to string green beans. She would take us for a day on the farm and just happen to purchase a bushel basket of beans on the way home. She would reward us for our efforts in stringing them with a fried chicken dinner. To prepare dinner, she would take her ax and select a chicken (any hen as long as it wasn’t named BJ), grab it by its legs, sling it over a log, pop its head off and let it run around shaking what used to be its head, thus bleeding itself!
This sounds as if Uncle Ernie and Aunt Annie should not be our favorites, but they were very kind and loving. Every Christmas Eve was spent with the entire family eating head cheese and drinking her famous bourbon eggnog before hearing the legend of our ancestor Aggie Burnett, whose wife tore off their baby’s head and threw it at him as he swam to a ship to get off of an Arctic island! It’s a long story, and it might scare you after the other two bloody experiences.
Ernie bought a WWII surplus Jeep and used to take me everywhere in Joplin on Sunday mornings after my overnights on the farm. When I grew up and had moved to Wichita, he came to visit shortly after my parents bought Brenda and me a 1952 Mercury Monterey convertible. Ernie seemed more impressed than we were when I drove him around town.
Visiting Whimsey Acres later, I brought two recent purchases, a 22 caliber pistol for myself and another for Uncle Ernie. While Annie was gathering eggs in the barn for our breakfast, she was startled by a very large black snake, who was trying to 
eat his share before we got ours. Ernie came out with his pistol and showed me how to open the eggs inside the snake as it slivered between the nests! The target was easy to spot, and the splash was yellow instead of bloody red.
I could talk for hours about this marvelous man, but as fate has it, all good things must end — and so did my ”great uncle” Ernie. RIP
