I just adored my Papa when I was a child. Harold Kinney was playful. In the mid 1950’s, when I was born, the young men were supposed to be happy–go-lucky, and it was normal for them to behave like that. He fought the in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, and he looked a lot like Curly from the Three Stooges.

This is Armed Forces Day, so I thought I’d bring up my Papa, who his doctors reportedly told him he had the closest bullet to his sweet, sweet heart of anybody he ever knew who survived. He was also the guy that put a lampshade on his head, and wore it proudly.

Both of my grandparents were extraordinarily loving and sweet. The family story says that my grandmother bought the family home while he was still overseas. My grandmother, who was one of the first women “meter maids” on the Wooster, Ohio Police Department, loved to walk, and she took us for long walks along the railroad tracks that ran behind their house. We always had fun adventures when we visited my Nan and Pop, and I remember the lightening bugs were just crazy around there, too.

We can’t visit them any more. They passed away long ago. And now I am a Nanny, and Danny is a Papa.

Oh, I hope we can provide the same type of happy memories. I want Izzy and now Sophia to know that our love for them has no bounds. We want to provide wild and rip roaring adventures, and that might take prayers from you.

Now their eldest daughter, my mother, has dementia. I also ask that you all pray for my sweet Mama’s peace. Ahhh, time passes …

It seems like only yesterday I was cartwheeling around, that I was young, energetic and vibrant.

But I’m not about to bemoan that fact when I have a very special granddaughter and one more on the way. And our child is a gifted mother, so we know we can trust her to raise them right, with magic and true consciousness!

I won’t bemoan the fact that I’m no longer young. I will trust the younger generations to take care of this world. But I will keep teaching them what I can until the moment I die.

Marcelle Hanemann is a news reporter for The Daily News. You can email her at marcelle.hanemann@bogalusadailynews.com or call her at 985-732-2565, ext. 301.