Back when Papa Ted (Madeline’s Dad – Ted Jordan) retired from a long career in the oil patch and came to live in Smithwick he took on the task of keeping our property at the lake mowed and trimmed. He did a great job as long as his health allowed for it.

In the very beginning he showed up one day and there was a well tanned fellow with a big bushy black mustache and a nice sombrero there at the lake. Figuring it was some of the hired help, Ted lined him out. He told him how the fallen limbs needed to be all picked up in preparation for his intended mowing later that day.

Ted, after working in Venezuela and south Texas he had a pretty good grasp of the Spanish language. He had explained in detail all of this in Spanish. The old worker nodded with a few Sí Señor’s and what have you.

Ted got back in his little white Chevy S10 pickup and headed out.

I think brother Kenny went straight home and shaved his mustache off.

No one every told Ted about the incident. Like Madeline said, he would have been mortified to have made such a faux pas. That was just the way Ted was.