Education by Dad Then Grandpa by LuAnn Bowman, daughter

As kids we had various educational experiences mostly hands on. Some  including helping with the jobs mom and dad took to support a family of 7. I remember going to the apartments they managed to clean up and paint after tenants left before the new ones moved in. It was bad enough cleaning our own home but to clean up after others was pretty awful. Though I didn't like it, actually I hated it, I learned what it takes to have the basics of life and what a privledge it was to have a stay-at-home mom. We also got to clean new homes before they became the models, that was more fun. I don't know about my brothers, but I LOVED choosing which room would be mine, dreaming of having a new home some day. I learned a valuable lesson; it is ok to dream but reality is pretty great too. We had a wonderful home, small for a family of 7 but we had a huge backyard with trees, a trampoline, and eventually a game room. We also had a summer membership to the swimming pool so we kept usy with very positive and energy snapping activities; much to our mothers' delight. We also got education for spending our leisure time, at least once a week we took trips to visit family, to the ocean, Disneyland, San Francisco, National Parks, Canada, and the mountains. Every summer we went to Idaho for fishing, camping outdoors and also right inside of our relatives homes for almost a month! I LOVED how those traditions continued with my kids. When we came up for the summer to Idaho from Arizona, they learned the same skills I did growing up. Those skills included gardening, canning. cutting and stacking wood, going to garage sales and DI. We never came home empty handed and along the way we learned that real treasure comes in all shapes and sizes. Education came in the disguise of how to raise pigs, tractor and four-wheeler rides on the flat bed, roping, riding horses, shooting guns, and bows/arrows, daily trips to the canal and of course playing every board game we grew up with. Dad always took his role as teacher/educator very seriously; sometimes toooooo seriously , and ocassionaly there were some tears involved but even then in the end of these lessons they were given with tons of LOVE. He showed his LOVE to us by giving us his time, truly sharing Everything he had. Thank you Dad.

 From your grateful daughter,

 LuAnn