Papa Did Time

Yes, our "angelic" Papa has a "criminal" past. His walk on the "dark side" began quite early on in his life, specifically at the easily "tempted to fall" age of fourteen. Thankfully, as far as we know (according to him) his time spent at the big house was a singular event.

And so the story begins with a summer's evening, a vegetable garden, some over-ripe tomatoes, a (somewhat klutzy) woman in high heeled shoes, a back alley, a determined member of the Chicago Law Enforcement and a small group of neighborhood boys. The components of this story are, on their own, quite innocent, but put them together and as you will see, you've got yourself a recipe for disaster where the lives of four young boys are about to take a turn for the worse...time behind bars, that's right...JAIL.

According to Papa, he can't remember which one of these four boys initially came up with the idea to commit a crime that warm summer's night. However, since I know him so well, I can tell you that could only mean one thing...it was without a doubt, his idea.

And so the story goes, "way back when" in Chicago, four boys took a shortcut down a neighborhood alley one early summer evening, on their way home. On this alley, on the edge of a backyard, was a garden. Not just any old garden, think more along the lines of...the garden of good and evil, but then change the trees to tomato plants and the fresh apples to dirty, old, starting to rot, near ketchup state, well...tomatoes. Can you see it? Okay then, we can move on...

Well one of those suckers (ahem, Arend 'Odee' Lenderink) gets this fancy idea to throw the slimy things over this house and onto the main street on the other side. Maybe adds in a point thing too, like 5 points for hitting a car, 10 points for splatting a bike, I really don't know about the point part for sure though, just making that part up.

The four juvenile delinquents are having a marvelous time, raising mayhem and malarkey, really getting into the criminal side of them they were currently living out, in real life. Amidst this all, unbeknown to them, a fancy lady, wearing fancy shoes, is walking down the sidewalk. Now, high heels and slimy tomato bombs on the ground aren't the best match, well, at least in regards to safety concerns, they are none too good together. Slip, slap, down she goes, with a sprained ankle to boot.

To make a long story shorter, lady calls cops. Now, this cop is a rookie, this is one of his first assignments you see, (I'm making the rookie part up too, please forgive me) and he is 110% determined to prosecute the perpetrators responsible. And due to his determination, law enforcement was successful that warm summer's evening and the law breakers were found, on the ground, half buried in a combination of rotten tomatoes and dirt.

And despite the criminals cries of repentance along with more than a few "please don't tell my mommy!" pleas, justice is served and they are marched all three blocks over to the local jail, thrown behind bars and locked up with a key.

Now, I'm not sure if you know this or not, but Papa is the oldest. If you had ever met Grandma Zwaanstra, you would know that already, for that's all she called him, my oldest, the oldest of nine, all the time...in fact, his very siblings thought his actual name was "My oldest" up until he graduated from high school and the name Arend was read off. They looked at each other with a "huh, wha?" and a "who is Arend? I thought our brother's name was My Oldest..." Anyhow, I regress...

Funny part, I mean, not "funny" funny, just...okay, it's funny. Who is the only one able to bail these boys out of jail? The, just so happens to be, only one available, Papa's Dad, who also just so happens to be in a Council meeting at Church. And as a result is called out of it, where he is vocally and LOUDLY told that his son is in the slammer over at the local J-A-I-L.

So, what does this Conservative, Church Council Member, Father of Nine do? He goes over to the jail, rescues them from prison sentences and (laughing all the way) walks them each home. The only punishment, if you could call it that is at one point saying "well you dumdums, I bet you won't do anything that stupid again, hehe" and leaves it at that. Upon hearing this part of the story, I knew for certain that what others said really was, without a single doubt, true, my Dad is just like his Dad, to the T.

As our Papa told his grandchildren this story, their eyes became as wide as saucers, so enthralled to now know that their family has a criminal past. They even bragged about it to the other kids at school, how their Papa has been in jail before, they made it into such a marvelous story that Papa became somewhat of a celebrity at their school and was even given the title of the Grandpa who was in J-A-I-L.

So when on Grandparents day at school, when Papa and Nana arrive...well, of course you now know the reason behind the title of this story.

And as they screamed out "Are you the Grandpa who was in Jail?!"

Our Papa just beamed and proudly admitted that yes, that was he.