...where I don't write about government...

I was going to write about government for my regular Friday post, but with all the politics lately I decided this would be a bad idea. So instead I'm going to share a lighter subject, which is a little family history about how my two paternal grandparents met. I know I've told a few "Oog Robot" readers this story, but this is my favorite family story and deserves a repeat or two.

My grandmother was a city girl from Pennsylvania. She was a chemical engineer who applied to the Heinz company for an internship over one of her summers. The Heinz company decided she was some combo of awesome and fearsome, because they decided to send her to be a chemical engineer in one of their ketchup factories. If she didn't like the acid levels in the ketchup, the plant's ketchup wasn't going out the door. Except the ketchup factory was in Muscatine, Iowa (i.e. middle-of-nowhere-small-town, middle-of-nowhere-state).

My grandpa was home for a summer from the University of Iowa. He met my grandma and worked up the courage to ask her to a movie, but she turned him down with something like, "I've got to wash my hair." Anyways, my grandpa decided to go to the movies anyways with a few of his buddies...and he ran into my future grandmother, with another boy of course.

After the movie, things must not have gone too well with the other boy because my grandma was waiting for the bus or a taxi when my grandpa ran into her. He offered her a ride home, and the rest is history. I don't know how my grandpa convinced her to move from Pennsylvania to Muscatine, IA. But I appreciate this now.

Grandpa and Grandma were two of the coolest people I know. My grandpa was a farmer and a lawyer! He'd get up before dawn, feed some cows, and then go work out some intricate legal arguments at work. He believed people should always have two jobs, in case one didn't work out. My grandma is probably responsible for sending me to MIT. She gave me a subscription to MIT's Technology Review, which sparked my interest in the school. I might have discovered MIT later, but who knows? I think I probably would have ended up at Iowa State University if she had not given me the TR subscription, and I would be a very different person.

Anyways, my grandpa passed away when I was in 5th grade, and my grandma died when I was a freshmen in high school. I wish I'd been able to get to know them better.