BOB, NOT SANFORD

My brother and I were Disco Devils. No kidding. So don't even think New York discotheque or John Tavolta's "Saturday Night Fever." We were much too young for that. We weren't even of Sweat Hog age. Think Disco, as in the name of our now defunct elementary school (they turned it into a library) and Devils, well, that was the nickname printed on our sweatshirts and other school fundraising paraphernalia. At that age, we were much more intune to "Sandford and Son."

Every Friday after school, my mother would have all our stuff prepared to go, including her homemade chili, for our weekend get-a-way to our cottage on Shady Lane. It took between 1 1/2 to 2 hours to get there, and by the time we unpacked, ate dinner and gathered around the warmth of our fireplace, Redd Foxx would be clutching his chest and, in his typical Fred G. Sanford role, claim "I'm coming to join you, Elizabeth." My dad always got a kick out of Sanford's antics, and he'd pull a few himself, such as asking if we'd like to watch something else--the rabbit ears on our television only picked up one station.

Today's picture is testimony to how much my dad loved that show. He even claimed that one day--when he retires--he'd like to own a junk yard. Junk yards, according to him, are better than gold mines. After 38 years of work, he is now retired and enjoying his newly found freedom, mostly tinkering with anything mechanical at his retirement home one street over from where our original cottage stands. Last summer I gave him an old riding lawnmower, which is parked not too far from this old truck. He cabbaged the seat and placed it on his small rowboat. He has always had a knack for finding a use for whatever is donated to him.