Teddy Slater's Best Friend

Today, my dad and Mason and I drove about an hour and a half to Clarksville, MO, to see my dad's father's best friend Kurt Owen. My name is Ted (not Theodore) because my grandfather's name was Harry; his friends all called him Ted. Or Teddy, evidently, as I heard Mr. Owen call him. Mr. Owen is "92 years young." We asked him to what he owed his longevity, and he said same as Mark Twain: he stayed away from hard tobaccy, hard drink, and fast girls... until he was 13 years old. Mr. Owen has let his driver's license expire. He says they don't renew it after you're 91-and-a-half years old, and anyway he has two girlfriends to drive him around when he needs it. He is sharp as a tack, and he has such a great, powerful baritone voice; he must've been able to sing just about anybody under the table back in the day.

Mr. Owen lives on a bluff with an unbeatable view of the Missouri River. The river is actually flooding now, and is going to flood some more in the coming days; people were filling sandbags down by the river, and there was a steady stream of dump trucks carrying sand to them the whole time we were there. When we left, Mr. Owen gave my dad (who promptly gave to me) a metate and mano that has been in the family for a long, long time, since 1900 or so, my dad thought. He remembers grinding some corn with it when he was a kid. Tasty. Remind me to tell you about the time my dad dyed all my underwear with walnuts.