Glenn's Birthday Roast

*No that is not me, it is my little sister Kelly but I love that picture.

I spent the past few days reminiscing, and quite frankly laughing ourselves to tears, with my siblings and mom. You see, today we celebrate my step-dad's 49th birthday and we were trying to come up with funny Glenn stories that would be appropriate for the blog. We have a whole treasury of Glenn stories. He is probably the most amusing of all of God's creations but the problem we have run into is that we have deemed very few Glenn stories appropriate for public consumption. For the most part you will just have to trust me that my step-dad is one hilarious character.

I will give you a few blog friendly little tastes.

Let's just start at his first date with my mom. He took her to Knott's Scary Farm. She was a divorced mother of 3; he was fresh out of high school. As they were caught up in the magic of a first date Glenn tells her that she is the hottest girl at Knott's that night. How sweet, in a just out of high school way. Then he follows with, "Usually there are a lot of hot chicks here, but tonight they are all dogs." Where do you go from there? Umm, no brainer...marriage!

Yep, they walked down the aisle to Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath or something like that and we have been amusing ourselves at Glenn's expense ever since.

In Glenn's world there is nothing that can't be fixed with either hydrogen peroxide or duct tape. Whenever anything ails you physically Glenn will offer you peroxide, even if you are a bird. Once my sisters poor bird, Petey (or was it Susie?) got knocked out of his cage and chewed up by the dog. Poor Kristen was freaking out. Of course Glenn told her not to worry and picked up the bird and dipped him in peroxide. It did not end well for Petey. Maybe he should have gone with the duct tape that time.

Every broken thing that Glenn encounters has the misfortune of being repaired with duct tape until someone else comes along with a less tacky approach. Even broken windows are temporarily pieced back together with duct tape. This summer when we were all in Utah at the Daybreak house (my family's Utah house) Glenn was flipping through the channels with a duct taped remote. He held it up and called out to my siblings, who inhabit the Utah house, "Hey you guys need a new piece of duct tape for this remote". Me and my sister Valerie were rolling. Of course he asked us what was so funny, he asks us that a lot. We told him that they needed a new remote, not a new piece of duct tape. He insisted that the remote was perfect, it just needed some new tape to hold the batteries in. I don't know if that is funny to you but it really almost had me peeing my pants.

Here are some more gems.

Glenn once called in and took a whole day off work because he said he needed to take a shower.

Glenn has been wearing the same dutch boy bangs with frizzy mullet since 1970, usually while sporting some gym shorts from the school where he teaches PE. He even wears the gym shorts to the beach paired with a cut off t-shirt and then confidently proclaims, "As usual, I have the best trunks on the beach."

Glenn has invented several new diets. My favorites were the steak and cheese diet, where he cut carbs and ate nothing but bacon, or steak covered in cheese. Then there was the milk diet. He was going to replace a couple meals a day with milk. My mom pointed out that he doesn't drink milk which led to, "yeah I do, with cookies, but I'm going to try to eliminate the cookies." As you can see I got my food logic from Glenn. We are both still working on eliminating the cookies.

Glenn peed in the yard to potty train the dogs. Glenn peed in the tub to test if the drain he had just cleared was working. He gets the newspaper in his underwear and has even been seen chasing the escaped dogs down the street and around the block in his underwear.

Even in church his manners leave much to be desired. Glenn once leaned forward and fell asleep on the back of the woman in front of him in sacrament meeting, who happened to be the 80 year old mother of his life-long best friend. He just laid there and snored. We didn't help, we just giggled.

Another time in church my sister puked on the kid in front of her and Glenn loudly responded with, "Oh good, that kid is a punk."

As you can see Glenn is not a particularly friendly person. If he doesn't like you he doesn't pretend. If you come stay at his house he will probably repeatedly call you a free-loader, just ask my college roommates.

Glenn doesn't know what to do with affectionate people. Jacob, the little boy across the street, has always been quite fond of Glenn. One time as he was driving away Jacob yelled out "I love you Glenn". I love you too might have been a weird response from Glenn but he could have just said thanks. Instead he yells back "I don't know what you're talking about."

So don't feel too bad if he isn't warm when he meets you. He is 100% sap-free, even with his wife, unless you consider the "all the other chicks are dogs" comment sweet. Once on Mother's Day everyone was supposed to go around the table and say something they liked about my mom. He was supposed to start. He just sat there. Of course my mom's hurt feelings turned into defensive words and to break the tension my sister said, Why don't we just say something we like about 7-11 instead to which Glenn replied without hesitation, "I like a Big Gulp". Do you see why I am going to one day write a sitcom about my family? You know that story is funny.

Even though I am highly amused by Glenn, you can imagine that with this personality he did not warm up to me and my siblings easily. He married my mom at 22 and walked into a ready made family. Being a step parent is hard. I haven't done it but I am guessing it is hard because I know so few people who have done it well. Being a step parent when you are barely more than a child must be near impossible. It didn't work for many years. There are some fights that Glenn and I had that I hope have been erased from history. It was not easy but when I saw Glenn as a father to his children I started to understand who he really is.

Glenn loves his babies. He is a teacher so he has shorter hours and more time off than my mom. Glenn cooked, and cleaned, and changed diapers and gave rides. He even did the laundry, never mind that I often found him blowing his nose on our clothes before putting them in the washer. Glenn was the soccer dad, or football and softball to be precise. He never missed anything that his kids did and you could tell he was proud of them by the smirky grin on his face. We call that the "sword in the stone face" but that is another story for another day. Even as adults you will find Glenn's kids, my siblings, all cuddled up with their dad.

I have also learned in my years of observing Glenn, how to tell if he likes you. He will never say it but I can see it now.

He pays attention to the things you like. He found a cool shot of the San Diego temple in a calendar. He framed it and gave it to me since I was married there. He handed down a Wyoming sweatshirt that he had made when he was in college, because I am married to a Wyoming boy. He gave me an MJ CD when MJ died because he knew that I was the biggest fan. He does stuff like that for all of us, all the time.

And I know he loves my mom. He gives her so much grief. I think they like to squabble but really he would do anything for her. Seth loves this next story because it happened when he was new to the family. He saw them fighting at Thanksgiving because Glenn forgot the cranberry sauce. He had already been to the store several times and he refused to go back. He told her to go. She said she was throwing the turkey away if he didn't get the cranberries. They went through the usual routine. When everything was quiet again we heard the sound of the front door closing. We all grinned. We knew what the sound of the front door meant. Cranberry sauce. He always goes to get the cranberry sauce, or whatever it may be that day. He even buys box loads full of stuff for my kids every holiday, on my mom's errand.

I appreciate my relationship with my step-dad. When I moved out our relationship was not the best. I think it is safe to speak for both parties and say that we were happy to part ways. He was done with me. He did not have to try anymore once we were gone, but he did and that means something to me. I was afraid to drive at 16, so when I was ready at 19, my Grandma bought me a car. Glenn drove it up to Utah and taught me to drive. My first lesson began like this, "Alright, people are going to tell you to be a defensive driver but not me, I say you get on the road and make stuff (edited to keep it PG) happen." I almost wrecked that first day but Glenn never got flustered at all.

Glenn spends time with us. He is usually the face I see at the airport when I fly to California. He still chauffeurs us around, even sometimes as far as from CA to UT. When we are in town he joins us at the beach, or the zoo, or takes us to eat and even plays board games with us at night. I appreciate that he has made the effort to become family and I appreciate all that he does.

So thanks Glenn, for everything...particularly the laughs, even the inappropriate ones. Oh, who am I kidding? Especially the inappropriate ones.



Happy Birthday!