flynnfamilystorytellers

Bad Haircuts, Flynn Family Story Slingers 15 January 2023 by Cary Holmquist The entire time I was growing up in rural north-central Montana, the only haircuts I ever received were from my cowboy-turned-farmer Grandpa Vance.  I never heard how he became a hair cutter, but I suppose it had to do with being a cowboy on the ranges of central Montana, where he grew up.  They wore real cowboy hats most of the time and leather wool and fur caps in the sub-zero, endless wind winters and so their hair was easiest to take care of if it was short—and so the cowboys accomplished it themselves with whatever passed as scissors. Grandpa Vance’s right hand had been mangled in a hay-chopping mill before he was 30 years old and when I came to know him 30 years later, he had figured out how to hold a long comb between the hook-like fingers of his right hand while he wielded buzzing electric hair clippers in his left hand to deliver the haircuts to his grandsons.  He had been practicing this for y

  Traditions of Christmas By: Carrie Keiser Growing up it seemed like it was a tradition to put the tree up on Christmas Eve and then leave it up to till the new year. I understand now that it was partly because we waited until the Christmas tree lots closed and were giving away the last, usually ‘Charlie Brown’ trees, because we couldn’t really afford to pay full price for a tree. I think they were all beautiful and I kinda love a good ‘Charlie Brown’ tree. Also, as a kid, it was kind of a tradition for Ryanne and I to stay awake and try to “catch” Santa. When we moved to Ephrata it seems that the tree went up sooner and that the real tree was replaced by a fake one.  Always, on Christmas Eve, we gathered to listen to dad read the Christmas story from the Bible, that is my favorite memory of Christmas. With my family we were given a 24 days til Christmas book by Nana (Dorothy Herrin) when Cody was little and Shantel was not yet born. We started that next year and read a story every ni