Photo taken around 1907. Lena and a friend enjoying the snow at Olympic Park on the east side of Kalispell MT about a quarter-mile from where she lived at 116 Fifth Ave. East. This was the home of her sister Jenny and brother-in-law Arthur Hollensteiner. A

From right to left, Ruth Hollensteiner, Arthur Hollensteiner, Jean Hollensteiner, Larry O'Connell (boy at bottom) and Dad. Photo taken in Kallispel.

Christmas 1939 at 10640 Johanna St., Hanson Heights, CA. Doug (great grandpa) built this house from scratch while renting another home nearby. No lawn, just sagebrush and rock. This was grandpa's first electric train with a

Photo of Dad at age six. He lived on 4145 Edenhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA. Around 1934 in front of the house his dad built. The hat was a replica of his Dad's WWI helmet, and young Bob was very proud to have a hat like his Dad's hat.

This was taken around 1938 before the dam crakced and flooded a lot of homes. The wash was about 3 mi. wide, and grandpa used to play there with his Japanese friends Mamoru Shishido and Elmer Yendo.

The Little Red Tricycle

Back to California when Grandpa is four years old. He was in Kindergarten, says he thinks his mother must have pulled some strings to do that, but in school. The infamous Mrs. Stonehouse was watching him in the afternoon, and of course, totally drunk, so he was on his own this particular day.

Turns out the little guy who lived on the street behind him told Grandpa he could ride his new tricycle. Well....Grandpa wanted it SO BADLY....it was new, shiny, red, and had a really neat bell. Now this is the part that reminds me of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Bit by bit, Grandpa convinced himself that his friend told him he could ride the tricycle, so that meant he could HAVE the tricycle, and therefore it was really HIS tricycle after all, etc. Walking around the block to his friend's house, he found nobody home, went into the backyard, and there it was in all its glory! Too small to lift it over the fence, he found a wood 2x4, propped it on the fence, and slowly pushed the tricycle up and over into an adjacent empty lot. Then running back around got on and had the time of his life until his mother came home around 4:00 p.m. She asked him whose tricycle it was, and Grandpa answered it was his :) Then she asked where he got it, and he told her he found it in the abandoned lot....(well he DID find it in the abandoned lot....after he put it there!) Long story short, sometime between 5:00 and 5:30, Grandpa was knocking on his friend's front door with a tricycle and a very sore behind.

The moral of the story according to Grandpa, was that there he was a little four-year-old child, coveting, stealing, and lying, and of course proving the Scriptural view of human nature entirely correct! Fortunately his mother also provided the Scriptural remedy to his backside...

Grandpa wanted to ask everybody who hears this story a question:

Are there any "little red tricycles" in your life? What things have you wanted so badly you were willing to commit wrong before God and man to get them?

All of us have been there I am sure!