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Sayings From Grandpa
Grandpa Jesse would often have certain sayings that he would tell to his grandchildren (and others). This is going to describe some of them. If you have others, please let me know. This is likely to be an expanding list as I remember other sayings and others also contribute.
- If you want to get a job done, ask a busy man
- I recall him saying this expression at different times. It seems like he would say this at times when he had more on his plate than he wanted, and he felt busy. He wasn't complaining, per se, but informing the recipient that he was a busy person, and now he is doing another task for another person.
- What would you like, some fried rabbit tracks?
- I remember Grandpa saying this after he ascertained that you were hungry but hadn't yet expressed what you wanted to eat.
- A paid vacation
- I remember Grandpa often using the phrase "paid vacation" when others would use the phrase "military service". His logic was that the person who was serving in the army, or other branch, did not have to do their normal job (farm or factory work), all of their clothes were provided, all of their meals were provided, their housing, transportation, and everything else. And beyond all of that, they also got paid. Sometimes he would add some of these details, sometimes not.
- Why don't all of these people stay home?
- In the summers, I tended to spend a fair amount of time at Grandpa's, both when we lived next door but also when I lived in Fargo (as I would come down for weeks). He would like to drive to town to get one or two things. Often if I was staying with him, his list often included chocolate milk (and he would call me a chocoholic) and also something else was something that we both liked, either a frozen cake from Sara Lee or Pepperidge Farm. Since one has to at some point get on US 10 to get to town, we were often faced with long lines of traffic coming from the south. This was before I-94 was completed, which later pulled a lot of traffic off of US 10. This part was not done until about 1978 or so. (I was a student at St. John's University, and it was completed west of it, but not east). So, as Grandpa saw all the traffic going NW on US 10, he would say, "Why don't all of these people stay home?".
Published 2026-02-21.
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