Frederick Christ Louis Niemeyer

1. I remember that my parents said that my grandpa was a janitor as South Side High School and that he was the head janitor with a big set of keys to every door in the building! As a kid, I found that to be very impressive. He used to bring us things that were going to be thrown out. One year for Halloween, I was a majorette because Grandpa gave us a band helmet with a fancy plume. We also had a big can of miscellaneous buttons that I used to spend hours sorting and organizing. 2. I remember that he used to fall asleep right before dinner watching the Lawrence Welk show and that he also like Andy Griffith. Ironically, he used to fall asleep with his mouth open a lot, and always made fun of other people who fell asleep like that. He'd say that they were trying to catch flies. 3. I remember that he made his own flies for fishing, and we went out on a rented boat with a captain a few summers when I was a teenager to fish for walleyes. We brought home 60 fish each time. 4. I remember that he had a model train set in his basement that he used to let my brother and I watch as the train went around the track. 5. I remember swinging in the hammock in his back yard. 6. I remember picking gooseberries from his backyard. 7. I remember going out and picking pecans with my grandmother and him. 8. I remember that he was quiet and very rarely said anything, but when he did, it was usually a subtle joke. I once asked him what color his hair used to be before it was grey and he said red. So, no, he was blond. During family get-togethers, my grandmother used to talk and talk and talk, and when my grandfather couldn't take it anymore, he'd say, "Oh shut up, Lil!" and that was about all he'd say. 9. Once after my brother swallowed a bee by mistake by trying to suck it up into a straw and blow it out into a container, my grandpa made him a special Christmas gift. It was a box with some small straws in it and some fishing flies without the hooks that he made to look like bees. He told my brother that it was for practice, and then he laughed and laughed.