The past week was spent in deer camp in Kansas and my son Bubs and his wife Tinkerbell were able to join. No fun times would be complete without my beautiful, smart and best of all granddaughters who came along and added life to the party.
Well they are lively at the very least and by the time we added in a nephew and his two kids we were a pretty lively bunch, with four little ones age 4-7.
Slowly the crowd thinned and Ol’ Dutch got to tell some bed time stories to the smallest of my two. Now, this child is unique in that not only has she attained the ripe old age of 4 years old but was born on my birthday to boot.
One night, she crawled into bed asking for a scary story. Digging deep into my treasure trove of knowledge I ad-libbed the story about the man with a golden arm. The punchline is that the golden am is stolen and late at night you can hear him in the forest saying Whoo, whoo, whoo...stole my golden arm. And, since all owls say “whoo whoo,” it makes for some level of belief in the story.
The best part of these crazy stories is how kids react. They think about it and come up with solutions of their own, not realizing it’s all a big joke. Much like Miss Trixie snagging me into relationship bliss except, believe me, this is no joke.
Usually my granddaughters want me to tell them a story about the old spook himself  Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman who, in the Kirkpatrick clan version, often ends up being a philanthropist to small and sickly kids and finally is accepted by the entire village – sort of a redemption story ala the Beauty in the Beast.
But before that ending there is lots of evil sounding laughs that come out of Ol’ Granpa Dutch and their eyes light up every time with the telling.
So, Grandpa told the little ones a scary story about a monster, then moved on to an even scarier subject than that: stories about weddings, marriages and relationships.
That’s because our next family adventure is the wedding of my niece. Which given the high likelihood of divorce these days a person really ought to say A WEDDING of my niece.
All the Kirkpatrick offspring are supposed to be in the wedding because, well because they need 28 attendants and for everyone to buy dresses they cannot reuse.
My granddaughter was awe-struck as I told how weddings go. How the man would promise the woman anything and she would do the same in return.
I went on to explain how the new bride would agree to unlimited fishing and new guns for the groom and he would agree to shopping and candy for her.
I went on to explain that later on the man would be painting the house instead of fishing and the woman would be shopping and eating candy. And, my granddaughter who is so very smart and cute, smiled the biggest 4-year-old grin and said, “she tricked him?”
And that, my friends, is marriage 101.
Trixie likes to think that marriage is more than trickery and sorcery. I guess it can be more like  two people living together where he likes the yolks and she likes the whites of the breakfast eggs. A compromise is worked out that is beneficial to both parties. Like the man hunting for food so the woman can eat. You know, the basics of living?
It has always been said it takes two to Tango and even though I had Tang once for breakfast, I don’t know enough about tangoing to really know if it’s even true that one person can’t Tango. And, in the end, it doesn’t really matter, does it?
See, even in his old age Ol’ Dutch is getting smart and wise, especially about compromise. Enjoy this ride while you are on it, folks.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.