Larry 'Butch' Hansen 1941-2009
Some of my earliest memories of Grandpa were getting to go out to his house in California and stay awhile. One time we were driving out there and it was very dark and it was very cold, and we hit something. Grandpa got out to see what it was and it was a dog, then he got back in and started driving, after a few minutes he said that it was so cold outside that the dog's guts were steaming. I begged and pleaded for him to turn around so I could see this poor dead dog. I couldn't have even been 5yrs old yet and he was willing to satisfy a pretty morbid curiosity for his grand-daughter.
Also, on these trips he used to let me lick the windows in the Red Bronco, but only the red one, because the red one was the company Bronco and who really wants to explain that the slobber marks on you car windows are not from your dog, but in fact came from your grand-daughter? :) I must have learned the licking from him because he has been doing it as long as anyone could remember. His sister, my aunt Marie told me that when he was a boy he used to lick his mom's legs and it drove her crazy so one day she put vinegar all over them and when he licked them he was grossed out and asked her what was wrong. She told him she had peed on them. :) He never licked her legs again, but his love for licking people did not end there. When he was moving to Africa we went to the airport to say good-bye and just before he boarded that plane he gave everyone a big lick on the cheek. That is just what he did. :)
Grandpa was always willing to do anything for me. Once he took me to Skipper's and I hate sea food, so he let me fill up a cup of ketchup and let me drink it through a straw.
He also taught us to improvise. In his old house we put in a new set of stairs going to the basement because they were so bad-unfortunately the new set of stairs were a little bigger than the old ones and when we needed to move things out of the basement, like a broken refrigerator it just would not fit, but instead of giving up and thinking that it just had to stay Grandpa pulled out his sawzall and cut the fridge in half. I remember thinking how there was no way I could get past him and the fridge and up the stairs if the sparks caught the free-on on fire.
These stories are just some of my silly memories of Grandpa, he was always doing something goofy. But he was also a great example to all of us. He spent lots of time doing genealogy and was able to take almost 100 names to the temple from our family. He had a testimony of the temple and knew what wonderful blessings it brings and he wanted to give that blessing to as many people as he could. I have a quote that I like - When you were born everyone around you was smiling and you were crying, live your life so when you go everyone is crying and you are smiling. Grandpa definitely lived his life that way.
