Well I was born a long long time ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the face of the earth. I had an interesting Life, chasing Ideals, and being slapped around by the Reals.

My Dad was on a train heading for the East Coast, and hadn't got much more than seven hundred miles down the track, when the train stopped for servicing, and he made an urgent phone call back to Winnipeg.

"You have a Son," my Mother's Mother told him, "and everyone is doing just fine."

"We are going to call him Paul, after my Father and Brother," my Dad said, and someone in the background shouted All Aboard.. !!

"Tell Rose I Love her."

The phone clicked, the train blew its whistle, and Captain Walter Grenkow went off to fight in World War Two.

Back in Winnipeg, in the Miseracordia Hospital, just three blocks from where I live today, my Mom brought me into this world. A little baby boy. They gave me the name Paul, named after my Uncle and my Grandfather. I was the second boy in this starting family. Later my Mom and Dad would provide me with two more brothers, and two sisters. and each and every one of us would be 180 degrees different from the other. We still are today.

First there was Walter, born a full year and two months before me, then a year and two months after me came my brother Richard. The three of us were a bit of a wild bunch. *smile* Poor Mom, she tried really hard to make it all come together.

Four years later Darlene was born, Heather five more years after that, and still five years after that, brother Charles arrived on the scene. A lot of things happend in the time between the first child's birth, and the last. Many many things.

Paul and Paula were my Father's parents. Two young Ukanians from Ukrane, setting up a farm and a family on the prairie a few miles just outside Winnipeg. They had thirteen children. One set of twins, Paul and Joe. Two super cool dudes. The family would grow and prosper. And in there, my Dad was born. Everyone worked on the farm. They were called 'mixed farmers', because they grew grain fields and raised milking cows.

As a kid I would spend summers there. Out in the barns, with the horses and the cows. It was a different planet. My best and most fondest childhood memories came from there. It was just so different. They always had their own bull who was just an absolute giant. I remember peering into his pen, and it always thrilled me to look into his giagantic huge eyes on each side of a thing called his head. He stayed in his pen all year round, except for the Springtime, when they would let him out for a bit of a romp. Then it was back in his pen until next Spring.

Not that he didn't do a lot of romping in that pen. There always were baby calves around. Always. That bull had but one purpose. To impregnate cows when their milking cycle was indicating that they should calf. And along comes the bull. That's what he did all his Life. When he got a little older, they just replaced him with a new younger version. And then the young one went on to do the impregnating. Until it was his turn to get a little older. And then it was a quick one way trip into town where he would go on to his next Life, and his carcass ground up for baloney sandwhiches. Actually, it is spelled balonga, and they were Balonga bulls. My Grandparents bred the finest Holstien cattle, and they always had this great looking bull. Except his horns were always cut off. On one bull I painted his stump with red paint, and it looked like he had a big tomato on his head. I always regretted doing that.

Anyway, it was on this big farm that my Dad grew up on. He stayed in school, and my Grandfather sent him off to Toronto to graduate as a Dentist, winning the top honors in his graduating year. About thirty years later, my year younger brother Richard would also graduate as a gold medallist in Dentistry. My Dad is retired now, but in his day, there was no finer a technician. One of the top drawer men. And so were his friends. All leaders.

I grew up in the city. And in all my Life I lived in just .three different houses. My Dad had the last house built from a vacant lot. He also built his dental office attatched to the house. That choice of options woud make a huge change in our lives. A most difficult change.

Naturally I don't remember the first years so well, but I do have memories from when I was two years old. I can remember the city streets before they were paved. And I remember the big flat ice truck that delivered the ice for our fridge. The guy would drive up in a long flat truck and with a big set of tongs he would take a big block of ice and bring it into our house. My Mom would put it in the ice box. Even the stove in the kitchen would burn wood and coal. The toaster was a bent coat hanger held over the open flame. It is not that we couldn't afford any better, it was just that it was a long time ago, and that is how they did things back then.

I was fascinated with fire. I Loved to watch the mezmerizing dancing flames, and the deep glow of the embers. In those early years, I couldn't get enough of that fire. Somehow I feel that fire and I are kinfolk. Many times I would feel many many burns, because I always wanted to be closest to the fire. The hotter it was, the better I liked it. And sometimes it got real hot.

We nearly always had a dog. Skippy,Sandy, Mitzi, Lady, and Frosty. They were all small dogs. Later on when I would have my own dogs, they would always be big mutts. We had white rats, a few budgies all named Peter and turtles and tropical fish.

I was always amused and amazed with other Life forms. I remember the first time I saw individual blood cells under my microscope. I looked at everything with that microscope. Everything.

Right from the start I also always liked girls. And I would have many many girl friends throughout my Life. Sometimes too many.

Next I will tell you about some of the times we had....

To be continued....