Thou Shalt Not Litter...& Uncle Dan

I have an ex boyfriend.....we shall call him CC.  Now CC was 10 years older than myself at the time we were dating.  So you know, at 28, he was considered an adult.

One night after he came to see me at my mom and dad's place (where I was living at the time), apparently he stopped on the side of the road to "take a piss", and while he was doing that, he saw some boxes and some misc. garbage in the bed of his truck and like the litter bug he was, he tossed them out on the roadside where he stood and peed.

When he called me later that evening, he was really wound up, and he told me the tale of how he had stopped to piss, and then he was chased by this crazy man who chased him at high speeds all the way to Kalida!  He said this insane man gave chase, and was relentless in his pursuit.  CC was like....Heather this man wasn't going to give up, so finally, I stopped my truck and jumped out into the roadway, threw my hands in the air and said "WHAT!?!??!"  The man then proceeded to give him a lecture about "mother earth" and how littering is lazy, and something worthless people do.  THEN he proceeded to escort CC back to the scene of his littering crime and made him pick his trash back up, put it back in his truck and then and only then did he allow him to go on his way.

I listened to the story intently.  At "mother earth" I thought I heard something a little "Osting" about it.  But I didn't say anything.

He went on to tell me he thought the guy was going to kill him, etc.  I said, what was he driving?

He said:  "This great big ole brown bronco, the kind that the window rolled down in the back"...

I giggled, and then laughed and he was like "WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING ABOUT!??!  I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED!!"

I stopped laughing and said, "Congrats, you've officially met, and PISSED OFF my Uncle Dan!  Christmas should be fun if you come!"

He was like "WHAT?!?!  HEATHER THAT GUY IS CRAZY!!"

{although, Barb's looking a little crazier in this picture!}

And I said, "yeah, well, you're lucky he just made you go back and pick it up!"

Uncle Dan lived by his own set of standards.  He was absolute in his conservation of land, water and air (ok so maybe not air, as he smoked like a chimney).  He loved things NATURAL...the way they are supposed to be.  He loved the outdoors.  

He and my Uncle Ben are the ones who taught me how to goose hunt!  So many hours spent in a duck blind with those two in the wee morning hours were some of my favorite times with them.  They had a way of investing in you.  If you are even taken in under the wing of an Osting....you feel like you're pretty special!  I'm not sure why, or what it is, but it's almost like you can see their pride FOR you in their eyes.  They will also rib you endlessly if you screw something up....and pretty much reserve the right to embarrass you with said stories until you die....or in this case, until they die.

If you've never watched Second Hand Lions, do so!  And you tell me if Robert Duvall's character doesn't just just remind you of Dan right outta the gate!

Dan liked things simple.  He could have bought a new truck, but he liked driving his old one, no matter the shape it was in.  He sports a pair of shorts he wore before I was born, and he see's no reason why he wouldn't.  That's just who he was, he didn't have to have the newest of everything, and he enjoyed quality over quantity...anything worth doing, is worth doing right.  Osting's believe that, as I've heard it from all of them my whole life.

When you were with Dan, he always wanted to make sure YOU had what you needed.  Be it a drink, something to eat, a comfy chair.....he was always concerned with his guests over himself.

He was pretty rough on Aaron.....and I hated that, because I saw so much of Uncle Dan IN Aaron, it seemed ludicrous to me why he was so hard on him when he was doing everything pretty much the way Dan taught him to.  And though he didn't say it like he should have, I KNOW, the only reason he was hard on Aaron like he was; was because he wanted Aaron to not be LIKE him, he wanted Aaron to be BETTER than him.  Dan wouldn't have found that statement to be mean or insulting because he knew who he was, he was a man with talents and lived by a set of standards he could be and was proud of I'm sure....but he was the type of man who wanted this children to be successful and have everything they needed to be happy.  He would have walked over hot coals for his grandson Cody....as he was so paramount in Cody's upbringing.  He would light up when Cody and his grandson Ethan were staying the weekend.  Relationships with people were so important to him, but he didn't DEMAND your company to prove your affection like some people do, he just simply ENJOYED any company that came for a visit.

He was as stubborn as a mule sometimes....ok, most of the time....
I think he considered it part of his "charm"...

In helping Aaron with some funeral arrangements, and the unimaginable task and things one has to do in order to plan and arrange a funeral, we've spoke collectively as a family about our "dysfunctional family"....and Uncle Ben said the other day, you know, for a dysfunctional family, we're actually pretty alright!  We still...regardless of time and space, things said, feelings hurt, we at the end of the day, we show up, Osting's SHOW up for each other.  Always have, and we always will.
It will be complete and udder chaos, naturally....but we show up.

At the end of the day, I couldn't be happier to be an Osting, to be a part of this big crazy family of characters and trouble makers, story tellers and hard working honest folk.

If Dan were here to read this, he'd tell me to shut the hell up and I better NOT EVEN be putting this on Facebook.  For a man who didn't know what the hell Facebook even was, he sure hated it!!!

Truly,

Heather Lynn "OSTING" Siefker

Daniel Osting Obit