The following story was told to me by Mom in after she had moved to Bonaventure. I didn't realize it at the time, but I suspect she did not relate it to very many other people.....probably none! In a sense, it highlights one of Dad's idiosyncrasies that many would think to be a flaw. It involved his sensitivity to eating anything that was touched by a friend who MIGHT have a single germ on their hands. For some reason, Dad was cautious about eating anything that might be contaminated by other people's germs.
Unfortunately our foster brother, Justin Little Whirlwind, died early in life from circumstances that were not known. Mom & Dad were close to Justin's mother, who wanted them to come to the funeral in Lame Deer, Montana. They would not have had second thoughts about going anyway. They had never been to where Justin had lived before, and had strong ties to his mother, Viola Little Whirlwind.
Indian funerals are quite different from white-mans' funerals, and was more a wake that lasted a couple days. At one point, they were served food at the Church, and while sitting at the table, a young girl asked Dad if he was thirsty. Upon his affirmative request, she went to the drinks table and filled up a cup of lemonade, but she got it too full and could barely walk without spilling some. So, in view of Dad and Mom, she solved the problem by stopping, and taking a drink of it to lower the fluid level, and then proceeded to bring the remainder to Dad.
Mom, knowing how disturbing that was to Dad, firmly whispered in his ear that when she got to their table, he would thank her and then drink the lemonade without hesitation or quibbling. There was no time to say anything more.
Dad followed her instructions precisely, and Mom was never so proud of him at that moment!
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Postscript: Another distantly related to the above story is Dad's germ phobia that is also related to drinking water. A friend knew of his aversion to people touching his food, so one day she topped off his drink, and then stuck her finger into his drink and swished it around to annoy him. The reaction........he was HORRIFIED! His friend can't remember much beyond that, except that her ploy worked!!!