Russ Grimm

I have written some poetry over the years and with few exceptions have only shared it with my wife, Linda.  Putting my poetry aside, two years ago I began sharing some thoughts and observations in letter form with my daughter-in-law Tammie, and my two sons, Tate and Ryan.  I tried to integrate some of my history and present and past experiences into some stories and ideas to share with them.  I attempted to interject some humor while explaining my thoughts and actions of the past fifty and more years.  In October, 2007 I retired after thirty five years of working with children and families who were having troubles.  Retiring did not mean that I was done communicating.  Instead, it was a whole new venture from only being a verbal open book with my family to writing in book or story form.  I was motivated to write to Tammie, Tate and Ryan because I felt I had things to share that otherwise would be difficult, unusual or awkward to bring up in normal conversation.  These writings have given them the opportunity to understand and in some cases to catch up through these history lessons.  You can figure things out better if you have more information and these stories hopefully eliminate the so called, “inside joke” that if you don’t get it you can’t move ahead.  Writing has also offered to me opportunities to reflect on my life both past and present and where I might go from here.  It underscores the nuance that promotes the love, recognition and importance in my life.  My posts will be versions of what I have already sent to Tammie, Tate and Ryan.

One quick note.  The Awesome Russ thing is one of those inside jokes that I will share with you.  Linda and I gave a card to Tammie and in the card we had each written a line to her and I had used the word awesome.  When we each signed the card, the way the words lined up, it read Awesome Russ.  It got a huge laugh from all of us when Tammie pointed it out.  It got an even bigger laugh from all of us when I chose awesomeruss.com as my blog address.