Dad's hatred of cats...explained

From a letter written home to his family from his mission:

Have I told you about Frau Bolliger, she is very nice but likes cats. She has 13. The other day one got run over. She has a special room especially for the cats. In her apartment there is our bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room where she sleeps because the other room is made especially for the cats, with a piece of plastic covering the window which allows the cats to come in and out at will. She even has [a] stuffed cat on one of her tables. Her front room “smells,” I wonder why. I am going to try to get a picture of all of her cats lying around in the living room.

How Life Becomes Legend

This morning Sarah was remembering Grandpa Poppy. She remembers how he would give her piggy back rides, and throw her in the air when she was a baby. She said she remembered how before he became sick he used to talk like a duck. And then the story... Grandpa spoke like a duck because he had a duck inside him. One day he went swimming in a pond and came out of the water with his mouth open. A baby duck went inside and he swallowed it as he was grasping for air. This duckling grew inside him. Grandpa also began to swim...grandpa naturally couldn't swim, in fact, when he was a boy scout he couldn't even float! He talked duck and it grew so much that one day he couldn't talk any more except to talk like a duck. That's when grandpa stopped talking very much. Slowly the duck took over his brain and body. Then he couldn't live any more because he became more duck than man.

Did you ever realize Grandpa could always talk like a duck until close to the very end?