Happy Birthday to Uncle Joe!

Happy Birthday to Uncle Joe, aka Elmer, E.W., Dad, Uncle, Grandpa, Great-grandpa, woodsman, naturalist, senior scrapblog investigative correspondent and all-around fine human being! He is 81 today. Below we reprise some of our fav Elmer photos. (To see more Elmer images, simply type "Elmer" into the scrapblog search box and presto, you'll have an all-Elmer blog.) Young Elmer, right, with his dad, Claus Sprick, next to him, and some relatives at the L-shaped farmhouse. Elmer jauntily posed with his kid sister, Katie. We love any opportunity to reprint this immortal photo of Elmer with his best-ever hairstyle, posing proudly next to his brother Ed. (Middle-aged cousins seeing that outstanding 'do may be reminded of Ed Grimley, the character Martin Short often portrayed on "Saturday Night Live." "I must say!")

"Who, me?" Elmer looks both dapper and befuddled in this old photo of him standing in the middle of Lake Pepin doing Lord knows what, and with no mittens or boots.

Joe classed up the family considerably by marrying our beloved Aunt Mavis LaMont.

With his kiddos, cousins Cindi and Davy, in the 1960s.

Solemnly presiding over yet another stellar Stump-in in the 1970s at Joe and Mavis' wild land in western Wisconsin, with cousins Davy and Chris "helping." The occasion was the contest to name the place, and voter fraud was a concern. Note Chris trying to get everyone to vote for "Someplace Else" -- oh yeah, man, there's a great idea. "Elmacida," by the way, was Anna's brainchild (ELmerMavisCIndiDAvy, get it?). Grandma Sprick's poetic entry, "Waldesruh" (peace of the woods) won out.