Precious Memories

I've decided to start a new series on my blog called "At Grandma and Grandpa's Place". I was inspired by the following post by my sister a couple of weeks ago:

There are some things I’ve been wanting to record about my Grandpa Hayes who passed away last December, but just haven’t gotten around to it. Here’s the first installment…

He loved to tell jokes and funny stories. His favorite one to tell about me actually says a lot about him. How mischievous he could be. How he had a soft spot for kids but loved to rile adults (especially women)… The event actually happened when Eric was in the hospital for his burns and Grandma and Grandpa were babysitting me and Crystal. Mom had thought Grandma and Grandpa might need a break, so she arranged for Grandma Kagy to go to their house and pick us up for the night. I guess I balked at the idea of going with Grandma K. and Grandpa obviously didn’t want a break from us, so he planted the idea in my little 3-year-old head that if I threw a big fit when Grandma K. arrived, she might not take me with her! Sure enough when Grandma Kagy came to pick us up, I threw a big one. Grandpa laughingly tells how I ran screeching back and forth on top of the back of the couch, refusing to go with her. She had to leave there without us… after having made the 35 minute drive to gather us in the first place! I, of course, have always thought the story funny but looking on it now as a mom myself, I can imagine how miffed my mom and Grandma K. must have been! He’s a guy, though, against whom, I would imagine, it was hard to hold a grudge.

Grandpa also loved talking about the “old days” and, of course, had kept some antique items. One of which was his mother’s old butter churn. He kept it down in the basement (a vaguely spooky place full of old things where just about the only thing for a kid to do was to write on the chalkboard that hung on the wall). He had warned Eric, now fully recovered from his burns and around 5 or 6 I would guess, not to play with the butter churn, but I suppose Eric didn’t listen because he ended up breaking it.

Grandpa says my dad brought Eric to him and said, “Eric has something he needs to tell you.”

“I broke your butter churn,” and as Grandpa quotes Eric he speaks in a small, little voice with head down turned.

“You broke my churn!?” Grandpa bellows intimidatingly.

Eric, evidently put on the defensive by Grandpa’s reaction, counters boldly, “I thought it was plastic.”

And Grandpa always breaks out laughing at this point, I assume at Eric’s boldness and again at the idea that anything that old could have been made of plastic.

So, once a week (not on a set day) I'll be recording some of my own memories about life at Grandma and Grandpa's Place. I'm also blessed to have my Grandma's diary from 1979 so I'm planning to include some excerpts from that as well. I hope you all enjoy a look into the not so distant past.