Dawn's Thursday Thirteen, Edition Twenty-Six: Down Memory Lane, Part One

Thirteen Little Things That Remind Me of My Gramp

1) popcorn: my Gramp *loved* popcorn. he would make it in an old-fashioned stovetop popper, drown it in melted butter and sprinkle on a little salt. then he would grab a couple of apples, a paring knife & his bowl of popcorn, and sit down in front of the tv in the evening to watch his favorite tv programs.

2) bacon: in the summer, when my Gramp's garden was in full production, on hot summer days, Gram would make a huge bowl of bacon & lettuce for my Gramp. that may have been his favorite meal ever. lots of bacon & lettuce salad, and a tomato sandwich.

3) robins: i remember how Gramp used to watch so eagerly for the first robins to appear in the Spring. he would be itching to get outside, after being trapped indoors all winter, away from his gardens & orchard. the arrival of the first robins meant that Spring was approaching & soon he would be back with his hands in the soil.

4) Chicago Cubs baseball caps: Gramp was surely a Red Sox fan, but he also liked the Cubs. for the longest time, i remember him working outside with this well-worn, broken in, dirty Cubs cap.

5) washing potatoes: yes, you read that correctly. washing potatoes reminds me of my Gramp. you see, he brought his fresh Connecticut Grown fruits & veggies to farmers' markets. but he always wanted his produce to look its best. he took such pride in what he grew. so before he would fill up his containers, he would clean & inspect every single piece. most of the time that just meant wiping down squashes or apples or what have with a clean soft cloth or maybe running carrots under the faucet to rinse away the soil. but the potatoes were a real project. Gramp would spread out burlap sacks on the grass, fill two buckets with water (one to wash, one to rinse), and then take a seat on an overturned joint compound pail to wash every single potato by hand, laying them on the burlap sacks to dry in the sun.

6) Dodge pickup trucks: my Gramp got a red Dodge the July before i was born. he had that truck for the rest of his life. they had a car too that got replaced pretty often, but he never traded in that truck for a new one.

7) this Christmas carol, which my Gramp used to sing:
O Come Little Children
(Ihr Kinderlein Kommet)

Oh come, little children, Oh come, one and all!
Oh come to the cradle in Bethlehem’s stall!
Come, see what has happened this holiest night;
Come, gaze on the gift from the Father of Might.

How sweetly He lies in His bed made of straw,
As Mary and Joseph behold Him in awe!
The shepherds are kneeling before His poor bed,
While caroling angels are heard overhead.

Ihr Kinderlein, kommet, O kommet doch all!
Zur Krippe her kommet in Bethlehem’s Stall.
Und seht, was in dieser hochheiligen Nacht
Der Vater im Himmel für Freude uns macht.

8) The Old Farmers Almanac, which he loved. i got the new edition for him every year for Christmas.

9) whistling: my Gramp used to whistle little tunes all the time, while he worked or waited.

10) pie crust: when Gram would bake an apple pie, she would always take the leftover pie crust dough, sprinkle it with sugar & cinnamon, cut it into little bite-size pieces, and bake it along with the pie. my Gramp called them "tarvies" & loved them.

11) seed catalogs: Gramp had a stack of catalogs that he started collecting in the late Fall, once the harvest was done. he would go through each of them carefully, looking at the different varieties & comparing them, before finally deciding which he was going to plant the next Spring.

12) Marty Robbins: he's a *really* old school country singer. Gramp had a bunch of his cassette tapes that he would listen to in the car. i don't often hear any of those songs, but every so often...

13) the tv show, "Dallas": this actually reminds me of both my grandparents, but i would sleep over their house all the time & on Friday nights, i would squeeze between them on the couch to watch Dallas. like everyone else, Gramp loved Bobby Ewing & loved to hate JR Ewing, but what i remember most was the way he used to laugh at Cliff Barnes...

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