rememberies: June 27, 2007

some random memories that have flashed through my mind recently:

...the huge old Congregational Church in Plymouth, CT where the CT Grown Farmers Market used to set up in the parking lot on Thursday afternoons all summer long. i used to go with my Gramp and help him sell his fruits & veggies. i remember the huge stone steps with the cracks in them. the green shutters on the windows. the big old evergreen tree on the green. the very old cemetery behind the fellowship building with its stone wall -- and i say old, i mean 1800s old. and Mrs Allen, who always came to get a pie or zucchini bread, and some string beans and carrots from my Gramp.

...the way the classrooms looked where i went to school from kindergarten through eighth grade. (i went there for nursery school too but that was in a different building.) Immanuel Lutheran School. the walls were painted the exact same colors as Circus Peanuts candy. some classrooms were yellow. some were green. (ok so Circus Peanuts never came in green, but if they did, this is the shade that would have been used.) the only classroom that was different was the eighth grade room -- it was orange.

...the red maple tree in my grandparents' front yard. just behind the blue spruce. and in the center, the birch trees. and the two enormous pines standing in front of the house, like two sentinels on guard. the ash tree in the front, next to the driveway. in the back, there were the two evergreens. and the tamarack tree. and the beech tree.and a couple of maples. and the Red Delicious apple tree. there were more trees besides the ones i've mentioned... and these were all before you even got to the orchard beyond the back yard. is it any wonder i feel "tree starved" down here in Florida?

...Gram had certain decorations that came out every year for each holiday. she had these two yellow ceramic bunnies. both had one ear standing up, and the other folded down, as if it were flopping over. sometimes she would put them on her hutch. sometimes on her sideboard. sometimes on the oval mirror she used under her centerpieces. but those bunnies always spent Easter in the dining room.

...picking peas out of the garden. popping open the pods & shelling them, while sitting on a picnic table bench. eating them raw by the handful.