Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Grandpa's part 1

Since we are well into summer, (despite the fact that it doesn't feel like it, I'm enjoying it anyway) I have found myself grappling the familiar twinges of melancholy when I remember summers at Grandpa's.

This house looks like quite the poshy vacation spot, no?

Well, this is a bit before the way I remember it. Though the spookiness of it feels about right.



There. Now we're a little closer to my lifetime. What history this house has. I'm not sure, but I believe our family lived here for the bulk of it's existence. I know Grandpa grew up here and eventually moved in with his wife, Grandma Tracey. I understand she very much disliked living here partly because Grandpa's mom still did. I'm sure she haunts the place. Why else would her room be the creepiest in the house?

I'll never forget trying to sleep in that room, with the closet (filled with ghosts) right next to the bed. And those gauzy curtains drifting over me while I lay awake petrified on breezy nights.

The house looks more like this in my memory. Still creepy, but that never swayed my excitement about going. It smelled different there. Not bad, just different. A combination of beer, homemade bread, and simply the house I guess. Once I took that first long drag into my lungs, I knew we had finally made it. The long and curvy (as Dad's route went) trip was always worth the nausea. Being there meant no school. But it also meant catching crayfish in Goose Creek (or up the road) and playing in the barn attic and swinging on the porch and breaking open "poppers" and climbing the crab apple tree and Grandpa sticking corn silk under his nose and riding in that Maverick while Grandpa tooted the train horn under the trestle and Mexican sundaes while watching the Jefferson's and fishing on the dock and Shirley Temples at the Rod and Gun and husking corn on the porch and Peterson's and Johnny's and what movie is playing at the mall and so many many more fond memories that make up a sizable chunk of my childhood.

There's lots more about Grandpa too, but that's for another day.


4 comments:

  1. Better change "Grandma Tracey "to Grandma Tracey Lawson as they were married.

    Mom

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  2. Oh mom! Of course they were married. I just didn't feel like writing it all out!

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  3. I see 3 people sleeping. They were fun times, only hope your kids would feel the same about being here.

    Mom

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  4. Crayfish? What part of the South are you from? They're CRABS! And it's Goose CRICK not Creek!

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