Cherish the Happy Moments

I can remember a lot of special things that happened during my childhood, but when we were growing up, anytime we were able to spend a few minutes at our grandparent's home was really special. There are so many things that I remember about those days. The smell of fresh brewed tea leaves in a little granite pot on the old gas cook stove.Other pots would make it bitter. Going to the garden with Granddaddy to pull some fresh green onions for the next meal. Cutting out the dough with a saucer to help Grandma make fried pies(I dropped the rolling pin in her big glass biscuit bowl and broke it.I don't remember a single word from her about how hurt she must have been. My dishes are all special to me, as I know that bowl must have been to her. I could have been a collector's item today.)Helping Grandma iron the little seams open on the 4-patch pieces she was making into a quilt.I remember the old hand pump out on the back porch where they got their water from a well. The cast iron kettle hanging in the back yard where she would make lye soap or wash her clothes. The chickens in the chicken yard and gathering the eggs with Granddaddy.The flowers all around the front porch and in the yard.The catalpa tree we use to climb. The white rocker and chair sets where we sat in the shade in the yard and watched the cars go by. We knew most every one that passed back then.I remember the smell of the meat house where they stored a lot of canned goods and meats. I remember those sulphured apples in big half gallon jars.I remember large white cloth bags, I think they were flour sacks, of dried apples hanging in the meat house.I remember pushing Granddaddy's old time green push lawn mower.No motor either.I remember the smell of cashmere bouquet soap filling the air as the breeze blew through the little four room house.I remember the granite top table sitting in the kitchen with a granite water bucket and a dipper in it for drinking. I remember coming to their home anytime and finding something good to eat stashed in the oven, probably left from one meal waiting to be used in the next, but it would never make it that far.Us kids would eat every bite, no matter what it was supposed to be for. Grandma never seemed to mind though.I remember staying nights at their home and getting on the bus there the next day, and Grandma fixing me the best little sack lunch ever. We never had any kind of goodies like that at our home. She'd put in a fruit, some type of cookies, maybe some chips. I really can't remember what all she did put in the lunch but I remember it being really special every time. I worked for the School Food Service for nigh on to 30 years, and each time we fixed up sack lunches for the class or school trips, it would bring back memories of those sack lunches Grandma would fix for me. I remember Daddy coming home after a long day's work,running the bulldozer, so dirty, all you could see was his eyes, but he had taken time to visit his parents, and Grandma had put in a few cookies or goodies of some type in his lunch pail and he would always leave something in it for us kids to have when he got home. It is so funny now to think of how we use to break our necks to get to his lunch box, when he returned from work each day, just to see if he had anything left to eat, and he always did.I remember us kids loving hot dogs and ice cream, but never were able to get our fill. It was costly to feed 9 kids all they wanted of anything like that.But I remember Daddy saying when he got his tobacco check, he would buy us all the hot dogs and ice cream we could eat. He did, and we all slept with a washpan at our heads because we were so sick that night.We had our problems growing up, like most other families, but now that just doesn't seem to matter. I remember so many wonderful things that happened, it seems they have lessened the pain of the bad , at least, for me. I am so happy to have had all these memories to think back on now and I am sure I could write for days, just about the good memories of those days gone by. Our life on this earth is over too quickly to let anything, and I mean anything, keep us from finding peace and happiness for ourselves and our family. My mother's dad deserted his wife and children during the depression, leaving her Mom with five small children. It's hard today, but imagine being a single parent,trying to care for five little ones alone,during a depression.She could not, so she put them in an orphanage. Over the next few years they were all adopted out by different family members, but when it came time for Mom to go, the last to be placed,it was with older aunts who didn't really want her, but took her anyway, since she was the only one of their brother's children left to be adopted. You can imagine being raised by old maid aunts, who drank heavily, to boot.It had to have been a horrible life. Our parents had their own problems, but as children, like most kids, most of us never suspected a thing, until we heard all the stories when we much older.I am so grateful for all the happy moments we had when we were young. They will always be there to draw upon when we are down.