Memories

This is one of my favorite pictures of me and my grandparents. It was taken in late July 2005 at my cousin Brad's wedding. I think that both Grandpa and Grandma look just beautiful in it... It was such a happy day and such a happy time of my life, too. James would arrive just a few days later...

I have so many wonderful memories of my Grandpa. He was such a fun Grandpa! I spent the night at Grandpa and Grandma's house many times as a child. It was always an awesome treat. They had a large yard... a great old pair of swings... lots of animals (a dog named Bowser, many barn cats, pigs)... I got to ride to the grain elevator with Grandpa in the huge grain trucks. Oh, what fun that was! As if that wasn't special enough, he would always treat me with a Chocola. To be young again...

Other memories that I have of spending the night there include "green" bread and grapefruit juice. Living on a farm, days always began early. Breakfasts were always yummy and included grapefruit juice. I think that might be where I acquired my love of tart things. Grandpa was such a teaser... they always had Roman Meal wheat bread, which somehow we lovingly referred to as "green" bread. It was kept in a special drawer with a really cool slide top that you had to open once the drawer was opened.

When Mom went into labor with Mendi, Grandpa came to pick me up at Mom and Dad's in the big grain truck. He took me back to their house. I'm not sure who had the idea... probably Grandpa... but, I hid in Uncle Jeff's closet to "scare" him when he got back from school that day. I'm sure that part of that visit, like so many others, included riding around the garage on the pedal tractor. I can still almost close my eyes and remember doing that. So much fun...

On one of my birthdays, Grandpa brought me a HUGE jar of dill pickles. He knew how much I loved them and got the biggest jar he could find. I'm not sure how big it was... maybe a gallon?!?! To a little girl, it seemed like it was as big as half of the refrigerator!

Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers for that side of our family took place at their house. We would eat a nice meal, open presents... and Grandpa would crack out his Polaroid camera to snap some pictures of us all. Oh, I smile when I think of that Polaroid...

Grandpa never officially retired from farming. Sure, there was a point when the day-to-day operations were handed off to Uncle Jeff... but, Grandpa was always there helping out in any way possible. I think that he even helped out a bit in the fields until the last couple of years. Unless there was a "special occasion", he would always wear overalls. After they stopped raising pigs, the farm seemed so "empty". The farm wasn't empty for long, though. A few goats now call the pig area home. They are so funny... so neat to be able to take the kids there to see them.

In the last few years, it was hard for Grandpa to walk around the grounds. He got a golf cart to ride around in. He loved to take it all over and back to the woods... just riding around enjoying the land that he lived on for so many years. He once told me about the time that he helped his father clear off the land just south of their home... it had never been cleared before. That truly amazes me. They had to work so hard... with horses, bare hands and tools that are so much more primitive than anything that we could even imagine today.

Grandpa had his chair... the chair that he always sat in. It was positioned so that he could see out the big picture window and look across the fields across the road. He also liked to monitor who was coming down the road and coming to visit. We often would talk about the deer that he would see over in the fields... and I would tell him about the deer that we would occasionally get in our back yard. I dread the next time I go to the house and see his empty chair...

There are so many other thoughts that have surfaced in my mind over the past few days. It's funny how sometimes things get shuffled around and buried under the day-to-day junk that rises to the top... I could go on writing more and more... The big white recliner that they used to have that Grandpa would lay back and lift us up like airplanes on... the fact that they didn't have air conditioning until just a few years ago... leaving their house on summer evening, thinking that we were going to get sucked up by a tornado before making it to my other grandparent's house... Oh boy...

As I have said before, Grandpa was such a hard worker. He also knew how to have fun. He was a teaser... he was a prankster, especially in his very young years. He loved to play cards. He just overall enjoyed life. Mentally, he was sharp as a tack until the last year or so. He could recall stories from his youth like they had happened just days ago. I always enjoyed to hear him tell his stories, and I would try as hard as possible to etch them into my mind. Unfortunately, I don't have the awesome memory capacity like he did... He really did have several health issues in the last few years of his life, but as my mom has commented, he rarely complained. He was strong until the end... and, he is truly someone that I admire. I will always smile when I think back about him... always.