Some favorite memories

[arewethereyet]

What are some of your favorite memories...from your childhood, or last week, or this morning.  What things bring a smile when they surface in your head?

My main favorite memories involve my grandparents.

My paternal grandparents were farmers in Eastern Iowa.  Grandpa came from Germany and he and grandma bought and took over her parent's 180 acre farm.  Even for the time when I was a kid, the setup was pretty primitive compared to other farms I saw.  They made a comfortable living with dairy cattle, Brown Swiss which were unusual in the area, hogs, and chickens being the primary livestock.  Grandma often added other kinds of poultry...guineas, duck, etc.  Of course, there were dogs and cats...particularly Brownie who was one of a litter of pups dad found whose mother had been killed.  Brownie lived a long, long time and was the best dog ever.

I remember riding the tractor with grandpa, watching the milk separator work to skim off the cream by vibrating it to the top.  Playing with piglets after grandpa made sure the sow couldn't get to me.  Picking up and cleaning eggs for grandma to sell...and so many other farm chores.

Grandpa was a stern, quiet man but I always go to spend time with him and got to go to town with him often.  If he was working on wood for something, there was always a small plane for me to use on a scrap of wood (I still have some of those).

Grandma and I hiked the farm and picnicked.  We looked for morels...YUCK....but they loved them and I often found wild strawberries and blackberries and honeysuckle to suck the little bit of juice out of.  We played card games and board games and made crafts and ate the best popcorn ever!  Grandma also loved to fish.  And we often went to the quarry or out to the Mississippi to fish.  She was endlessly patient with my constant chatter.

If this is of interest...I will tell you about the other grandparents...and great grandmom who were just as interesting, though seen less often due to being so far away.  That grandfather was a deep sea fisherman and charter boat captain...so I had quite diverse experiences with my grandparents.

[Nay_Sayer]

14. My dad took the family to Six Flags in the summer. We stayed for a week. All sunny days, great warm days but not sweltering. We did the park, Drive in Zoo and Hurricane Harbor.

He was a nose to the grindstone kind of guy who on occasion would be goofy. Seeing him loosen up and have fun that week is something I hold dear.

I have 3 full albums of photos from that family vacation including one rollercoaster cam my dad went on which surprised me.

Absolute 10/10 core memory

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

(I think I've told this one before...)

When I was around ten or eleven, one of my brothers and I had the idea to pick and sell chestnuts to earn money for Christmas - there was a chestnut copse on the farm. Da gave us permission and said he would help us find a buyer.

When it came time to sell, he set us up with a greengrocer in the town who said he'd take everything in one go. We had two huge sacks of chestnuts. The grocer weighed them out, then said, 'I'm deducting two pounds for the weight of the sacks. I'm only paying for the nuts.' As soon as we got the cash in hand, Da emptied both sacks onto the floor of the man's shop and said, 'Since you're not paying for the sacks, we'll be after taking them with us.'

That one incident taught me more about business and treating people fairly than anything else. 

Boru

[brewer]

Mom was a teacher, dad owned a ready mix concrete business. Since both were off for a month in the winter the family would pack up the car and we'd drive down south for vacations. Dad had been stationed in El Paso so we went there a couple of times, Padre Island way before it became a destination place, New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, probably others that I've forgot. Being a kid (started when I was around 10 or 11) from a relatively small sandhills town it was very mind expanding. The ocean, the food, the people (first time I met black people), crossing the border into Mexico,.............. so many new and different things to take in. It was just the best. Then it all came to a halt when the 70's recession hit and winters just became winters again.

[arewethereyet]

And, the other side of the family...

After we moved from the Outer Banks to Iowa for dad to attend vet school, we only saw them every couple of years, sadly.  I was about two when we made that move. 

Family swears I would have walked six months sooner if my great grandmother would have let go of the back of my T-shirt.  That great grandmother is who I was named for.  She wore dresses that fell to her ankles and wore button boots.  In the evening she would bush her waist-length hair and braid it to be curled up into a bun in the morning.  Well into her 80s she walked to my great aunt's house to help her as she was blind due to a degenerative vision issue that ran in the family.  G-gma was pretty much in charge of the house and the raising of my aunts and uncles as grandmom seemed to always be working and granddaddy was doing...what he should and shouldn't do but he surely couldn't be trusted to manage things.  

G-gma hand quilted and crocheted and did other sewing.  She tried to teach me to crochet but even when she slowed down it was too fast for me to catch on.  I remember sitting in a rocker on her lap in the evening after the hair brushing and she would tell me stories.  Those were rare tender moments with her as she was no-nonsense with stuff to do.  That time in her room at night was special.

Unfortunately, I have few memories of grandmom.  She was not a person given to displays of affection and she was simply tired.  She worked what seemed like all the time so time with her, especially one-on-one was rare if it ever happened.

Granddaddy was the big draw to the Banks...even bigger than the beach.  He was loud and social, usually in some state of drunkenness, and always on the go.  He played multiple musical instruments and he loved to dance.  He was unbeatable at checkers.  He and my great uncle played a form of cutthroat croquet.  Rules were different depending on whose house you were playing at.  He was a deep sea fisherman having owned two boats for a time and in later years piloted boats for other people.  He is rather a legend when it comes to marlin fishing and was also instrumental in growing the charter fishing business in the area.  He would take me out to the Gulf Stream on one of his boats or one he was running in later years.  We went clamming in the sound and spent a lot of time in the garage/rec room where he would drink and play music and sing.  As a husband he left a lot to be desired but this singing, happy, leather-faced, pirate of a man was a little kid's dream.

He called me Cap'n.  I miss that crazy old man.  He was a walking adventure.  Ya better believe it....as he would say.