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OpinionStaff commentary - All my summers will never be the sameEach summer, my brother, sister and I would get piled into my parentsí car and get hauled 8 hours down the road to spend two weeks with my grandparents in Ohio. Those two weeks probably were a big headache relief for my parents, but as kids, we saw it as two weeks to wallow in the joys of grandchild-dom, getting spoiled rotten at every turn. Practically as soon as we walked in the door, my grandparents were there with hugs and kisses and, of course, candy to greet the grandchildren they saw but a few times a year. My family moved to Maryland in 1985 and we were one of the few of my momís extended relatives that left Ohio and did not return to live there. That fact made it even more important to my parents that they set aside time in their busy lives to drive us to Ohio for the annual summer reunion. My grandparentsí house sits on State Rte. 56 in Circleville, the town whose claim to fame is the nationally known Pumpkin Show. Circleville is a rural community built on the hard work of farmers, laborers and red-blooded Americans. Grandpaís house, with its towering flag pole in the front yard, sat between the highway and a massive corn field that stretched for acres. Those rows of tall corn were like the gateway to hours of play time including games like hide-and-seek at night, elaborate schemes to scare each other and our cousins and simply a way for the girls to get away from the boys for a little while. On my grandparentsí property, my grandpa planted a huge garden every year. His pride were the cucumbers which my grandmother couldnít turn into bread and butter pickles fast enough to satisfy the grandkids. The tomatoes, corn, squash, pumpkins and other vegetables that sprouted from the earth graced each evening meal. The kids would follow our grandpa out to that garden every day, sometime several times a day, as he tended to each plant no matter how small and to be the lucky one that got to pick the dayís harvest. His calloused, tough and weathered hands became suddenly delicate and caring as he taught us about joys of gardening and the benefits that can come from dedication and hard work. Grandpa always seemed magical to the cousins. It never ceased to amaze us that he could remove the top joint of his thumb and that his ìmagic teethî could come out of his mouth. Weíd dance in the kitchen together and try real hard to get him to laugh when we tickled him. Days under the hot sun were spent pouring the concrete floors, raising the walls and shingling the roof. Mostly we kids just got in the way until grandpa would take us inside and turn on a movie heíd find for us on satellite TV for a couple hours. After the garage was up, one of the biggest treats for each of the cousins was to use grandpaís tools like hammers, nails, screws and screwdrivers and the coolest contraption of all ñ the woodburning tool ñ to make unidentifiable masterpieces of carpentry. Inside the garage, grandpa stored the riding lawn mower he called his tractor. Every grandchild and great grandchild has ridden that tractor with grandpa and those memories are some of my most precious. I remember one year ñ I was about 10 or 11 ñ I was riding that tractor by myself and ran over one of the new young trees grandpa had just planted in the front yard. My brother, of course, immediately ran around back and told grandpa what had happened. As he examined the damaged tree and the scrapings on its tiny trunk, I began to cry, fearing he would be angry with me. But he wasnít. He put his arm around his sobbing granddaughter and took her inside, telling her it was all right ... everything would be all right. We didnít have video games or computers during the summers. We played with the same toys year after year and spent 90 percent of our time outside. It was a simple summer vacation each year, but it did more to build our characters than Grandpa will ever know. Grandpa was Airborne and was a paratrooper in Korea. We donít know a lot about his service because he never really wanted to talk about it with us. One time, many years ago, he did look through some old black and white photographs from his time in the service and he sang a few of the cadence he and his comrades used to do. But that was the last time we heard about that. He spent many evenings at what he nicknamed ìThe Gold Mine,î a local bar where heíd stop for beer after work. His favorite jokes were to call us ìyoung ëunsî and to give us nicknames like Hornswaggled and Iscabible. Last year, my grandpa took one of his last trips out of town to attend my wedding. He had lost a lot of weight since I had seen him last. But he still had a full head of hair, smelling of Prell shampoo and parted and slicked to the side with pomade. We talked that weekend about family, the importance of holding marriage vows true and just loving those around you and truly trying to appreciate everything you have ñ no matter how little it seemed. I can only hope those last few conversations with him will echo in my memory forever. Post Review reporter Barbara Brown is out of town this week attending the funeral of her grandfather. ©ECM Post Review |