Coolest House

My grandson gave me the biggest compliment possible. He said I had a very cool house. When queried, he pointed out that I have the coolest table in the world. It is a coffee table that the top lifts up and toward the couch while maintaining level. It is where I eat most of my meals when alone. Today Steph had the kids sit at the dining table and her & I sat at the coffee table.
Nick also mentioned the old tractor that runs on steam. He wants it down so very bad, but I will only get it down when I have time to supervise the solid alcohol fuel fire required to make it run.
He also like the room with the bunk beds near enough the queen bed and beside the queen bed is a single mattress on the floor. He enjoys jumping from one to the other. Both his mom and I are too tired to resist this antic.
He was saying how cool my house is when he was sitting on a rocking love seat. This was really amazing to him. When we pointed out that not only did the love seat rock, but each half is also a recliner. Boy, that dialed his amazement meter higher again. I let him play with that for a while and then I got his attention and pulled the back down to create a small table with cup holders in the middle of the big couch. I thought his eyes would bug out. We told him the couches were transformer couches.
Now, we had his full attention. We still had another surprise, though. I released the recliner on the end of the big couch and reared back. Yep, transformer couches. All the better to watch Harry Potter!
Kayak Bandit

Blueberries & Grandma's Chicken

One of my favorite memories is going picking blueberries with my grandparents. Grandpa knew all the right places to find the blueberries and grandma could pack the best picnic lunch in the whole wide world.
We would hike across the field from our home to Grandpa Hess' home. When we got there, grandma would be busy setting out all the things she knew we would need. She would pack a bunch of jars of water and arrange them in a cardboard box with towels between each of them. And then there was the big tin box that had all sorts of yummy stuff crammed into it. The house always smelled of fried chicken. It is likely because she always brought chicken for the picnic.
Grandpa would likely have already backed the car out near the gate. He would keep asking if he could start putting things into the car, but no, not until it was all lined up on the cupboard. Then when grandma was sure she had remembered everything, we all were assigned to carry something to the car. She would take the thing that needed to go in the bottom of the trunk herself. We would bring our burden to her to stack just so. Then we would all get into the car, but wait, she had forgotten her sun bonnet. Her bonnet was very wide with a pretty band around the outside. The band went through the hat on both sides with long tails to tie under her chin. She would come a runnin through the gate and into the car. We were off!
When we got to the blueberry picking spot, Grandpa would take off without any of us. He did not even take a bucket to pick his berries. He was too impatient to wait until grandma fashioned a belt for each of us. the belt went around us with the bail of a lard pail inside the belt. She would always show us to keep it slightly to one side so it did not slosh the berries so badly when we walked. Shortly grandpa would return to advise us which direction to head to find the best berries. Grandma would rig him up with a larger lard pail and we set off to the berry patch.
I can still remember how good those first berries always tasted. I bet we each ate a cup of berries before the first one hit the lard pail. Can you picture little Stevie all smeared up with blue berry juice. It is too bad we did not get a picture of that.
After we had picked all we wanted, we would return to the car. Grandma would spread out this giant tablecloth under a shady tree. We would all sit in a circle and enjoy chicken, date roll ups, and fresh bread. Grandma would mix up a drink that I would always call Kool-Ade. Grandma would be very insulted and correct me and say it was not some cheap Kool-Ade. This was real nectar. The difference was lost on me, but I can still remember how much of a big deal it was for me to understand that grandma did not serve that lousy Kool-Ade.
It did not take much to fill us up with all the berries we had eaten. Grandpa would likely want to take a short nap in the shade before we headed home. Grandma would leave us with grandpa and go for another bucket of berries. Good times.
Kayak Bandit

Walking to Work

When you walk a familiar path, where do you look? Do you look for the spot to land your next footstep? Do you look at something far ahead? Or do you stare at nothing special as you think deep thoughts?
When I walk to the bus stop en route to work, there are lots of interesting things to look for. I see the work a neighbor has done to build a retaining wall. I see the new addition that another neighbor is building. I see that a neighbor has brought some fence material home. Now I need to watch to see how quickly he moves forward with the project.
Some times I notice the cracks in the sidewalk and remember back to when we chanted the line "don't step on a crack, cause it will break your mama's back." Boy, would we walk gingerly to avoid stepping on a crack for this cause. But if the cracks got too close together, someone would change the chant to "don't step on a crack, cause it will break your teacher's back." When that was the chant, we were eager to step on a crack if our teacher was perceived to be mean.
Some times you must stop all progress to marvel at the way a tree leaf emerges. Recently, I noticed that a laceleaf maple tree leaf grows to full length before it starts to unfurl. Then each day you notice that the leaf grows broader and broader somewhat like a fan stretching out. You know, the fans like the elegant people used at the theater before air conditioning.
But some times you notice things that gnaw at you. There is this duplex where the people come outside only to smoke and talk on the phone. The yard has a birch tree that was broken at Christmas when someone must have tried to climb up the scrawny thing to put Christmas lights on it. Well, the partially strung lights are still in the tree and after six months no one has removed the lights or the broken tree. The yard has not been moved, no weeds have been pulled, the sidewalk is almost overgrown like the jungle and bear cans where they landed.
I was told by a friend that I need to let things go. I take too many things too seriously.
But then there are the times that you no more have started toward the bus that you are already there. Those days I have been thinking ahead to when I will be riding bicycle with my grandkids at the beach. Or sharing popcorn over the campfire. Or tutoring the next generation how to carefully heat up graham crackers and chocolate on a flat rock by the same fire that you are toasting the marshmallow.
And then there are the times I compose, in my head, good stories to tell my grandkids at bedtime. I always try to think up stories that can have characters with the same names as the grandkids that need their rest for another day of bicycles, dogs, popcorn and s'mores.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Driving With Grandpa

My Grandpa Hess was a warm, wonderful man. I remember fondly the times we shared. As most old people do, he had some interesting truisms. My favorite is on my letterboxing website. "You will not get stuck if you just keep moving." Another one was his admonition to someone shoveling grain into the granary. "Don't worry at all about the toe of the shovel, concentrate on filling the heal and the toe will take care of itself."
Visiting at grandpa's home was special. He had a windmill. A lot of things happened at the windmill. The obvious, was the water would get pumped up into a trough that led to the cattle tank. When the wind blew steady for quite a while the tank would become full. Grandpa had a knack for knowing how close to full the tank was. When it was nearly full, grandpa might ask me to go to the windmill and release the lever which in turn stopped the windmill from turning. Even though the wind would blow whether or not the pump was turning, grandpa did not want to wear out the bearings on the windmill.
Another happening at the windmill was washing grandpa's 1950 Chevrolet. Grandpa was very pleased with his car and kept it clean. It was exceptionally clean compared to our car. Why, dad would drive our car across a rough field to get a closer look at a herd of deer. Or deliver a greasy part to Ole's repair shop. If grandpa needed to haul something, he would put it in the trunk wrapped in a gunny sack.
Often, I would help wash his car. We would suds it up real good and then throw buckets of water onto the car to rinse the suds off. When the car had adequately dried, Grandpa would let me sit in his lap and drive the car. He would choose a short route for me to drive, ending in parking it inside the garage.
Even though I was accustomed to driving tractors, a car was a big deal. And doing anything with grandpa was special.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'