While at Grandma's House

Summer couldn’t arrive soon enough. Summers were long, hot, hazy days spent away from the hot asphalt, the fumes of traffic and the boring days of television. Summers were always spent at Grandma’s house at the foot of a majestic blue mountain. Looking at clouds, smelling the warm earth, the scratchy grass rubbing against our bare, browning legs, sniffing flowers and avoiding bees, we spent countless hours that will be planted in our minds for years to come.  My brother, Hank, and I anxiously watched the clock at school as the last few hours winded down.  They went ever so slowly.  Tick! Tick! Tick!  Summer was about to start.  Finally, the bell set us free and we ran for the doors.

Rushing home we threw our school clothes on the floor and leaped into our holey, smelly summer tennis shoes waiting for us outside our closet doors.  We had placed them there the night before in anticipation of this special day.  It felt good!  Oh so good!

Crawling into the back of our cavernous closets, we pulled out our blue, plastic vinyl suitcases and started to shove shorts, t-shirts and well-worn swimsuits into them. No toys or books kept our clothes company.  Our only forms of entertainment to follow us in the back of my Dad’s green pickup were our bikes, bumping along with our suitcases and us.

Our entertainment for summer was already provided.  Always reliable and always there.  Our Grandma!   The only entertainment that we felt we ever needed.

Summers at Grandma’s house were filled with playful, yet obnoxious, cousins. Daily baseball games, swimming in the creek, picnics in the woods and meeting the clouds with our feet as we swung high into the air from the old tire swing that hung from the big weeping willow tree at the end of the road. Summers at Grandma’s house were storytelling and story making summers.

Getting to Grandma’s house was not easy.  In fact, if you weren’t familiar with the area, it could take days---maybe even months.  Sometimes we heard that people were coming to visit but we never got to meet them.  Maybe they are still looking after all these years.  The easiest route was crossing over the creek and driving up the hilly, bumpy road to her house.  But instead of competing with bumps and rocks, it was much easier to park your vehicle off the main road under the shade of a flock of trees and to travel on foot from there.

Making sure your vehicle was well off the road, we would walk down a rough, path of dirt and gravel to a footlog across the creek.  A footlog is a bridge made of wood and rope.  It is a simple bridge.  My Grandma’s footlog was built over a creek that eventually flowed into the great New River.  It was rickety and could easily swing if my brother and I worked at it.  My brother and I would start the bridge swinging just to hear my mother scream.  She knew it was always going to happen when she crossed with us on our visits, but she played along and to our delight, she always screamed.  It became something we always looked forward to on our trips to Grandma’s house.  We didn’t miss going to the beach or amusement park like some kids.  We made our own beach on the banks of the creek.  We had more fun than any roller coaster ride could give us with rolling down the long, grassy hill in front of Grandma’s house.  The only problem with the hill and the grass was it was itchy and you usually picked up a hitch-hiker bug or two on the way to the bottom.

Once at Grandma’s, Hank and I would push through the door at the same time.  We usually got stuck and ended up having to be separated by our Dad.  We were competing to get to Grandma’s room first.  We always argued over the bed.  It was the biggest bed I had ever seen.  It was the softest bed I had ever felt.  And it was a special bed, because whomever got there first got to share it with Grandma. And that was very, very special.

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