July 11, 2007

• LJ Cross-post Update

  Q: How did you spend summers when you were a kid?
  
  A: Short answer: I visited my grandparents.
  
  Long answer:
  

  
  When I was a kid, I lived in Chicago and Oak Park, IL with my parents, Jimmie and Nancy. We would visit all my grandparents, who all lived in New Mexico. My father's parents, Grandma and Granddad (Emily and James, lived in White Rock, a suburb of Los Alamos. My mother's parents, Helen and Ralph (cause that's what Mom called them), lived in Hobbs with Helen's mother, Granny. Her real name was Sicily Olive but usually went by Ollie.
  
  A couple of times we went by train. Other times we drove. And sometimes we flew. Some summers Mom and/or Dad had to teach summer school, so I would fly by myself. Usually I would spent a certain amount of time with one set of grandparents, then they would drive me to the other grandparents' house.
  
  When we were in White Rock, we would play Yahtzee, go for walks in the desert with Grandma's dog Nipper, part Husky part Hound dog, and visit their neighbors. And we would go to church, something I did not do when I was at home. Later I understood it was a Baptist church.
  
  When we were in Hobbs, we mostly stayed at home, but I also remember going to church there too, but Helen was a member of one church and Ralph another. Methodist, Episcopal? Can't remember.
  
  In 1976, Helen, Ralph and Granny moved to San Angelo, TX to a retirement community centered around a hospital, Baptist Memorial. They lived in a house and Granny lived in the hospital. Unfortunately, Granny passed away in August 1977. I remember because I was in San Angelo at the time. We had been planning for Ralph to drive me back to Chicago, but Granny got sick and stayed in the hospital with Helen at her side until she drew her last breath. Mom flew down and I sort of remember a funeral but it could be the memory of some other relative.
  
  For a while, they had a second home in Alpine. It was originally a one bedroom block of a house they bought somewhere and had delivered to a plot of land in this small town in the Davis mountains. So I would arrive in San Angelo and stay a night, and then at the crack of dawn we would drive over to Alpine. Ralph liked to get an early start on any trip. I usually wound up falling asleep in the back seat. We visited relatives while in Alpine, and we also drove down to Big Bend National Park at least once. Each year I went back to Alpine, I found they had added a bit onto the house. A trailer became the guest wing with its own bathroom, connected to the house by a large enclosed sun porch.
  
  Also in the mid-late seventies, Grandma and Granddad moved from New Mexico to Agra, OK, a small rural town between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, far off the Turner Turnpike. If I said it was between Chandler and Cushing, maybe that would give you a better idea of where it is. However, they didn't live in the town. They bought a farm, eighty acres, upon which they raised cattle, kept hens and even a vegetable garden.
  
  The first couple of years they lived in a tiny house near the highway while Granddad built a house. I remember playing in the house in its different stages. We would go for walks with Nipper twice a day: once in the morning, before breakfast and in the late afternoon, depending on the heat of the day either before or after "supper." "Dinner" was the noon meal, unless I mixed that up again.
  
  Once they moved into the new house, Grandma's brothers, Uncle Art and Uncle Lee moved into the old house. They had been living in Agra proper. Somedays we would visit with them. I mainly remember them rolling up their own cigarettes and smoking outside.
  
  I think it was here that the church became a large part of their lives because in addition to going to Sunday school and listening to a sermon in the morning, we went back in the evening to hear another sermon. Then one year, we also started going on Wednesday evenings. But they were not just attending church; they were involved with it by teaching Sunday school, helping with special events and participating in business meetings.
  
  Of course we went to other places besides church. There were visits to the cattle auction, the bazaar, and for very special occasions, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Braums Ice Cream.
  
  Eventually, I grew up and went to college and later worked in Japan, so my visits to my grandparents became more infrequent.
  
  Helen and Ralph sold the house in Alpine. Later, after Uncle Art and Uncle Lee passed away, Grandma and Granddad sold their farm and bought a house in Alpine.
  
  As an adult, I still visited them when I could. One summer, Chuk and I drove from SF to Texas and visited Grandma and Granddad in Alpine. He dropped me off and then went back to El Paso so he could drive into Mexico and visit Chihuahua. He had been taking lessons in Spanish. Then he drove northeast to go back into the US. My grandmother worried about him most of the time he was gone, so we were all very glad when he returned safely.
  
  The next night, we drove to San Angelo to visit Helen. By that time, Ralph had already passed on and she was suffering from Alzheimer's. She still recognized me, but despite having met Chuk several times before, she kept thinking he was a new person. He would exit the room, come back and she would act like she had never met him before.
  
  So this year, I am planning another road trip, but it will be to drive Grandma and Granddad back to Oklahoma so they can attend a high school reunion. Still hope for all the plans to come together.

  • 7:58 pm
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