Childhood Memories

I have childhood memories that I want to capture and not forget. Some are sketchy and short and others might require their own post.

* As a child I remember spending many Summers at my Grandma and Grandpa's house in Atichison, KS. Whether I was there 2 weeks or 2 months, I don't recall, time is different when your a child. I loved spending time in their old house. There was no AC except in the main room that was kept closed off with double glass doors. The floor boards were creaky and the bathroom had an amazing old free standing bathtub with claw feet. There were two rooms that were adjoined by a closet, one being my dad's old room and one where we would sleep when we came to visit. My dad purchased a window AC unit that he would run at night time so it would be cooler in his room. It would be so blasted hot and humid upstairs, my dad would open both closet doors and put a fan in the middle, blowing cooler air into our room.  Sometime in the middle of the night I would wake up to my grandma turning off the fan and closing the doors. I'm sure she was fretting over the electric bill.  She was a product of the depression and it was not kind to her.

*My grandma would be up before the sun, making breakfast for my grandpa, to this day the smell of sausage or bacon, takes me back to when I was 7 or 8. She would be outside weeding her flowers and vegetable gardens, hanging the clean laundry on the line to be dried,  and probably pouring salt or beer on the poor unsuspecting slugs.

 *I loved sitting on the porch in the morning just to smell the warm humid air that was heavy with barley and hops from the Brewery down the hill.

*I remember riding in the car with both grandparents and grandpa was always driving because grandma didn't ever get her license. Out of nowhere grandpa would slam on his brakes and hop out of the car, he had spotted a beer can or a pop can that could be recycled for money. One morning we went dumpster diving at the local golf course, I stood by and watched as my grandpa would go through the trash in search of cans. There was a big bold sign that stated stay out of dumpsters.  I was scared that the police would show up any minute and haul them off to jail.  Guess that's why we went at 5:00am. When they had 7 or 8 bags of cans stored in the garage, we would spend the after noon crushing cans with our feet, several times there would still be stale beer or sticky soda that remained and it would soak into my shoes. There was a little recycling place under the bridge that my grandparents would take the cans to be weighed, and in turn get paid several dollars for their cans. At the time I thought it was silly to spend all that time collecting and smashing cans only to get a few dollars, but now I see the wisdom of their ways.

*One of my most cherished memories of my Grandpa Francis was of him playing the trumpet. He would play my now favorite hymn, How Great Thou Art.  It was background music to the warm summer afternoons spent in their home.