'What are these things that can make us laugh or cry in a single moment; these things that bring a flood of emotions with just the mention of a single word or phrase? Memories are so very powerful. They can bring to life past experiences, recreate a childhood fantasy, or allow loved ones to live on in our hearts. Some of my most fond memories are those that were made with my grandparents...
Grandpa drove a big truck, with an even bigger canopy on the back. It was always our favorite thing to ride in the little jump seats in the back seat. Back then, these seats seemed to be so big and inviting and in our minds contained enough magic to propel us to the moon if we wanted. In Grandpa’s truck you would always find a pack of Big Red. I think Grandpa’s gum is what began my love of anything cinnamon. My sisters and I knew that when we got to ride in Grandpa’s truck (or even just sit in it) we would get a half-stick of gum. A half piece for each of us girls, and he’d have the remaining half.
Grandpa was also quite the trickster. We would often get Grandpa puzzles and games to test his skills, and he almost always succeeded. And if he didn’t, he would find a way… like the time he removed the stickers from the rubrik’s cube and put them back on in the correct places. And he was always looking for a way to tease Grandma. After several Christmas’ in a row of what seemed like holidays on repeat, we decided to give Grandma and Grandpa a break from their usual presents of cologne/after shave, pictures and VHS tapes and give them a set of rubber band guns. Grandma just looked at hers in shock and was half way through the phrase ‘you don’t really expect us to use these…’ when she looked over at grandpa just in time to see him pull the trigger.
As long as I can remember Grandpa and Grandma were retired, and loved nothing more than filling their weekends with trips to see us. I can’t even attempt to count how many dance recitals, band and choir concerts, and sporting events they attended over the years, but they were always there looking on, making us feel as though we were the most talented kids on the planet. After all… not every set of sisters had their own club house full of clues they’d hunted!
It was a favorite past time of ours to visit Grandma and Grandpa’s house and go Clue Hunting in the back alley. Today, the alley is no more than a gravel path spanning the length of just one block of their neighborhood in Burbank, but when we were kids that alley was the most wondrous setting for our adventures. We would each take a plastic grocery sack from Grandma and set out on our adventure collecting clues to the happenings of the alley. Grandpa, not wanting to keep all of our treasured ‘clues’ in his shop, turned the old dog run into a club house for us. The wire walls made a perfect host for all the random metal scraps, bottles, cans, hangers and discarded tools we’d found and we proudly displayed everything we could. We had Grandpa make frequent trips to our club house to inspect all the treasures and clues we’d collected that day.
Right next to our clubhouse was Grandpa’s garden. Weather-permitting, every trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s house yielded some sort of goodie from the garden. Fresh cucumbers and raspberries were the favorite. Grandpa would give each of us a small tub to take with us when we helped him pick berries… fully knowing that more berries would end up in our bellies than in the bowl. Grandma always found it amusing that Grandpa would return with more berries on the trips he didn’t have help than when he had three extra sets of hands.
If you were to explore the rest of Grandma and Grandpa’s yard you would find the best tire swing known to man hanging from one of the five extraordinary trees that spanned across the large grass yard. These trees made the biggest, most perfect leaves you’d ever find, and it was during our trips into the sky on the tire swing that we would attempt to reach out and clench a handful of the leaves. These leaves were also the center of fun during the fall. Grandpa would rake the leaves from all of the trees into a giant pile and let us play in it for hours. One of Grandma and Grandpa’s favorite pictures was of my sisters faces barely visible peeking out through the leaves.
The trees also served as obstacles in our 4-wheeler races. With the giant yard, accompanied by a smaller side yard on the opposite side of the house, the trees and house created a wonderful race track. It was hard being the youngest and unable (or just not allowed) to drive the 4-wheeler myself, but luckily Grandpa usually offered to drive me… and we usually won.
The yard also was the best hiding place for Easter eggs. Every Easter Grandma would take us shopping to buy dresses. Once we bought them, we weren’t allowed to wear them until Easter morning. This was a hard rule to follow, but made Easter morning that much more exciting. After church, we would load up and come see Grandma and Grandpa in our dresses. After the usual runway show to model our new outfits it was time to hunt eggs… but not just eggs. There was a special rock that was painted and specially hidden as well. The only year I ever found it (or more than just a few eggs) was when they let me venture out into the yard before my sisters for a bit of a head start, and some extra assistance finding some eggs before they were all snatched up.
Christmas was our next big holiday that is host to special memories of Grandma and Grandpa. Now, as the only three grandchildren, my sisters and I were very spoiled, but it rose to a whole new level with my Grandma. Not only would she buy us way too many presents, but her highly detailed organization made Christmas quite a production. When dad would bring down the load of presents from Grandma and Grandpa to wait under the tree for Christmas morning, we would watch as he unloaded carefully wrapped and numbered presents… each present was numbered in the order we were to open it, and was wrapped in corresponding wrapping paper with the other like numbers belonging to my sisters. This was a brilliant system allowing us each to open the same or similar present at the same time. If we all opened the same thing, nobody got jealous, or had a preview of a present that they would be opening next. Another Christmas tradition was that of hiding money. In addition to our presents, Grandma thought that we should have money to buy ourselves a few presents too. Although, instead of just giving an envelope full of money, she enjoyed hiding the money within our presents. I was always known for accidentally finding the money. Most often, I was so excited about a present that I would try to put it on, open it all the way, or try it out and just come across the money. However, more memorable than my habit of finding the money was Rachel’s incident of nearly selling hers. One Christmas, the money had been hidden in a candy bar. Grandpa, knowing where the money had been hidden, promptly pulled out his wallet and offered Rachel $1.00 for her Crunch bar. She quickly said no, thinking that her chocolate bar was much more valuable than a dollar. But when Grandpa and Dad began upping their bids, Rachel was more than willing to give away her chocolate… that is, until I decided that I didn’t want to wait to eat my candy bar and opened the wrapper to find our money hidden inside. A special tradition that Grandma and I had was Christmas hints. A month before Christmas every week we would e-mail each other a single hint about one Christmas present we were going to receive. The first year that we tried this, I quickly realized that my hints were far too revealing and that Grandma’s hints for me were rather tricky. The first year was the only year that she successfully guessed her present based on her hints. The year she was utterly stumped was the year I hand-painted a small porcelain mask for her (which still hangs in her computer room). One of my hints for her was that it was the size of a baby’s face, which after opening the present made perfect sense, but during the hint process had been very confusing.
Birthdays were also like holidays with Grandpa and Grandma. During the summer, each of us would get to spend one weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Grandma would meet mom or dad halfway between Burbank and Hermiston and pick us up. The weekend was filled with yummy food (homemade sticky buns), fun trips and traditional Birthday Shopping. Birthday shopping included a trip to the mall, during which Grandma would sit patiently while we would pick out and model numerous outfits for the upcoming school year. Along with our new outfits, we would get to pick out one (or two) toys.
As we got older, traditions stayed fundamentally the same… but did change eventually. Instead of spending a birthday weekend with Grandma and Grandpa they would send money for our little shopping spree and then make a trip down to watch our runway show to model the wonderful new items they had bought. Grandma would give dad our Christmas money along with a shopping list and let him make the trek to the mall for her, and then dad would hide the money within a present and tackle the wrapping jobs (although the presents were never group or numbered the same).
As we moved away and entered college we would keep in touch with Grandma most often through e-mails. Even though she never upgraded her internet access from dial-up, she knew how to navigate the internet and her e-mail like a pro! We would e-mail back and forth, often commenting on the odd hours we would exchange messages. It was during these exchanges that I began addressing messages to PGG, which stood for Pepper, Grandpa and Grandma. I started addresses messages to the three of them because Grandma informed me that she would read the e-mail, print it off, call the dog into the computer room, roll up the paper and stick it in his collar and send him out to Grandpa. Grandpa would then sit with pepper in his lap and read the e-mail aloud to him.
While we were in college, it wasn’t uncommon to receive a little envelope from Grandma with nothing more than a check and a sticky note (always from the note pad I had made for her one Christmas with a stamp at the bottom that read ‘just a note’ surrounded by hearts) that she wrote saying ‘Here’s some fun money. Love you, Grandma’. It was this ‘fun money’ that often helped make rent, buy something needed, something for fun, or a tank of gas to visit home. It was hard to visit Grandma and Grandpa without having a twenty dollar bill quietly snuck into my purse or pocket. They were always so very generous, expecting nothing in return.
Although, they seemed to be a bit more generous if you were the one to pull a high-dollar pull tab. I don’t remember the first time I got to help Grandma and Grandpa play their pull tabs, but I must have been good luck! Any time I met up with them in a restaurant that had pull tabs, Grandpa would slip me some quarters to go buy pull tabs out of the machine, or Grandma would take the basket in and fill it up and divide all the tickets between the three of us. It’s no wonder that I thought gambling wasn’t too harmful; after all, Grandma and Grandpa always seemed to win!
Grandpa wasn’t just good at scratch tickets and pull tabs. He is the only man in my life that I’ve known to be able to always get a stuffed animal out of the game machines in restaurants and bowling alleys. It might have taken a couple quarters, but within a few minutes he would return to the table with another random stuffed animal accompanied by a sly grin. It was no surprise that Pepper had too many toys for his own good.
Pepper was a very spoiled dog in many ways other than just his excessive amount of toys. Every time Grandma and Grandpa would go out to eat, part way through the meal Grandma would slip out a little plastic baggy and set it in the middle of the table. Throughout the meal they would slip scraps (and sometime perfectly good bites) into the ‘doggy bag’ to feed to Pepper. On the rare occasions that they would return without treats for Pepper Grandma says they would hear about it for hours. Pepper also was spoiled when Grandma and Grandpa ate at home. Anything (and everything; including grandpa’s chewing tobacco) they would eat would be prepared on a plate for Pepper to eat as well. All this spoiling led Pepper to be very protective of his owners. Not only would he protect against potential burglars, but against physical contact of any kind! If we wanted to give Grandma and Grandpa a hug and kiss goodbye it was a two person job; one person would give hugs and kisses while the other distracted the dog.
Now that I’ve ‘grown up’ and Grandpa is no longer here, these memories are more dear to me than ever before… birthday weekends, hidden Christmas money, scratch tickets and the dog… I love them all and will never forget.'
