With everyone there’s a lifetime of unremarkable experiences; this happens to be one of them but it sticks in me like tree sap so I thought I’d share.
One of my very first memories was when I was in kindergarten. I was maybe, six (My birthday, because it fell the way it did, always made me the oldest kid in class. I felt like a flunky because of it.)
Kindergarten was kindergarten and I’d ride back and forth in a Ford Mustang along with a bunch of other kids. The only two memories I have of the ride was it was Alicia Bridges Mom’s car and a suede jacket I had that had that hippie fringes on the sleeves like wings. The other kids that rode with me to school would take turns ripping off the leather strips. I don’t remember it bothering me that much, at least until I got back home. At which point my mom would tear into to me, ripping off her share of my behind.
When kindergarten let out I was dropped off at my “foster” grandparent’s house. It was the first blue house on the right on Scotch Range road. Back then I thought it was a mansion. Walking up the driveway it looked like it was seventy five feet high and was in close competition with the oak tree on the right side of the driveway. There wasn’t much of a front porch to speak of. Just a stoop a screen door and a door that I had never seen open until the death of my “Paw Paw” back in 1980. Above the door was a Christmas star with blue lights that was left up year round. The house itself was blue as was the shutters. I think my “Maw Maw” liked blue and “paw paw” was just trying to make her happy.
There was many a day I could hear the pressure cooker from the driveway hissing and spitting. Sometimes I could smell dinner from the road. By my kinder-estimates was a hundred yards but in reality was something less than twenty or thirty feet. Regardless of the distance from the kitchen window I bet if I was to walk up that driveway now I could still smell something on the stove like a ghost.
I would come in the back door which actually was on the side of the house. Once inside the door way there was a long corridor of sorts. Something my paw paw built onto the house. Sturdy enough but definitely not part of the original construction plans. An added bathroom turned storage room and a place for the washer and dryer. I wonder sometimes if the addition to the house was maybe out of necessity for the washer and dryer as the counters in the kitchen seemed to be out of place too. Not exactly feng shui but comfortable enough for a little kid and a pair of senior citizens.
Maw Maw always had a hug waiting for me at the door. She was already in her fifties and she had begun to embrace her senior citizenship by wearing an apron all the time, polyester pants and a weekly appointment to the salon which was just across the street.
There was only a couple of things that came home with me from kindergarten. A couple of papers and the jacket that everybody took turns mutilating daily. Maw maw would take my jacket, hang it on a door knob and pull out a chair for me to have a seat in the kitchen with her. I remember she’d take my paper I brought home and put it away in a drawer with all the others she’d collect. I got that collection back after her death in 1987. It was a mountain of paper.
It wouldn’t be long before the back door would slam and Paw Paw would come stomping up. He’d barge in the house dressed in his blue dickies jumpsuit, the required clothing of retired navy shipyard welders.
From my seat at the kitchen table he seemed to tower over me almost appearing to duck his head as he came in the house. Turns out as I grew up as a teenager the door was actually just a regular height and it was my point of view that made him so large.
His voice bellowed across the house “WHOOOO! IT’S HOT OUT THERE!”
“Out there” was his workshop. A custom cinder block set up with two small windows and a door. Being a lifetime employee of the Charleston Naval Shipyard there was a considerable amount of tools donated by hook or crook courtesy of John Q. Taxpayer. I’d never been inside his shop. It was always pitch black in there even on the darkest day and it smelled like motor oil and dirt. I can’t remember if I was ever allowed to enter and I presume if I asked I’d get a stern “NO” and that would be that.
There was something in that shed that he would bring out every once and awhile, a green John Deer toy tractor that sat on the highest shelf above the rows of tools and sockets. It was in pristine condition. Like brand new. Everything in the building seemed to be dark and dirty except for that little green toy. I held it once in my hand and you’d think I was had the holy grail in hand. I felt like I was given a great honor. He’d then snatch it back, take it back into the shadowy tool shed and back on the top shelf it’d go away from little hands.
When paw paw died I had hoped that I might get to have that little tractor but somehow it mysteriously disappeared never to be seen again.
Paw Paw sat at his place at the table and I was at mine. He’d ask me how my day was a kindergarten and I’m sure I gave him some story. Maw maw would drop a plate of cabbage, corned beef and green beans at his place and I’d get a small white plate with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich along with a glass of milk.
To this day I haven’t had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich quite like the way maw maw made. I wouldn’t know the secret of how to make one just like she did until I started making them for my kids.
The secret was love.
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