The Old Homeplace

Sorting through old pictures, I found a photographic print of a painting done a few decades ago of my grandparents' house. The oil painting was reproduced onto postcard-size photo paper and given to family members.

I had actually forgotten I had this and am so very glad to find it.

It's not the place where my father and his siblings grew up. The house and surrounding acres were purchased after my grandparents' children had gone on to establish their own lives with wives, husbands and children.

But it's the house known to their grandchildren as we grew up. My grandmother died in 1960, my grandfather in 1963. Our maiden aunt lived on in the house until she moved into an assisted living high-rise in town at an advanced age. The house was sold and eventually torn down to make way for an apartment complex.

I often drive by where the old home place once stood and try to picture it in my mind's eye. If perchance I stopped and and listened carefully, I might hear again the sound of squealing children in the yard, or through an open window, my aunt and grandmother talking or arguing in the kitchen as they jointly prepared the midday meal -- the good cooking smells drifting out the open windows.

Going deeper and further back in my memory bank, the wicked chuckle of my grandfather resonates as he jokes with his grandchildren. A witty Irishman to the core -- tall, slim, and a full head of red hair that didn't gray until he was a very old man -- he liked nothing more than to tease his grandchildren. In a kindly, grandfatherly way of course.

I remember the time he gave me a plug of tobacco and encouraged me to chew it. I was about 5 years old at the time. My mother was not amused.

Or when I was 14, he teased and embarrassed me by saying the retarded boy in the village was my "boyfriend." Oh, he really got a rise out of me on that one!

He did love his chewing tobacco and I have a picture in my mind of him and grandmother sitting before the coal-burning fireplace in winter, he chewing his tobacco, she dipping her snuff or alternately, chewing Wrigley's Spearmint gum, which she adored.

Our gatherings there on Christmas Eve are a large part of my memories of Christmas Past. The feast on the long dining room table, the buffet full of delicacies such as fresh coconut cake, banana pudding and pecan pie. The cedar tree in the front room, bedecked with blue lights and silver tinsel and waiting for the gift exchange. Millinea leading the group in a round of Christmas carols after gifts were opened. Uncle James handing out sparklers and firecrackers to the children for entertainment on a cold winter's Christmas Eve. The ride home with Sugar Plums dancing in my head knowing that Santa Claus would soon arrive.

 I also found this photo made one Christmas. That's my sister and me on the back row.  Front row, from left, are cousins Debbie, Renae and Jeannie. That's David Earl trying to hide behind Jeannie.

In case you're thinking the above should have been part of a blog post at Christmas, I'll now reveal that summers there were best. 

The deeply shaded porch was a respite from the heat where we could lounge and read a book while beans were snapped by the adults. Or we might go to the gnarled old pear tree that stood at the back of the house and eat the juicy fruit until our hearts were content. 
If I linger long enough there on a summer day, I'll see Grandaddy sitting on the front porch, legs propped up on a red brick column, tobacco spit can nearby. 

The old dinner bell just outside the kitchen door once alerted field workers that it was dinnertime, but it was no longer in use during our childhood. Instead, granddaddy would call us to march inside the cool, dark house that always had a slightly musty smell to sit down and eat the big midday dinner Lela and Grandmother had prepared.

My little picture reminds me of all these things, and I cherish it.