Childhood Memories

By MARGO JOHNSON

Visited a neighbor’s home recently and was thrown into a flashback of a long ago era.

The home is 100+ years old and very little has been changed since its early days of grandeur. The layout, the design, the smells, the overall ‘feel’ of this wonderful structure was so reminiscent of my grandparents’ homes, that I just wanted to sit down at the dining room table and recall my childhood memories.

I didn’t think much about the homes where I ran and played as a youngster. They were just places where I felt safe and where no one paid much attention to us as my sister and I raced around, in and out.

It didn’t seem strange to have a bed in the dining room. Or no hallways. Our own house required that you go through one room to get to another. I’m not certain when halls were added to home designs, but in the 40’s, there weren’t many houses with those separating spaces.

My maternal and paternal grandparents lived in the same town, one on each side of the railroad tracks. That made it easy for visiting, but also created some consternation for my parents: who was spending the night on which side of town? Understand, the distance between the homes was probably only 10 or 12 blocks, but it was always a tossup as to who was going where.

As kids we had our preferences. I wanted to stay with my maternal grandparents because my granddad kept soaked raisins in the refrigerator...called an icebox in those days...and we got to drink the raisin juice when we first arrived. That was worth the long 2 hour drive from where we lived. Ahhhh, the sweet nectar of Granddad’s raisin juice!

Although the two houses were different in size, we never thought about whether one set of grandparents had more money. In fact, both families were broke. Government ‘commodities’consisting of flour, sugar, dried milk, butter, beans and cheese helped keep food on the table for both sets of grandparents. The Great Depression was barely over, World War II had just begun, and families everywhere were struggling. But, we didn’t know it. We just played like kids do, oblivious to the challenges adults were working to overcome.

One thing was certain: laughter was always present at either house. You could curl up on the bed in the dining room, and go to sleep with the chatter of family surrounding you as they drank coffee and iced tea and regaled each other with past stories and some tall tales!

That’s where we learned the history of our family. Stories were told and retold, memories of events were shared, perhaps enhanced, some sad, some funny, some about missteps, and many about life before we were born.

I wonder if those days of family disclosures still happen around dinner tables? Do kids hear the past brought to life through the voices of their elders? Do they grow up with knowledge of the black sheeps, the white knights, the trials and the victories that help shape who they will become?

I hope so. Our future is in the hands of those memories, values, desires, and hardships our forefathers created, endured, laughed about and wept over…no matter on which side of the tracks you ended up.