I Am Becoming my Grandfather

"Take some of these tangerines with you," I found myself saying as Claui and Josie were going out the door after lunch last Friday. They and Justin were heading out to spend the weekend with friends several hours away and suddenly I found myself channeling my grandfather Hudy.

When my boys were young and we would go to Tampa to visit family, on our departure, Hudy always pressed into our hands packages of store-bought cookies or a bag of grapefruit from a tree in his yard. And he would invariably exhort us to drive carefully because we were "carrying precious cargo."

I know now exactly how he felt. 

Though I did refrain from the precious cargo line, as to me it implies  that the parents aren't as precious. A little like those Baby on Board signs that used to be so popular.  "Oh, you have a baby in the car; well, then, I guess I won't sideswipe you and run you off the road as one does."

I digress.

The mental picture of my grandparents -- probably in their eighties at the time-- standing in their driveway and waving us goodbye almost breaks my heart. I know they were saddened by our moving so far away but they never reproached us. Indeed, they seemed to understand our longing for a simpler life-- the sort of life they'd left behind when they moved from rural Alabama to Florida. 

And now that Josie has wound herself so tightly into our hearts, the thought of seeing her only a few times a year, as was the case with my grandparents and our boys, is utterly unimaginable. Even watching her leave the farm for a weekend is a bit of a heart tug.

Those tangerines. Were they an unconscious attempt to send something of us with the young uns? A symbolic bond. Don't forget us when you go away. And be sure to come back. 

I have no idea-- it was only as Claui and Josie went down the front porch steps and I stood there waving that I realized I'd become my grandfather. 

Making Do and Finding Memories

Recently Josie has been pretending to ride her walking stick (and also a black cane she calls The Hammer.)  So I decided to make a little stick horse/hobby horse for her.  

I drew a pattern, unearthed some pretty material a friend gave me about twenty years ago, realized that the edging on a pillow case that had just developed a hole would make a nice mane, and looked around for a stick. 

John found one that seemed a little too heavy and then he produced this little stick. It's been sitting in the stoneware churn where we keep all the various walking sticks ever since I brought it, along with several others, back from my grandparents' house in Tampa -- over thirty years ago. 

Memory being what it is, I don't know if I previously noticed the inscription on the cane -- Lookout Mountain. But this time I did -- and I suddenly remembered that my grandparents had gone to Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain as a part of their honeymoon back in 1915. A little silver spoon that was a souvenir of Lookout Mountain was the sugar spoon in use at their house.

So, I suspect that this cane was likely another souvenir from that honeymoon.

Back then, a walking stick was not an aid for the aged but an accessory for the fashionable young man -- and, in my memory, my grandfather always carried a walking stick -- though he didn't actually need one till he was up in his eighties. 

But just to make sure I remembered correctly about the wedding trip. I rousted out my grandmother's wedding book . 

Over a hundred years ago . . . 

Details preserved -- a description of her going-away outfit, along with swatches of the material . . .

The wedding journey itinerary -- in my grandmother's hand. (My grandfather told me about the huge trunk she had to contain her finery and the hassle involved in getting it from the train to the hotel. And, yes, I have that very trunk. Her wedding dress is in it.)

And, indeed, they were in Chattanooga 'for some time'  . . . I like to believe that on a trip to Lookout Mountain, he bought the silver spoon for her and she reciprocated by buying him this cane.

And I think they would both be pleased to think that their great-great granddaughter will take journeys of her own on that same little walking stick.

Sepia Saturday -Two Pictures

For my first excursion into Sepia Saturday, I'm recycling a post I did back in August of '08 about my maternal grandparents -- Victor Huborn and Ruby. Click on the link to see other great old pictures and the stories behind them.

1914 ~ Troy, Alabama

Riding in a rented buggy along a country road,
She smiles out at her unknown future,
Crisp in a dress of pale blue linen,
A dark-haired girl with flowers at her waist.

Stiff and correct in Sunday suit,
Her sweetheart wears a somber face
But
His new straw hat
Tilts at a jaunty courting angle.

Governor, the cynical livery hack,
Has seen it all; he poses for posterity;
As an unseen chaperon
Records the fleeting moment.kip to main | skip to sidebar

1973 ~ Tampa, Florida

Still side by side  they sit--  their life buttressed by
One daughter, two grandchildren,
Three great-grandchildren --
A stealthy progression of years and generations
Has somehow come to pass.

Stone-deaf in the now,
The old lady hears the voice
Somewhere deep inside,
The dark-haired girl is whispering:
Still here.
'She had the prettiest little ankles,'
The old man says.