On this Tremendous Tuesday…I have one question “Is it Spring
yet?!”... Enough of this cold…last few days cold and damp...I am ready to move
on!
But glad you stopped by the Front Porch for a few minutes. This is a 28 day journey in looking at a
group of ‘ize’ words…a suffix which means to cause; to be. So, as indicated, the word we want to discuss
today is: memorialize. It simply means to remember. When you memorialize something,
you honor it or do something so it will be remembered. If you want to remember
a summer trip taken with friends, you could make a photo album full of the
pictures you took to memorialize it.
Memorialize is not:
idolalizing, hero worshipping, setting a person up on a pedestal. No, the word we want to look at today….memorialize. If we are not careful we can easily move from memorializing to idolizing. Setting up memories is one thing…setting
someone up on a pedestal and making them larger than life is another one.
What I have discovered as I take trips from time to time down this
place I call Memory Lane….is that when I get there…most of the time it is a
good visit; memorializing good things, happy
events, pleasant visits.
However, it can be like
entering a house with multiple closets…and those closets all filled with
grinning, scary skeletons…that want to grab me and pull back into that deep,
dark closet along with them. If I am not
careful, that is where my trip can take me…
But not today! I am going
to memorialize…remember two
special people from my childhood: my grandparents on my mother’s side, Paw-Paw
and Mam-Maw Brandenburg…gonna have to stay from the Lawson side of the family
for now...closet after closet full of skeletons…that I rather not deal with
right now.
Memorialize is taking a trip down Memory Lane. That is where we have pictures, cards, home
movies, videos, photo albums, locks of hair, clothes, toys, etc. perhaps in a
shadowbox or special chest. I have for several
years now maintained an old black shelf, actually the Preacher made it for the boys’
room way back when He was a pastor in Lothian, Maryland. Long story short, we lived in a parsonage
apartment and had to use a couple of the Sunday School rooms for bedrooms. Just
a glimpse into the not always so glamorous life of a Preacher and his
family. Anyway, the room did not have a
closet, not even a window. Hmm… just
laughed...just remembered the night of the bats involving this room and the
boys…another day…another memory…
Anyway, once again, Preacher made this bookcase type of
structure for the boys to keep clothes and other such stuff on. It served its
purpose. But, me being the practical person, could not bear to part with this
even when we moved on and so we have drug this particular piece of furniture
with us all over the country.., I memorialized it to make it a place to memorialize my family…uhhh in other words it became a huge picture magnet. It is where I have …a great number of my
family photos…not inside it…but in frames and arranged just so…It is a source
of wonder and awe for visitors to the house…I guess because it is not especially
a pretty piece of décor…but it is me…it is my place to keep my fav pictures of
my ‘wunderful, wunderful’ family.
Speaking of pictures; I have noticed that most of the pictures
are older ones of the children and grandchildren. It occurred to me that I rarely get pictures
from the kids anymore…oh, say maybe school pictures. That is one reason I joined Facebook…I asked
for pictures of one of the birthday parties and I was told I would NOT be sent
any…that the pictures would be posted on Facebook and that was that. So, hence, I, got on Facebook. AND I must admit I love seeing pictures of
events right then or shortly after they happen!
Modern tech…gotta love it,
Got a couple more memories I will share. Been thinking of my grandparents lately. I was very blessed to have the
opportunity to visit my Mam-Maw and Paw-Paw in southern Kentucky, a little area
south of Williamsburg, about 12 miles from the Tennessee state line. I had uncles or aunts on my mom’s side of the
family that would visit us from time to time and stop at our house on their way
to visit my grandparents. Seemed to be
the Kentucky thing; move from down in the
country and get a job in Northern, Kentucky or Ohio and at least once a month
make the trip back to Williamsburg to visit ‘home’…I remember they would just
stop by. We had no telephone and usually just show up.
During several summers I, being the oldest, I would get to ride down to
the country with them and usually stay a
couple of weeks until they made another trip back to the country. This started when I was probably about 6 or 7
years old. When I first starting going
for the summer visits, my 2 aunts and uncle, who was about 8-9 years older than
me still lived with Paw-Paw and Mam-Maw.
The aunts were teenagers, into dating, and clothes and boys. My uncle would was still young enough to play. We would run and explore the hills, the old
barns and corn crib on the property. We
would get old lard lids and his favorite game was to pretend those lids were
steering wheels to cars. We would
‘drive’ up and down the hills. High tech, folks!
No
TV, no running water of course, no inside plumbing, no air conditioning, but
some of the best memories of my childhood.
Paw-Paw at his time was a ‘share cropper’-had been most of his
life. They lived in a house that
originally had a one room log cabin and later had a couple of rooms built on
it. They rented it for a few dollars a
month and Paw-Paw would work in the ‘bottoms’ down by the river and raise acres
of corn. . Remember me mentioning my
love of horses? Well, one summer day he
and the owner of the property came the by house with two huge mules. Huge…strong… and used to plow the
fields. I remember begging to ride the
mules. Of course my grandpa said
no..they were not his mules and they were not ‘riding mules’. I do recall crying…and my grandmother trying
to console me. I remember being heartbroken.
My
Paw-Paw was a small, wiry, and skinny to the point, bony man. But he was strong. He was always kind, had a glass eye because
he lost one in his logging days, so he looked kinda funny out of one eye; he
chewed tobacco and loved being outdoors.
In his later days he no longer plowed the fields with mules, but
maintained a summer garden. That was the
food of choice everyday in the summer, or maybe no choice; fresh corn, fresh
green beans, fresh tomatoes…
In
the afternoons and early evening he loved sitting on the side porch which ran
the length of the house, chair tilted back to rest on the house and chew his
tobacco, spit, and talk. Repeat, and do again.
There was no running water…the closest drinking water was down
over the hill, cross a little dirt road, down another hill almost to the river
or creek that ran to the river…not sure…. and the coolest, as in temperature, place on earth…was a spring…a natural spring
where he would take his bucket, dip it in and pull out the best tasting water
on earth. I can taste that first drink
from that bucket of water 53 years later…as if it were today. Me and my Paw-Paw would walk back up the
hill. He would stop and point out a
bird, imitate it….he was the first one to show me how to do a bird call like
the whip-o will. The area where the
spring was located could be kind of scary….weeds all grown up, covered with
trees and all those summer sounds of birds, insects, and who knows what
else. It was always very shady and
shadowy. But I was never afraid with my Paw-Paw
near. I think being around him those
summers fostered my love of being in the country…no, I know it was. It also fostered my love of being outdoors,
watching the wildlife, and learning about the wildlife.
The other vivid memory I have of my Pap-Paw was after supper, in
the cool of the evening we would sit and wait for the deer to come out. Behind the house were hills, covered in green
lush grass and at the crest was a line of trees. And without fail, every evening, it would be
like clockwork, the deer would come out.
Herds of deer, the buck, does and babies. They were far enough away from the house that
they were never frightened by my shouts of excitement of seeing them or my
counting them, naming them, watching them.
Me and Paw-Paw would be content to sit and watch the deer as they grazed
and slowly move on back into that line of trees. Gone until the next
evening.
Paw-Paw was one of a kind.
Brandenburg…German through and through.
Fought in WW1…never learned to drive, never owned a home, raised 8
children, was a logger, share cropper, and a kind, gentle man. He got up one May morning, walked across the
floor and dropped dead. He was 76…lived
a full life and was gone-quick. I hope
my passing is like his…quick, easy...no long suffering, no hospital stays…here
one minute…gone the next.
My Mam-Maw…hmmm...an interesting woman. She could be a ‘drama queen’. Everything was said with ..De Laud”….when she
was telling the latest news…aka gossip about someone in the family or
community. Her eyes would dart back and
forth and she would get animated. She
loved her gossip! But what she loved
more was making her biscuits. I remember
when I first started visiting them and can barely remember that-but she had
old fashioned wood burning cook stove.
They are back in style now…but she had the real deal. Paw-Paw would get up first and build a fire
in the cook stove. A little while later
she would get up and almost always smiling and sometimes singing and start
immediately getting the dough ready for her homemade biscuits. She would gather the flour, shortening, salt
and whatever else she used and before
you would know it, out of the over would come the BEST homemade biscuits
ever. I remember she always served apple
butter with those biscuits…don’t remember much else was served except for the coffee. Seems Paw-Paw started the coffee; an old
fashioned pot much like we use for camping now.
Perk…perk..perk..coffee was served with the meal..in cups and under
those cups saucers…not your fine china…just mugs and saucers…and the folk in
the family that did drink coffee would pour coffee into the saucer and drink
the coffee out the saucer! Must have
been a Brandenburg thing…I had never seen anyone do before or since then…
My grandparents were good to me and to their children and
grandchildren. They could not have had
much money…just the Social Security checks
they got monthly…But my Paw-Paw would take off walking …it was several miles to
the nearest little country store and carry back groceries to feed his
visitors. He would also bring back a 6
pack of Nehi Orange pop…soda pop. How he
managed for carry all that, at his age, I will never know.
Things were different at their house…I loved going there and
visiting them. I could share more, good
stories about these two people who meant so much to me in my childhood.
Mam-Maw was feisty in her
own right! She somehow saved up enough money and bought an old car. My uncle was suppose to teach her how to
drive. Not sure what happened…but she never did get her license. BUT that did not stop her from driving. My grandparents lived so far in the country that
there were no mailboxes or mail delivery.
The mail was held and then picked up at a little country story/Post
office…something like on the Waltons.
She would take me and my aunt, who was the only one of their children
still living at home, at this time, to that Post Office and get the mail. She was a pretty good driver. No fear!
So, memorialize…remember…cherish…hold near and dear…family and friends…their
kindness and generosity can be a comfort in hard times…
But, realize ….Memory Lane…we can only go so far…then, we have
to turn around and come back. We have a
life to live, right here in the present and do what we must do…we have to get
on with the business of living…
Words of wisdom: memorialize; make
good memories, cherish them..as Joshua, in the Bible..after they cross the
Jordan River… set up stones, a memorial…so your children and children’s children ask “what does this mean? Who are
these people”…you can memorialize.. your past…your heritage.
Until tomorrow…gotta get moving…making some memories for the
students who are visiting the library this week…stop again soon…
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