This is an essay that I had to write ths year for my English-111 composition class...as it's about my grandmother, I wanted to share it with anyone who'd read it. Enjoy!!
I'm traveling down the winding country road that leads to my grandmother's farm. I know that she loves this journey through the quiet hills, enveloped by tiny replicas of the majestic mountains she abandoned when she brought her family to Ohio from West Virginia. The serenity of these hills --painted with autumn's palate of reds and golds --remind me of her almost as much as the smoky scent of frying bacon and the yeasty aroma of fresh bread, smells which seem to be synonymous with grandmothers. Driving down this road, I can almost hear the sizzle and pop of the grease I know is already heating in her kitchen, even as the sun pinkens the sky with her first morning's rays. Such is the habit of my grandmother, to have a hot breakfast ready for my aunt's husband before he leaves the house to take care of the horses everyday.
I know that my grandmother grew up on a farm much like the one she resides on now. When I was a young girl, she'd tell me stories about the farm in Pigeon Hollow, West Virginia to satisfy my youthful curiosity. My grandmother, Joan Bird, was the fourth of fifteen children, four of whom were her natural brothers an sisters, nine being half brothers and sisters, and one stepsister. She arose every morning with the cock's crow to milk the cows and often stayed out in the field until sundown.
"Let me tell you," her stories always began, "those heifers are feisty! I can remember, I don't know how many times, getting whipped in the face by their tails and I'd always swear 'This one's going to the butcher.' But it never happened." Then she'd always laugh and go into another gut-busting tale of the fun she used to have between chores on her family's quaint farm. I heard several stories about how she and her siblings used to chase the chickens just to hear their irritated squawking and how they used to hide under their front porch to sneak cigarettes.
"These weren't like the cigarettes you buy now, already rolled with a filter and everything. Back then, we had to hand-roll them with papers and loose tobacco." She pauses to chuckle. "I thought Daddy was going to kill us when we got caught! He came home from the store and there was smoke rolling out from under the porch. He made us all come out to get switched, but when he saw how sick we looked from the tobacco, he just laughed and said that he hoped we learned our lesson. We didn't, but we never got caught again. That's for sure."
When ever she spoke of the farm, she'd always say, "It was hard work, but we made the best of everything we had. Daddy made sure we were taken care of and we knew we were loved." He had to give the love of both parents to his children when, at the age of four, my grandmother lost her mother to breast cancer. Her father took care of her and her four siblings on his own until, just two years after losing his wife, he remarried to a woman named Ora, a widow with a six year-old daughter from her previous marriage.
One of her best memories is of her father taking her shopping for a new dress for school. "Ora 'forgot' to buy my dress when she bought my stepsister's clothes, so Daddy said he'd take me to the store instead. I remember how excited I was, riding with him in the truck and then feeling like a princess when he let me get the little red dress with matching shoes and some new stockings." She laughed and gave me a saucy wink. "I rubbed that in my stepsister's face for a good little while until Ora got her something new."
Joan stayed on her family's farm until she married my grandfather at the age of eighteen. Roy Smith was a widower with a young son and daughter from his previous marriage. Her spunk and zest for life never faded as over the next eighteen years she bore six children and subsequently left the mountains behind to come to the hills of Hocking County, Ohio. Entrepreneurs at heart, my grandparents decided to open a restaurant in the late 1960's.
"I don't know what we were thinking," she said with a laugh. "We had a can of green beans and five pounds of hamburger and we opened for lunch. When we ran out, we went to the store and bought more. I thought I was going to go crazy that first day, but The Coffee Cup stayed open and we did well." She'd always laugh, with a faint trace of mischief dancing in her eyes, when she'd tell me stories as I sat on her lap. I know now what an upbeat and optimistic person my grandmother was and still remains just by reminiscing those times when we sat at her table, something always steaming or stewing on the stove, and she'd relate stories of her rambunctious childhood and the hardships of running the restaurant.
I snap back to present time as I pull into her driveway and pass the small pond where ducks paddle languidly amongst the fish artificially stocked by my uncle. A herd of paint horses grazes contentedly on the hill, coats gleaming in the early morning sunlight. Three foals nuzzle their mothers as the mares whinny and nicker amongst themselves. I step out of my car and the fragrance of fresh-cut grass and earth mixed with a faint trace of fertilizer greets me as I walk up the stone path to the front door. Flowers smile cheerfully as I pass, reds and pinks rioting in harmony as they flow down the hill from the doorstep. I pause to knock, then --not wanting to hear the lecture I'll get about not needing to ever knock at my grandmother's door --just walk in. "Dani? Is that you honey?" The voice, still laced with a trace of the West Virginia mountains, drifts to me from the kitchen in the back.
"Yeah, Mama. It's just me."
"Well get back here and get some breakfast, sweetheart. I've got bacon and eggs ready. It'll just take a minute for the toast." I smile to myself as I walk to the aromatic kitchen, the scent of fresh bacon grease and scrambled eggs clinging to the air. My grandmother is still standing before an enormous stove, flipping bacon in the sputtering grease. Her silver gray hair is cut stylishly short --stopping just below her pearl-graced ears --with gentle waves at her crown. She is clad in her customary cotton slacks and a bold-colored fitted blouse. She turns to bestow her ever-present dazzlingly white smile upon me. Though she is nearly seventy eight, her barely-lined tan face and lively hazel eyes make her appear to be in her late fifties.
"Hey baby, here's breakfast." She presses a warm plate into my hands as I place a soft kiss on her cheek, breathing in the Vanilla Fields that she wears everyday. She once told me, with a hint of a smile and ornery laughter in her eyes, that she wore the perfume because it attracted men. "But it doesn't work, so I'm thinking I want my money back." Mama always says silly little things like that, but that just adds to her charm for me.
"Did you have a good drive down?" she asks as I take a seat with my plate at her spotlessly clean table.
"Yeah, the leaves are changing. It's a beautiful drive this time of year. I need to bring my pastels down next time to do some drawings."
"Oh, don't I know it. I should take you over to the old farm. Let me tell you, when I was a little girl..." she begins one of her stories. I sit with a smile and start to eat my steaming meal, knowing that today will be another day full of stories and laughter with the grandmother that never fails to make me smile.
Oh, I relate so well to this! I can feel my grandmother's presence, the way we used to feel so much at home at her old log home in Coopertown, Tennessee. The place is almost fallen down now, and should be razed, but... no matter what eventually stands there, I will always remember her... and the times we shared there. -- Jeff
Reviewed by April Smith
6/16/2005
This was such a wonderfully heartfelt story...and your imagery was perfect. I could almost smell the bacon cooking and feel the Autumn sunshine! And your description of your grandmother is so vivid...I really enjoyed this one. Thanks for sharing, April
Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration examines the significance or relevance of the idea that the U.S. Constitution was, as many believe, divinely inspired. How much did that belief matter to founders of the nation and how much does it matter no
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