Wrestling a Monkey for Icecream
Reminiscing is one of the beautiful things about starting a new year. It is time to welcome the future – but also to celebrate the past. My mother’s reminiscence this morning is priceless.
I’ve been thinking about crazy grandparents. I had two Grandpas (the third one ran off before I was born and I never did know him). My mother’s father was named Christopher Columbus with a good old fashioned German last name (where his parents came up with that name is beyond me but I have a first cousin who’s maternal grandfather was named George Washington Paris so he thought he was better than I was because he had both Christopher Columbus and George Washington as ancestors…..I always told him he was dingy because first names do not ancestors make).
Back to Columbus (he didn’t like being called Chris). I called him Papa and was his pride and joy. Curly headed little blond girls have a way with their grandpas especially if they are the only grandchild around.
Every Saturday my Grandma would make a list and Papa and Corky would go to town to do the trading (that’s what they called grocery shopping in those days) and after trading, . . it just so happened that we would stop at Strahan’s Creamery and get me an ice cream cone to take with me to the 5th Street Pool Hall where we would stop so he could talk with some of his friends and pick up two quart bottles of beer to take home (one for him and one for me he would tell Grandma).
I neglected to mention that an inhabitant of the pool hall was a monkey named Pete and EVERY Saturday he would take my ice cream cone and eat it. Didn’t bother me much because I knew that Papa would get me another one, as well as a penny’s worth of Horehound Candy and a penny’s worth of Red Hots on the way home.
After we got home he would unload all the things we bought for Grandma and then we would sit on the front porch (Grandma wouldn’t let us in the house with the beer, lol) and he would drink his quart of beer and I’d eat my Horehound Drops; then, he would drink my quart of beer and I’d eat my Red Hots (I saved what I liked for last). I was not very old or big and he was getting old and was 6′4″ (to me very big) and we would sit there and talk about so many good things that I still remember.
I’m sure that many people would think he was just a tad crazy but all I could think of was how much I loved him and how long it would be until it was time to “do the trading” again and go to the pool hall and wrestle the monkey for my ice cream cone.
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Tags: Animals, Corky, Family, Holidays, People
Corky -
I absolutely loved this story!!! I lived with my maternal grandparents on their farm (south of Abilene) until I was old enough to go to school because my mom was divorced and working as a hair stylist! I had the best childhood ever! I remember (barely) going to town every Saturday “to trade”. My grandmother would take eggs, milk & butter to trade for staples at Viola’s grocery! We would also go to the ice house occasionally, if we were going to hand churn some homemade ice cream. Grandma had 2 freezers and we grew everything we ate. She had two enormous gardens and canned or froze everything. Grandpa had milk cows and he used to entertain us kids by squirting milk right into the cats mouths as he was milking the cows. He could even get the cats to stand on their hind legs to catch the milk. He bought us each a pony – we had hogs, calves, sheep, chickens etc. Grandpa planted many crops but the one I remember most is wheat harvest because 6 or 7 neighbors would show up at our farm when it was our turn and they would combine until it was finished. There were always people to drive the dump trucks to take the grain to town to the elevator also. When the harvest crew was at your farm,it was your job to feed them. Grandma and I would take thermos jugs full of beverages to the field mid morning , then we would go back to the house and fix a huge lunch and take it back out at noon, another snack and beverages mid afternoon and then supper. They would cut until dark. They worked so hard but it was the good life! I could go on and on but truly no one can top my childhood – it was perfect!!!
Deb, I can really relate to your story. I just now found it……I’m like Forrest Gump, “just a little slow”. lol Grandparents can really play a leading role in the forming of the way a child feels about life as a whole and what they do with their lives. I know I loved mine and I know that I love my grandkids, one and all.
You should write more, you are good!
Corky
Corky’s last blog post..March 24th…My Mother’s Birthday!!!