Third Paper

Around the time that I turned seven, the two sides of my family merged. My father had grown up an only child and was the center of his parents attention until we arrived, us three kids were a bonus to marrying our mother. All of a sudden they became grandparents, and it was very different from the family that I had been surrounded by up to this point.

My father’s parents were very neat. The rancher style home that they owned while we were growing up was always decorated according to the season, not just storage for treasures like we were used to. Whenever we arrived at the house there always seemed to be something baking and had activities planned for us kids. The rancher style home that they used to own had a country kitchen homeyness to it, the antique furniture that they owned had been passed down in the family, and was well kept. They had black and white pictures in frames from when they were young and lived in Montana. Up until that point I never knew anyone who had cable television. I was used to waiting for Saturday morning cartoons, but they had a channel that played cartoons all day, it was awesome. My grandparents cooked meals from scratch and lived in a subdivision that we could ride our bikes around. Before I met them, I had never heard of spring cleaning, when you go through your possessions and purge.

My mother's family was quite a stark contrast. One of my first clear memories was following my grandmother around the farm to tend to the few pheasants she still kept. There was a collection of outbuildings that my grandfather had built when he was still alive: the a-frame, the tool shed and flat roofed delapated garage that housed my grandmother's treasures. I don't believe I ever saw my Grandma Mickey baking, save a tv dinner or two for us kids. She was no Betty Crocker, but she did own all of the cookbooks. Always a collector, my grandmother was always saving, tucking things away. Born in 1923, she and her four sisters were raised during the depression and saw many wars. It may have been some type of coping mechanism or just a habit that stuck after raising five children. If she was out shopping with any of us and saw something on clearance, she would purchase it, often in multiples. Once home they were store away, nearly always forgotten about.

The three of us oldest grandkids didn't go to daycare until I was in school. Instead we spent our days with my mother's overwhelmingly female family. My mother would drop us off at grandma's before the sun was up most mornings and we would watch the morning news while grandma made us instant oatmeal. She would stand in the back corner of the kitchen ironing, half-listening to the scanner and telling us stories about growing up, peppered with slight anger toward one of her sisters or a classmate, something that happened more than fifty years previously.

It was my grandmother who taught us about buttercups, willows and the other plants that blossomed around the property, about gathering aluminum cans that had been tossed into the ditches of the country road she lived on and recycling them for money. Grandma's house was a haven for things that had potential to be fixed, but rarely did they. There were stacks of fruit boxes that lined the hallway leading to the back bedroom, and that stack housed three Easy Bake ovens. This was torture to my five year old self, to see these boxes everyday, knowing that not one of them was in working order and I wasn't able to play with them. There was an unknown number of Barbies, collectors items we were told, kept in their boxes and never enjoyed. Thousands of books, stashes of art supplies, and tons of dress patterns filled these boxes. There are somethings that will always remind me of my grandma's house; Aquafresh toothpaste, Head and Shoulders (and the way it makes your scalp tingle), Irish Spring and the smell of Folgers instant coffee.

Aunt Rita would show up most mornings, before The Price is Right, to take my brother and I on an adventure. Usually it was work, disguised as fun; going on a hike around the property to scout out a fence that needed repair, figuring out what was wrong with the well, or loading up fallen branches or recycling. Rita drove the big blue pickup when I was young, teaching me to shift out of necessity, because my car seat got in the way and I was the only one who could reach second gear. She taught us how to fix things around the house, about making faces at strangers at stoplights, and how to suck helium out of balloons and sing Happy Birthday on people's answering machines.

When she wasn't working at the hospital, my mom's oldest sister would take me for the day. My Aunt Rocky lived out in the country when I was young, and along with grandma, had us convinced that the television only worked during certain times of the day; coincidentally during the news, MASH or Masterpiece Theater. She collected mystery novels and I would help her bake peanut butter cookies before settling down for the night and working on the ever present crochet blanket project. My uncles, my mother's older brothers weren't around quite as much but did take us fishing occasionally, stomping through the woods to get there, and pointing out which leaves were okay to wipe with. Most of my aunts and uncles didn't have children until we were a bit older, so us three were like practice children.

My parents are the grandparents now to my niece and nephews, and time has mellowed them considerably. The house is a mixture of the two sides; it's very neat, although I think my father only vacuums once a day now. There is lots vintage sports equipment along with pictures of the family, both from when we were growing up and some older photographs of our grandparents and great-grandparents. They purchased right before my sixteenth birthday, and they have nice things now, and white carpets. Both of them are collectors to an extent, but they have a garage sale nearly every year to keep the garage from getting out of control.

I can only hope that I've made the right decision, to move away from home and everything I knew. I hope that the time that spend with my niece and nephews will be enough and they will have funny memories of riding around in shopping carts or running errands with me and my youngest sister the way I remember my aunts as a child. Baking cupcakes with sprinkles or coloring pictures, I try to allow them to do fun things that their parents don't have the time or patience to do. I buy them the "cool presents" for christmas and knit them toys and hats throughout the year.