Reply #71: I have mostly good memories of one set of grandparents [View All]

[Art_from_Ark]

Never knew the other set.

We ended up living in the same town as they, and we visited them often. I loved their house. It had lots of antique furniture, including an old 4-post bed in the second floor loft, a freezer that always let off a wonderful smell whenever we raised the top and then let it drop, and a garage that also had a fantastic aroma (probably one that I'll never smell again in my life :cry: ). There were two or three walnut trees in the yard, and a hickory tree as well, which had the most wonderful smell when the nuts were ripening (and they were delicious to eat as well, although a little tough to crack and get the meat out). The street the house was on was very quiet in those days, and there was a farm with a huge barn a couple of blocks down the street which had an almost exotic air about it.

We would often have Sunday dinner there, after which we might play a few games of dominoes or pinochle. My grandfather would tell stories about how he had served in the Pershing Expedition and how they were led on a wild goose chase through Mexico looking for the elusive Pancho Villa. Sometimes he'd light up a Muriel cigar, and there'd be a commercial on TV with some gal singing "Hey, big spender, spend.... a little dime with me" as she flipped a Mercury dime into the air in her pitch for Muriels. When he was done with a box of cigars, he'd give the empty box to one of us kids. Sometimes he and I would watch golf or tennis on TV, and that's how I learned the names of the big tennis stars of the late '60s and early '70s, like Stan Smith, Arthur Ashe, Yvonne Goolagong, Jimmy Connors, Billie Jean King, and Chris Everett. And some days when I was too sick to go to school, I would stay at their house and he and I would watch game shows like Eye Guess, Jeopardy! and Sale of the Century. And sometimes on Sundays, we'd watch one or more of the political discussion shows, like Meet the Press (with Lawrence Spivak) and Issues and Answers. I still remember our state's Senator, J. William Fulbright, discussing his opposition to the Vietnam War on one of those programs.

My grandmother seemed to have a special place in her heart for me, and she got me interested in stamp and coin collecting. It was always a special treat to see her stamp collection, which included lots of unused stamps from the '40s and '50s that were miniature windows on another age that was just before my time. She'd also look through her purse for silver dimes, and if she found one, she'd say "Save this and it will be worth something some day". Sure enough, those dimes are worth at least $1.20 each today.

And then my grandmother died at a relatively young age a couple of weeks before I was to start high school. It took me years to recover from that shock.