I feel nostalgic today for some reason. If you care to indulge me. I'd like to take another trip into my past (I know that some of you enjoy this). One of my fondest memories as a youth was staying with Grandmother Mary in her house in Kentucky. My brother and I spent the better part of a year with her while my parents were in England and transitioning to Italy (my father was in the Air Force) and I remember that among those days were the best times of my life. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy going to visit Grandmother Helen and Granddaddy Virgil by any means. I have plenty of good memories from there as well but Grandmother Mary's house had more places to play and things to get into. Comic books for example. My father collected comics as a youth as I did and Grandmother Mary had happened to save several of his from when he left home (probably about 20 or 30 in all). And of course every time we went to visit any books that we purchased up there tended to remain there so there were quite a few stacks of comics on the shelves some of which dated back to the Silver Age (1960s). That was the big thing about going to see Grandmother Mary. Grandmother and Granddaddy Kirkland lived in Laurel. MS about two hours from home. Grandmother Mary lived in Kentucky. Going to see her almost always took two days (this was before interstates made life easier mind you) meaning an overnight stay in Tennessee (typically around Gatlinburg). You could make the drive in a single day (it took about 12 hours) but we almost always split it up into two. In addition going to see Grandmother Mary meant getting our hands on those old comics that had been there for years. Of course we'd read them a few hundred times but they never seemed to get old. After going six months or a year without reading them the stories magically became new again. I remember one issue in particular an issue of the
from Marvel Comics (c. 1970s). It had a drawing of Satan in classical form (a red-skinned humanoid with black hair and beard dark cape and horns) appearing in a puff of smoke and offering his hand to a mortal. "If you value your life," the cover admonished. "Don't shake hands with the Devil!"It was many years before I could bring myself to actually read that issue. I think I may still have it packed away somewhere. Until the fateful day that I opened it and finally read it it was a constant source of curious terror; I always wanted to read it but couldn't bring myself to do so. Of course that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I was a horror comic addict. There were other good times to be had there as well. While staying there my brother and I slept in the back bedroom which had belonged to my father many years ago. Over the mantle (the room had a sealed-off hearth that was at one time shared with the connecting bedroom) was a huge mirror the kind with the immense heavy frame like you see in all the old antique stores. We had recently gotten Spider-man Web Shooters (toys that strapped to your wrist and fired rubber suction-cup "darts") and had the bright idea of tying thread to the darts so that we could retrieve them without having to get up. We were shooting at each other one morning while lying in bed (the room had twin beds placed against opposite walls) and a shot went awry and struck the mirror sticking to the glass of course. I'm not sure who fired the shot but the second dart was also soon attached and we began to pull the mirror.. just slightly as we didn't have any actual intent of pulling it down. But the best-laid plans of mice and men... BAM! The mirror pulled off the wall. Fortunately. I was a lot quicker then than now and dove out of bed keeping it from shattering on impact with the ground. We still got in trouble for that one though. It was a week before we were allowed to have our shooters back and we weren't allowed to play with them in the house. In the loft of the garage we had our "secret" club. An old car license tag served to cover a "secret" spyhole through which we could see anyone entering or working below. We spent many a happy hour up there plotting our next move against the forces of evil that adults could not see. Sometimes the adults were even at the root of the problem though in all cases they were always innocent dupes that had been steered wrong by the forces of evil. One afternoon we decided to light up the old fire pit in the backyard and have a barbecue. It was a lovely thought and even though Grandmother knew nothing about barbecuing. I figured that I'd seen my father do it often enough that it wouldn't be a problem. We stoked the fire and got everything ready and upon returning to the grill found the coals to be a lovely shade of gray. Of course this is perfect conditions for cooking but I didn't know that!Worrying that the fire was going out. I prepared to squirt lighter fluid on the coals but Grandmother stopped me. She knew enough that doing that was asking for trouble. Instead. I filled a cup with lighter fluid about halfway and tossed it on the coals from a distance. *BAMF* Lots of white acrid smoke! We cooked the steaks inside on the broiler. I can recall happy hours sitting on the floor of the bedroom playing with my Star Wars figures or Micronauts or my construction kit. Even now. I can hear the television on the dresser playing
fans and we had all the figures and accessories including both versions of the Death Star play set (the plastic and the "European" ). One Saturday while Grandmother Mary was at work we had a giant battle in her bedroom (which was connected to ours and we often played in there). Somewhere along the line we got the idea that talcum powder made good smoke effects when something blew up. In retrospect we may have overdone it just a little bit. By the time she got home the bedroom was completely white! The carpet originally a deep blue was blueish-white. The bedspread a dark blue was grayish-blue. And a thick layer of talc lay over every exposed surface. We got to spend Sunday dusting and cleaning the bedroom for that stunt! In fact we never were able to find one Jawa that had disappeared during the battle. We found his cloth cloak but never the figure. I had said that visiting Granddaddy and Grandmother Kirkland was a different experience. When we went to Grandmother Mary's we didn't have our bicycles but we did have them in Laurel. Bicycles grant you a whole new level of mobility (and I've spoken about that in a previous post). There are fond memories there as well. When Shaun mother and I spent a year there while Dad was in Turkey. Shaun and I stayed in Granddaddy's home office (which had been converted into a bedroom of sorts). He was retired but performed income tax calculations for people in the days before H&R Block. Later he added an addition onto the back which is where we spent an entire year with them while Mom and Dad were somewhere overseas (I don't remember where). The back bedroom adjoined onto the kitchen and I remember waking each morning to the sounds of sizzling bacon and the smells of breakfast. Of course on Saturdays. Shaun and I beat the grandparents up dashing out into the living room to watch Saturday morning cartoons! Saturday was the one day that we were permitted to have breakfast in front of the television. Grandmother would come in and get our requests fix it up for us and bring it to us while we sat enraptured by the boob tube. Afterwards it was outside to enjoy the rest of the day!The first year we were back from Dad's tour in Italy we spent a few weeks with the grandparents while Mom and Dad were "house hunting" down on the coast. I had just gotten into D&D at the time and I can remember sitting in Granddaddy's office plotting out adventures that would (hopefully) thrill Shaun and my father (my only two players at the time). I even painted a few of my first miniatures there. That office saw a lot of use actually. While staying with them one summer. I recall banging away on the typewriter. "writing" my first novel therein; a Star Wars book (before
debuted). It was amateurish and I never got more than a few pages into it but it was my very first effort. It has been lost to the ages so please don't ask to see it. I even designed my own cover artwork (also more fortunately lost). Grandmother Helen always got these little catalogs by mail full of junk you could order (today we call them Fingerhut but I'm certain they had a different name back then). We never actually ordered anything but Shaun and I could spend hours dreaming of the fun we might have "if only" we could get our very own Car Signs (a collection of humorous sayings printed in large letters on word balloons and attached to a stick that you can hold up to the window for other drivers to read) or a Sun Shower (take a shower right in your backyard using water heated by the sun!). I don't even think that grandmother read them just passed them on to us. It was Grandmother Helen who taught me survival skills such as cooking and sewing. I would spend time in the kitchen helping her prepare meals and not just watching either. No she was very "hands-on" when it came to cooking lessons. I got to roll and cut biscuits bread foods to be fried scramble eggs in the bowl peel vegetables and measure ingredients. She taught me to use a sewing machine and to hand stitch and even made me darn my own socks! I remember that she helped me do an embroidered design once. I miss them. Grandmother Helen died of diabetes complications when I was in high school. Granddaddy Virgil survived her by about eight years or so. After her death. I only got back to their house maybe once or twice. It just never seemed as homey after that. Grandmother Mary lived for some time after her second husband (my step-grandfather) died. He passed in 1995 and she came to live with my parents remaining with them until her own passing two years ago. I was never able to get back to her house one last time. I would have purchased it when she left but my parents were adamant against it for some reason and I wasn't given the opportunity.
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