You Can't Go Back

You can't go back.

Oh, the path may be the same, all those beckoning hills and curves.  It may be the very same exact road your feet trod the last time, heading in the very same direction.  That's a fact.

It's the person who has changed. 

When I first walked through the doors at Crestview Elementary School to finish my sixth grade year, the pristine whiteness of the paint was almost luminescent, aglow with promise.  The schools seemed to have sprung from the lush sea of grass surrounding it.  My brother and I had just arrived from Germany, where snow still clung to the ground and the world was still gray within winter's grip.  The sense of imminent spring shocked us, even as my father dropped us off for our first day.  I gawked at my new surroundings.  The cavernous floor plan was open, and entire room divided by simple partitions into each room instead of walls.  The result was a boisterous mix of voices and sounds that somehow seemed alive.

The people that I met that year have faded.  The place, the whiteness, the openness, the freshness of a new school...that has stuck in my mind. Everything seemed huge. Even the cafeteria was enormous, miles wide.  An introverted child walking up to the front of the cafeteria to participate in the school spelling bee had a long time to feel the performance anxiety pulling her feet into the floor. 

But you can't go back.

On this day, Crestview Elementary is crowded by houses, and the green sea of grass has been replaced by the asphalt of roads and driveways. The brilliant white paint seemed gray, now shaded by mighty Live Oak trees.  As I walk through the doors, the place seems cramped, suffocating.  Tiny. The open classroom floor plan, which research determined to be a completely horrible idea, had disappeared in favor of walls and doors.  The hallways seemed almost claustrophobic, and the ceiling pushed down on the top of my head.   And the cavernous cafeteria, once so very impossibly large, seemed almost too small to hold all the tables and the teachers who now sat there. 

A sadness came over me, sitting at a table and listening to the presenters.  For while I held that memory of a brand new elementary school in my head all those years, I felt as though I could briefly turn back the clock, and go back. And as long as I did not seek that memory's origin, located so close, I could fool myself. I could clutch that memory to my heart, a talisman.  It was a fine memory.  And now it is gone.

Because you can't go back.

Snapshots of Grandpa

My grandfather, Leonard Peter Meyer, died last Tuesday.  He was 94 years old, and had not been well for some time, so it was expected.  But expected doesn't necessarily make it easier.   I chose not to go to the funeral, not just because I'd probably have my pay docked, but also because I don't want my last memory of him to be anything other than what he was: a tiller of the soil.  A farmer. I think that the day he sold his farm was the beginning of the end. 

There are people out there that you think will live forever just by sheer force of will, and my grandpa was one of them.  He came from a family of farmers.  He had an eighth grade education, but he still managed to run a small farm and work several jobs.  He was married for 70 years and supported a family of eleven children.  He raised his own animals and grew his own crops.  If there was something that he wanted, he usually built it.  How many people do you know who can do that?  His gift certainly did not pass on to his granddaughter, if my lifetime ban on the use of power tools is any indication.

My grandfather poured the concrete for the basement of their home in one piece, he told me proudly.  The basement had a fully functioning kitchen, and that's where the family would often gather for Christmas and other events, because there was a long table down there that my grandfather probably built.  The basement was perfect for summer days--in a home without central air, it was often the coolest part of the house.

My grandfather would sometimes take me with him when he went out, mostly to feed stores.  It was a sweet deal--I got candy from the shop owners, and my grandpa got to talk.  Grandpa loved to talk and tell stories.  He was very sociable off the farm.  During the day while he was working the farm, he didn't talk much.  I think that he was focused on his duties and had no time for foolish children.  But after he'd cleaned up, had a meal and nodded off sitting in his chair, he'd relax a bit and talk.  We'd sit out on the porch swing and he'd tell me about how he would ride a horse to school or go in a horse drawn cart.  The house he grew up in did not have indoor plumbing, as I found out when I went to visit his mother, my great grandma. Grandpa used to tease me about falling into the hole in the outhouse; perhaps something similar happened to him?

Lenny liked dogs, and my childhood favorite was Ginger the beagle, of which there were three incarnations. My grandpa raised hogs, and let us carry them scraps.  When we accidentally on purpose caused a chute to roll down the hill and almost into the barn, he just laughed.  He never said a word when we would practice our hog calls to see how fast the hogs arrived, but he made very clear that we were never to enter the hog pens.  And all the grandchildren listened, because he hardly ever told any of us no. 

My grandfather used to set me in front of him on the tractor while he drove.  Sometimes he let me steer, especially if my mother wasn't looking.  My grandpa decided that he was going to "teach: me how to drive when I was 16, never mind that I already had my license.  I went racing around on the gravel while he 'supervised',  and I narrowly missed a cow in the middle of the road while he told me how to brake on gravel.   

When an actual guy my age showed up on the farm one day, and I made my grandmother take me out into the field to meet him, my grandfather was tickled.  He would tease me about "That Cransby boy", letting me know what that young man was up to for years after.  Once he started wearing hearing aids, my grandpa was notorious for turning them off when he wanted some quiet, and sometimes I secretly admired him for that.

When I brought my husband Larry to Quincy, my grandpa offered him some homemade raisin wine.  Before he poured the shot glasses, Grandpa looked Larry right in the eye, his best smile in place.
We drank raisin wine that was likely higher in alcohol content than the finest whiskey.  To his credit, my husband was able to remain standing after the first drink.  I think that it impressed Grandpa that Larry didn't keel over after two shots. 

My grandfather wasn't perfect.  He thought that women weren't capable of managing money.  He expected a clean house and a meal on the table when he was ready to eat, and didn't much care about mitigating factors like crying children.  But he did the best he could, and that is all anyone can ask of him. 

Rest in peace, Grandpa.

Old Make Way

Prompt:  And now, on to our Trifextra.  We want you to choose one of the pictures below and give us a 33-word response to it.  Your responses will be judged by the community this weekend.

I have had such a horrible week that I completely forgot about the word limit for Trifecta this past week.  It was in the back of my mind, but since I usually write when I'm half asleep, and since the story was going so perfectly, I called it a night when I was able to get it under 500.  In the light of day, I am glad, for the story's sake.  However, I will endeavor to remember the rules in the future. I will even write them down on a post-it and place it on my monitor, where it will stay until the cat eats it.  

This one's for you, Grandpa. 


My grandfather's pride,

Which once turned the rich, raw earth

Now sits on fallow ground,

Sadly covered in dust.

Time passes.

Old must make way for the New

Yesterday's strongest steel becomes rust.

VinothChandar / Nature Photos / CC BY

Source: trifectawritingchallenge.com via http://www.flickr.com/photos/vinothchandar/6853341070/

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RemembeRED: Childhood

I miss my childhood. I miss the little explorer that I used to be, the one who was never afraid. I miss the feeling that the world was mine, that everything was waiting for me to discover it over the next hill.

I miss walking home from kindergarten. By myself. Without being afraid of a single boogeymen. Without even realizing that boogeymen existed.

I miss the MPs bringing me home when I wandered too far afield. I do regret peeing on the backseat, but I was five and I had to go.

I miss pedaling my big wheel as fast as I could so I could spin out. I miss swinging so very high...and then jumping out of the swing. On purpose.

I miss sneaking out of the playground during sixth grade recess, just outside the fence near the back, where there was a tree that was perfect for climbing...and quiet.

I miss spending hours with absolutely no adult supervision, building forts, fighting 'wars', playing on the hospital helicopter pad, and climbing the fruit trees on the army base to eat all the fruit we could.

I miss popsicles made with one packet of Kool-aid and 14 tons of sugar.

I miss completely making up a cookie recipe off the top of my head, making said cookies with my dad, and finding out that they tasted hideous.

I miss eating so much candy on Halloween that I didn't think I could eat one more piece...until I did.

I miss using a curling iron on my Barbie doll's hair. I miss trying to flush all that "food" out of my Baby Alive. I miss trying to surgically remove the tape recorder in my Mrs. Beasley doll.

But I think that I miss believing in fairy tales the most.

Blasts from the Past

NOTE: This was from another prompt of the Red Dress Club; we were supposed to write about finding a forgotten item in the back of our closet. I wrote in my notebook, and then promptly forgot about it. Seems a shame to waste it, so here it is.

I found a tiny piece of fabric on the floor underneath a box in the back of my closet the other day. I picked it up, thinking that it was something that had fallen from a dress. Then I felt the tell tale signs of an underwire. I looked closer. It was a black lace demi-bra. So tiny! I checked the size: 34A. I was momentarily taken aback. Was this MY bra? I cannot at first recall the last time I wore a size 34 bra, let alone an A cup.

Then it came to me, the memory of a perfect dress of formfitting black lace with the perfect black lace bra, panties, garter, and stockings to go with it. A night, so very long ago, when I looked exceptionally hot and knew it down to my bones. A night of confidence, when I didn't worry about whether I had something green on my teeth or whether my thighs were too fat. A night of dancing, laughter, and fun with my friends. Good times, I recall, and smile to myself. I pause. I cannot remember my date for that perfect evening, and as he was so easily forgotten, he must not have been all that wonderful.

I should have put the bra in with the clothes earmarked for Goodwill. I had every intention of doing so, of letting go of the distant past. But somehow the tiny bra stayed in my hand, and was lovingly put into the lingerie drawer. The dress is gone, but the bra shall remain, since it triggered such fond remembrance. Happy memories are like gold, and on my more melancholy days, I find that I have a need to remember the 'transgressions' of my youth, however incomplete those memories might be.