Just a few memories

The caption on the picture seen above with the Three Black Cats, " Eenie, Meanie, and Miney, and there ain't going to be no Moe." was an expression my Grandfather used when the three of us grandchildren, my 2 brothers and myself, would visit. Going to Grandmother and Grandfathers house meant a fair amount of boredom for three young children, but we looked forward to it. There was always a Sunday dinner, roast beef, mashed potatoes and veggies, followed by homemade chocolate cake. (Mmmmm!)

My Grandfather also had a large picture of a desert scene over his living room couch. I don't think I can count how many times he told us to find the rabbit in the picture. It was obviously a ploy to occupy three bored minds into behaving respectfully. A blue collar man, Granddad was a 6'4", blonde hair and blue eyed Bethlehem Steel worker in Baltimore, MD. There is a picture in my childhood album shot at Christmas ( 5 years old-fussy dress and peppermint sticky cheeks) sitting on his lap, he had his head wrapped in bandages with a Christmas bow stuck on top,(--er--I did that) recovering from a work injury. He stayed with Bethlehem Steel until they were closing and forced his retirement.

Of course, that generation, our Grandparents, would be the last blue collar generation to really have 'golden years.' After retirement he fulfilled a dream and camped across Canada, two times I believe, and traveled extensively. Later when he had a stroke in his 70's the traveling stopped, he went from being a big strong man, to a frightened man afraid to go out, so very sad to see.

My Grandparents divorced and remarried when I was 12 years old. ( a hard concept back then, divorce was a great deal rarer.) So Christmas's became extremely busy days: home, then to my Grandmother on my mother's side, then to Grandmother on my fathers side, to an Aunt and Uncles, then to my Grandfather's, and eventually to a party held with one whole side of the family there. Whew! We were never anywhere long enough to get into trouble. It was a whirl of gifts, food, and relatives that ended around 1:00 am, just 4 hours shy of being 24 hours of Christmas. After we moved away from the East coast ( I was about 14) Christmas became a very quiet day compared to what we had all grown accustomed to.

I've lost all my Grandparents and my Mother now to heaven, but I am extremely grateful for the memories that I gathered while sharing time with them. As you can tell by the Christmas story, for many years our family was always together. After we moved the family slowly broke apart with some moving farther away scattering across the country, divorce, and some leaving this earthly plain. Where there used to be many, now are now very few, and I miss those times of family. I am so far from what family I have left that visits are very rare. For a long time I considered Ron and his family to be mine also. Now that too is gone. Times certainly have changed.