Piece of my past circa 1976

While at Mom's today, I saw this photo on her desk and scanned it. That's me in the middle, about 3 years old (check out my groovy pants!). My brother is the cute blond kid in the foreground. I am sitting between my father's parents.

They lived in a farm house just outside Western Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati. My grandpa was a farmer from a long line of farmers, and my grandma was from "better" family. She defied her mother and married my grandpa against her family's wishes. She was 25 and he was 24 when they were married, which at the time (1925) was pretty old to get hitched. They had five children (my Dad was the middle child) and eventually racked up thirteen grandchildren.

Grandpa died in 1981, and the things I remember about him is mint-flavored Chapstick in his front pocket and the barn swallows in "his" barn.

Grandma died in 1994 and she taught me loads of stuff about cooking (like how to make the perfect apple pie and the best homemade chicken noodle soup, from SCRATCH) and how to crochet. She was the quintessential American Grandma. They were already "old" when I was born in 1973, but the memories I hold that have their base in my grandparents has shaped me into the person I am today. And that carries over into the relationship with my Dad. He was so like his father, quiet, gentle as long as you were good (but scary as the dickens when you were disobedient), "uneducated" but smart as Hell, hardworking and just GOOD PEOPLE.

Everyone should have grandparents like I had.