Family 06 Mar 2008 10:41 am

The Good Old Days

Pete’s comment made me think abut my grandmother’s childhood, and my father’s, which I daydream about often. My great-grandparents house in Elgin, Texas still stands, and it’s been beautifully well-kept. It has a cheerful and inviting bright red door, a big front porch, lots of trees around it, and a big field behind it with a red barn. It’s so perfect.

Here’s a picture from when we were there last May, right after Grandmom passed away.

And the barn

Dad and Danny

Mommie-Me and Daddy D (the D was for Danklefs) standing in front of their house

Unfortunately it’s not in the family anymore, but anytime we go anywhere near Elgin we make the pilgrimage to go stand out front ad talk about how it used to be. My dad talks about going to visit his grandparents, Mommie-Me and Daddy D, about how hot the bedrooms upstairs were, about riding in Daddy D’s big truck to his grocery store in town, about “the good old days.” I wish I could have been there. I would have competed with my own grandmother for May Queen (she would still win), and we’d both be big bookworms, and we’d help Mommie-Me cook. Maybe she made the same beef stew I made the other day. I learned the recipe from my grandmother.

I miss Grandmom, and Mommie-Me.

This is Grandmom when she was 17 or 18.

Here she is laughing. I never saw this side of her. She was loving and wonderful, but I never saw her laugh like this. She’s so beautiful.

These days, too, will someday be “The Good Old days.” And my grandkids will hopefully know about them from my stories.

One Response to “The Good Old Days”

  1. on 11 Mar 2008 at 12:44 am 1.me(pete) said …

    Reminds of My grandparents house, on my mother’s side. The entire farm is now owned by the children of one of my grandfather’s share croppers.

    The Old Stultz home on Love Street, in Erwin Tennessee, is still in the family. It is jointly owned by my Aunt and my cousin. It is still pretty much the same as when I was a boy.

    Sharon says the house is haunted by good spirits. She says you can feel them but without fear. My Uncle, who passed away two years ago, used to go down there every Christmas day just to walk around the empty house remembering when it was filled with his 7 brothers and sisters and his Mom and Pop at Christmas.