After grandma passed, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on my childhood, time spent down at grandpa and grandma’s house and how wonderful life was in the 80’s and 90′ as a kid in Lenox, IA
The house is for sale and I keep dreaming of buying it. Remodelding it back to the way I remember and just keeping it as a keep sake. It seems crazy, I know it is. But I long for just one more day of childhood, to be there again at grandma and grandpa’s house.
To come down at christmas and smell the noodles and roast cooking for dinner, to see the Christmas tree setup in the living room and the piles of piles of presents under it. To stay the week for new years with Rebecca and order pizza from breaduex to watch the ball drop. To go out and shovel the walks with grandpa. To spend the days watching I love Lucy and dragnet reruns
To go for spring break, typically wasting the day away until Rebecca got out of school, Grandpa and I would go pick her up and then we would have fun around town, riding our bikes, playing hide and seek.
To go for the summer and spend the days camping in the back yard, chasing lightening bugs, going fishing and swimming at the lakes, spend every day at the Lenox pool, rollerblading around town. Helping grandpa with the garden and mowing the yard. Rolling around in the grass, feeding the squirrels. Grandma cooking dinners and cookies every night. Waiting for noon whistle because we knew grandma would be home soon and then the 1pm whistle so we knew the pool was open!
To go in fall for thanksgiving, again the smell of grandma’s roast, cookies, pies, the whole family gathering together to spend the day. Finding grandpa sound asleep in his chair, “watching” the football games.
I just long for one more week with them, in the house, with the shag green carpets, the laminated dinning table and the pleather rolly chairs, without any cares in the world. With the bright future to think of ahead and to just live our days and our lives. The 80’s and 90’s were truly an amazing time to be a kid and I wish we could experience it one more time. I wish I could give my kids that some day. But they’ll never get to experience the same.
Going up to the Main Street and getting ice cream, biscuits and gravy on wed, doughnuts on saturday from Casey’s. Hearing grandpa’s HAM radio all day. The smells of the house, of grandpa and grandma.
The simple life of small town America as kids, free to do what we wanted, free to go where we wanted. NO rules, just life your life and be home for dinner.