FUN MONDAY - Those were the days

This week’s FUN MONDAY HOST is the effervescent Molly - from Retunofthewhiterobin.

The ASSIGNMENT - to describe a happy memory from your childhood. If possible, include pictures with your reminiscing. Perhaps, for some us remembering the past may bring back some unhappy times too. But, for today, let us remember the good times.



All in all me young childhood was pretty happy - while I come from a large family I was the last of the litter and many years after the rest in someway like being an only child with absentee parents. We all know that while there are hundreds of pictures of the first child, and some of the second child, the third child only with the other two. By the time I show up we are down to group photos at school, camp or those taken by the neighbors took of their ones or twos. But the assignment was happy memories. Almost every memory I have for my Grandfather is happy. Having sweet hot tea with a cracker in a saucer at the kitchen table, walking around the woods, building stuff, play in the garden. I spent so much time with that old man, I was know as “Jake’s Shadow”

Below is a photo of my Grandfather, with my Dad back when Daddy first went off to the Army, This photo was taken just a little before WWII almost twenty years before I was even a gleam in his eye. But it is Gandpa that I want you to notice.

Did you notice the flowers in his right hand? In my memories Grandpa was tall (he was 6’ tall so I guess my memories were right) and thin and always wore a white shirt - suite and tie on Sunday, for church. In my eyes he was wonderful, and he made me feel as if I was extraordinary. We had a special relationship that only kids and Grandparents can.
In his younger days his was a grounds keeper for a local high school and when we retired he came and lived with us. We were always either out in the woods or out playing in dirt. He was the unofficial grounds keeper of the neighborhood. We would weed gardens, trim bushes, prune trees and we sometime would add flower, shrub, or tree to a neighbor's yard and on occasion transplant plants from one neighbors yard to another. I recall a day when we took clipping from a particular (snotty) neighbor’s bush and propagated it to another neighbor yard. Well the said neighbor got all upset and inform Grandpa in not so kind words that he did not appreciate him giving the other neighbors his special exotic plants. Well Grandpa just smile and said he understood what he was saying and he herd what he said. As soon as he left we took three more clippings. I looked at him and he told me sometime you have to do what you think is right. The bush was going to die where he planted it, and it wasn’t some exotic plant, it is was native to the area and at one time there were lots of them around. Man is his hurry to build bigger houses killed most of them off in there rush. We needed to restore the balance. He didn’t lie he never said he wasn't going to take any more clipping he only said he heard and understood what he was saying. He wasn’t deaf and he has a pretty good grasp on the English languish. Yep Grandpa was a character.

Thanks for Stopping By for my humble offering.
You can see other FM post form over at Retunofthewhiterobin.