Time Travel or Visiting Grandpa and Grandma

                       Time Travel, or Visiting Grandpa and Grandma

                                          April Smith Hajjafar

Dad, Mom, David and I lived in Dayton, Ohio and Grandpa and Grandma Smith lived on Anglin Branch in Owsley County, Kentucky. They farmed a few acres of narrow creek bottomland and owned some acreage in steep hillsides, as well. So they lived 230 or so miles away from us.

We went to visit Grandpa and Grandma Smith as often as we could. Of course, during the trip there, we had to be in the car for a few hours. The cars were bigger back then and they had bench seats. I don’t even think that they had seat belts. If they did, we didn’t know how to use them. I can recall my brother David and I sittin’ in the back seat and both of us trying to sort of lay across the seat. “Mom, make her/him get off my side; I don’t have room!” was heard more than once. Also, heard more than once, was “Are we there yet?”

Mom would usually pack us some snacks to eat on the way; apples, bananas, cheezits… We would stop at a gas station for a pop. I remember that once at a gas station, Mom bought a can of cheese and some crackers. The top of the can was kind of like a smaller whipped cream spray top. You would push the little nozzle and the cheese would swirl out onto your waiting cracker. That cheesy colored stuff was probably about as close to real cheese as I am to a real queen but it was fascinating to see cheese come from a can and that novelty made it better than it probably was.

So back then, I think that we usually took state routes rather than interstates. I don’t know if the interstates were a thing in progress or if the state routes were just handier for us to use but that is how we usually went.

Now David had some trouble with getting car sick and we had to drive over some curvy, hilly roads. I recall that the road in the Dale Hollow area was particularly bad for David’s stomach. Dad and Mom would have him sit in the front because looking at scenery coming toward you is supposed to be better than watching scenery fly by if you are prone to carsickness.

Somewhere in our travels around Grandma and Grandpa’s neck of the woods, we had to pass over a wooden bridge. I can’t recall exactly where but it went over a river that was the prettiest jade green color and there was a high railroad bridge that could be seen over beside the wooden automobile bridge. I can remember hearing the clatter of those boards as the car crossed that bridge. I always imagined that bridge giving way and us ending up in the green water that was pretty from a distance, but I surely didn’t wanna see up close. I remember holding my breath until we got across that bridge!

Well, finally we would make it to Anglin Branch Road; David and I antsy to get out of the car and Mom and Dad probably even more so after all of the “Mom. he/she is on my side!” and “Are we there yet?”s.

If we were lucky, the weather was nice and dry and Dad could drive the car right up behind Grandpa and Grandma’s house. Unfortunately, it seems that many of our visits seemed to be accompanied by rain. Dad is a great driver, but even he could not get the car up Anglin Branch, when rain turned it from a dirt road into a mudslide. Often, Dad would have to pull the car over and we would have to trudge through the rain and the mud the rest of the way to Grandpa and Grandma’s house. 

It seemed that Grandpa would keep a hawk’s eye out for us when he knew we were coming. He was there pulling us into the house before we even realized we had arrived. Grandma would like as not be inside putting the finishing touches to a meal that she had been preparing for us. That meal would be both simple and simply delicious.

Now in my mind, going to visit Grandpa and Grandma Smith was akin to time travel. I lived in Dayton where we had nice yards but not land with creeks and hills and crawdaddies and blue-tailed lizards running up wells. We had an indoor bathroom with a bathtub, a sink and a commode complete with rolls of toilet paper. The roads were paved in asphalt and you could stand on your porch and talk to your next-door neighbor without hardly raising your voice. We went to the grocery to buy our meat, produce, bread… We had some type of central heat and so we had no fireplaces. My uncles plowed their gardens with a tractor. 

Grandpa and Grandma’s place was so different from ours. Like I said, they lived on a dirt road, at least when it was dry! They had electricity and they had running water at the kitchen sink to wash dishes with but they didn’t have indoor facilities. They had a two-holer outhouse down a path that ran between their stock barn and their tobacco barn. The toilet paper was sheets torn from an old Sears and Roebuck, Aldens or Spiegel catalog or an old magazine.  Baths were likely sponge baths from a pan filled with warm water. If we got especially dirty, that might warrant filling Grandma’s washtub and climbing in. When we were thirsty, we drank water from a communal dipper that rested in a metal pail of water sitting on an enameled Hoosier cabinet in the corner of the dining area. Grandma had drawn that water from the dug well just off of their back porch. That water was the crispest, tastiest water that a person could care to drink.

Grandma and Grandpa had a huge garden and they had fruit trees, nut trees and blackberry patches. Grandpa plowed his garden with a mule and a mule-pulled plow. They raised a hog or two to slaughter during the cool times of late fall or winter. They raised chickens for eggs and for the occasional fried chicken or chicken and dumpling dinner. A cow provided milk for cream, butter and buttermilk. They grew or raised pretty much everything they ate. Grandpa raised an allotment of tobacco too. That gave him some cash to purchase things that he and Grandma couldn’t raise like sugar, coffee, flour… Whenever we went to visit Grandpa and Grandma, Dad would drive Grandpa to the larger general store that was in Manchester or Booneville so he could restock his pantry. In between visits, Grandpa could ride his mule to the smaller but closer general store to pick up a few things; but he did his bigger shopping when he could go to Booneville or Manchester. Grandpa would usually bring home a box of multi-flavored Bobs candy sticks when Dad took him shopping. My brother and I looked forward to those candy sticks.

Grandma was a wonderful country cook. I suppose that all of her ingredients were truly organic before organic was even a thing and that probably helped. Like as not, it was all of the practice she had had cooking for seven young’uns of her own and probably from helping her own mother before she married that made her a truly great cook. I know that she put a lot of love into her dishes as well.

Grandpa and Grandma had old metal bedsteads that we slept in while visiting. Anytime you moved, you could hear the creak of the bedsprings that lay under the mattress. Empty five-gallon lard stands were under the edges of those bedsteads and they served as chamber pots should one need to relieve themselves at night. You surely did not want to walk down the path to the outhouse at night! At least I didn’t!

In the winter, coal would be snapping and popping in the grate. The coal grate in one of the bedrooms and the big metal stove in the front room were the only sources of heat for the house. Grandma made quilts though and in winter, we could snuggle under piles of Grandma’s quilts to stay warm.

For years, Grandpa and Grandma did not have a TV and my brother and I didn’t miss it. We would stay out all day. We would wade in the creek and try to catch crawdads and minnows. We would pet the mule and try to chase down blue-tailed lizards and dragonflies. We pretended to fish from the footbridge with cane poles cut from patches of cane that lined the creek. We made mud pies in the dirt lane that led to the house. We played board games and rummy. Grandpa loved to play rummy.  We also chased each other out one of the house’s front doors across the front porch and back in through the other front door, then through both of the front rooms and back out again. We had those screen doors banging to beat the band! At night, we would try to catch lightning bugs in one of Grandma’s empty canning jars. After our sponge baths, we would crawl into the squeaky iron bedsteads. During the summer, we could hear the music of the insects and frogs drifting in with the breeze through the window. During the winter evenings we would hunker down deep under the quilts and let the music of the coal crackling and popping lull us to sleep.

Yes, going to visit Grandpa and Grandma was like traveling back in time to a young girl who grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Oh, how I wish that I could really travel back in time and take my own children and my granddaughter Jooniebug back to visit them too. I can’t do that and that is why I try to put

into words the magical times that I experienced there. As pale in comparison to reality, my words are, I reckon that second-hand time travel is better than no-hand time travel.