The Old Country

 

When I read that phrase, “the old country”, I think of a feeling of longing, I think of a sense of loss. Even if that old country was left for good reason, even if intolerable circumstances were left behind, even if beautiful dreams drew folks away from that old country, I believe that it is still yearned for in some deep and haunting way. 

For in leaving the “bad”, surely so many “good” things were left behind. Many people that had played a part in the making of sweet memories had to remain behind; Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins… For certain the places had to be left behind; the familiar kitchen where the smell of grandma’s cooking made one’s mouth water, the home in which children took their first wobbling steps, the tree under which the magic of a first kiss occurred…

So in my mind, the phrase “the old country” signifies a place that was left behind, but not without feelings of loss and a yearning that goes with one to the grave.

Now, in centuries past, I have had family who left an actual “old country” to cross a seemingly endless expanse of water in vessels which I equate with a collection of large toothpicks. I am a landlubber and have no desire to be on the ocean in a modern-day cruise ship with modern technology and weather tracking. No, I have a difficult time imagining the desperation or the glorious dreams that would make taking that journey a viable option. So, I will write of my own “old country” which is not even another country.

I was born in Dayton, Ohio. Both of my parents had been born and spent their early years in rural Eastern Kentucky, so both sides of my family had long histories there in Eastern Kentucky. Many of those family members had migrated to the Dayton, Ohio area. The automobile industry had several factories or related factories in that area and the jobs were good with good pay and good benefits.

Several family members who did migrate to the area ended up living very close to each other. I suppose that it was nice for these rural Kentucky folks who had moved to the big city to have familiar faces around and so they set down their roots close to other family members. 

Now, by the time I was born; my parents, the families of two of my dad’s sisters, and my great-aunt’s family lived within a few blocks of each other in our little corner of Dayton. My great-aunt and her husband had raised my mother and her brother Johnnie from young ages, so they were more like grandparents to me than great-aunt and great-uncle. My great-grandmother Granny lived with my great-aunt so I had her with me in my childhood too.

So, I grew up with all of these family members around and saw them all on nearly a daily basis as they were all within a short walk of each other. When I was born, a cousin who was eleven and a half years older than me, we all called her Kookie, claimed me as her own. She told Mom that I was her baby and so she often walked to our house to pick me up and carry me on her hip to her house to visit with Aunt Alta, Uncle Bug, Granny, Cousin Dale, Cousin Denny and Uncle Johnnie. Sometimes we would walk across the field to visit with Aunt Hortense and Uncle John and we might even see Aunt Davilee and Uncle Sherlock. For certain we would see boocoodles of cousins of every kind! 

                                Cousin Kookie and Me

I know that I have many memories in my actual childhood home, but such was my nomadic life that I seem to have as many sweet memories in the homes of family members.

            My home on Knox; Aunt Lola holding Cousin Kathy

                           and Granny holding Brother David
  

                    Inside our living room on Knox; I'm standing,

                          Uncle Johnnie holding Brother David

                 Kitchen on Knox; Dad with my brother and me

I recall sitting on Aunt Alta’s front porch, waiting in anticipation for Granny to slice open a huge and perfectly ripe watermelon. I also remember waiting on that same front porch for one of the grown-ups to bring a gallon jug of cold, sweet root beer from the root beer stand up at the end of the road.

        On Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug's Calumet porch;

               Uncle Johnnie, Great-aunt Alta and Aunt Lola
 

    Celebrating birthdays at Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug's on Calumet; Me and my brother in front; Granny and Uncle Johnnie in back

          Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug's Calumet kitchen;

                               Great-uncle Bug and Granny

                        Great-aunt Alta and Great-uncle Bug 

                        in their Calumet Lane living room

I remember waiting anxiously for Granny to open the cardboard box with holes along the top and a cacophony of peeps emanating from therein when a new order of baby chicks had come in! 

                    Great-Aunt Alta at her Calumet Lane home; 

               Granny's chickens and chicken house is to the right; 

                Uncle John and Aunt Hortense's Maeder Avenue 

                                  home can be seen in the distance.

I remember visiting Aunt Hortense and going upstairs to visit with Cousin Glenna who had a grand collection of horse figurines and could tell the spookiest stories! Her room was in the attic and the roofline went low on one wall and there was a small attic access door. She told me that she kept her dead people behind that door after filling my head with stories of spectres! 

    Uncle John and Aunt Hortense at their home on Maeder Avenue;

               With children Glenna (in front), Gerald and Sissy.

           Uncle John and Aunt Hortense's Maeder Avenue home; 

                   Me in Glenn's room with her horse collection.

I remember visiting Aunt Davilee. Her kitchen was arranged with a “U” of cabinets that looked over the dining area. For some reason, her kitchen always reminded me of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Maybe that was because she had a microwave oven. I had never seen a microwave before except as prizes on game shows. I guess that I figured that a microwave was so technologically advanced that there had to be one on the bridge of the Enterprise! 

     Aunt Davilee and Cousin Larry at their Maeder Avenue home.

So, that is the way I spent my first eight years of life; in Dayton, Ohio surrounded almost constantly by a welcoming and loving family.

My idyllic childhood changed in my eighth year. In April of that year, my dear Granny died. I had been around Granny nearly every day of my life. When I wasn’t shadowing Kookie, I was shadowing Granny. She took naps in the afternoon and I often lay down beside her and took a nap as well. Any other time, I fought off taking a nap like Van Helsing fought off vampires!

Granny had been perfection on Earth. I reckon that she was human and had to have had some imperfections, but I never saw them and I have never really talked with anyone who had anything bad to say about her. Oh, she did expect young’uns to listen and if they didn’t, there were consequences, but I do not consider that a fault. In my mind, it only increases her perfection.

So in the spring of my eighth year, my young heart was filled to breaking with the cold dark winter of the loss of my angel Granny. As I was dealing with the loss of Granny, a couple months after her death, my family moved from Dayton, Ohio to a farm on the outskirts of Wartrace, Tennessee. Today the population of Wartrace is a little over 700 and supposedly, it has been growing. My graduating class had less than thirty and that included the kids from nearby Bell Buckle also!

So, I was transplanted from the city of Dayton and the center of boocoodles of family to a farm a few miles from the town of Wartrace, Tennessee with only an aunt, an uncle and an older cousin that lived a mile or two up the road. That cousin was a couple years older and my brother and I were too immature to be good company for him.

We lived on a farm with acres of our land to the fore and aft. We had neighbors to either side, but they had no young children and you couldn’t even see their houses unless they had their porch lights on at night and you searched really well through the trees.

I had lost Granny; and with the move, it seemed that I had lost most of my other family as well. 1968 was a very bad year.

Now, we still went back to Dayton to visit Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug, Aunt Hortense and Uncle John, Cousin Kookie and other family members as often as we could. It was about a seven hour drive and if you have ever driven from Middle Tennessee to Ohio, you likely have passed over the I71/75 bridge that crosses over the Ohio River. It is just after crossing over this bridge that you pass under the “WELCOME TO OHIO” sign as you enter Cincinnati. As we passed over that bridge, I knew that “home” was just a few miles up the road. I knew that I was going home and a sense of contented exhilaration would fill my soul! I suppose that that bridge was like the ocean taking me back to my own “old country”. For years, every time I crossed over that bridge I experienced that same wonderful feeling of being home. 

Unfortunately, the years have been accompanied by the loss of so many of those family members that I grew up around. Aunt Alta, Uncle Bug, Uncle John, Aunt Hortense, Aunt Davilee, Cousin Kookie, Cousin Sissy, Cousin Denny, Uncle Johnnie…are all gone. With their loss, the familiar homes where sweet memories were made were sold to others.

Now, when I do go back to Dayton that sense of returning home is no more. I still have family there that I love and love to see, but my “old country” is gone. I cannot revisit the actual “old country” but in my mind, the “old country” with its people and its places lives on. When I see a baby chick, I remember my sweet and perfect Granny. When I sit on a porch swing, I remember a similar swing on a porch where thoughts of juicy watermelon and cold glasses of root beer made my mouth water. When I slice a delicious homegrown tomato, I remember the tomatoes grown in the gardens of aunts and uncles.

So my “old country” is not even a real country and perhaps it has never even been a real place. Maybe it is a state of mind where even if people and things there are not perfect and even if they are not actually there anymore, they represent an immortal, beautiful and familiar sense of home.