Grandma and Me

At my age I still look forward, but not as far I used to. Rather I find I have a tendency more often to look back and remember things from my childhood. I suppose it is a natural way of wrapping the future that "...leads but to the grave" in a nostalgic blanket that softens that reality, if the memories be good. Among these good memories, are those of the day trips I took with my father's mother 'down to the country' to buy eggs and raw milk. When I was older and thought about these excursions, I wondered why grandma drove her Chrysler sedan from Lakewood, Ohio to a farm in Medina County, a 50 plus miles round trip, to buy a gallon of raw milk and two dozen eggs that she could have purchased from the A&P a few blocks from her home. Although I don't remember ever asking her about this, I can imagine that she might have replied that the eggs were fresher, (they were also from free-range hens, though not an issue then), and that the unpasteurized milk was better for baking, (her frosted sugar cookies were without peer). But I now believe these were just sub-texts to the real story. In retrospect, I think I understand at least one of the reasons for these trips.

By the time I was ten-years-old, grandma had six other grandchildren, I being the eldest. She never entertained more than two grandchildren at a time without their parents present and then only the older ones. I suspect this was due to her painful arthritis that precluded her from having patience with the contrariness of those not long out of diapers. In fact if I remember correctly, I was the only one of the tribe that was thus favored with these trips that gave us time together apart from parents and cousins, time for her to get to know me, to enjoy my wonder and excitement as I explored the farm and learned about the animals, to make a special place in her heart for me.

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As far back as I can remember, I was interested in the natural world. I coddled nestlings I found on the ground, sheltered baby rabbits deprived of their burrows, captured frogs and salamanders in the nearby creek, raised tadpoles in jars, collected and mounted skeletons of mammals I found in the woods behind my house. I was so far advanced in high school biology that I did not have to attend class but only take the exams and quizzes. I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. I've not lost any of my interest in the natural world although almost all of my working life as been spent as a psychologist. I am convinced that these occasional trips to the farm increased my interest of the ways of animals.

There was a legacy from these outings with grandma that I did not realize until later in life. I lost a position I had held for ten years. Out of work with a wife and three children to support and having to move out from the rental we were occupying within two weeks, I desperately needed work. Fortunately a friend told me of the owner of a large dairy farm who was looking for a dairy-hand. When I visited the farm to be interviewed, the plethora of scents—freshly fitted ground, new mown hay, silage in the mangers, large animal sweat, even manure—wrapped me in nostalgia. I did not hesitate to accept the position at least in part because of the memories of our excursions to the country. Although the work was hard and sometimes uncomfortable, I enjoyed it, and the recollections of my time with my grandmother that it often elicited.

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