My grandmother's kitchen had an enormous pantry. A walk-in
closet for your canned goods and spare cooking pots. It had it's own door. My
house did not have a pantry. We had cabinets. And stainless appliances.
Grandmother had an avocado green oven. When it was cold, I'd walk into the
kitchen and the oven would be wide open, heat pouring from it to warm up the
room. Her table was small and square. It
was a work table in a kitchen with very little counter space.
Summertime, I learned to shell peas, snap beans
and make deviled eggs at that table. Grandmother would sit in one of her dark
dresses, with the smock-type apron on, working on a bowl full of something
green. Meals did not make themselves at Grandmother's house. Vegetables, at
least in the summer, did not come from the can, jar or freezer.
I can't recall if there was anything pretty hanging on the
walls. Grandmother hung a large mirror over her sink. Mom said to check her
hair, I say to spy my brother coming up behind me to snap me with a towel. Next
to that was a National Geographic map of the solar system. On a shelf to the
right of the sink I'd find the jar of Tang - the orange juice of the
astronauts. And because she was a grandmother, she also had strawberry Quik. We only ever had the
chocolate kind at home.
Inside of Grandmother's kitchen, I was taught to help prepare food. I
learned the rhythms of cooking and life. Vegetables had to be washed, trimmed,
snapped, shelled, shucked, peeled, chopped.
Dealing with vegetables was all about action verbs and in the moment. Inside
of Grandmother's kitchen, I worked. There was no dishwasher, save the
grandchildren. We'd stand at that enormous white enameled sink and wash every
glass and every plate and every spoon. By hand. With a sponge and hot water and
set them, one by one, on the slanted, rippled drain. Water would sluice back
down into the sink. Even to today, captured somewhere in my nostrils, is the
pungent sharp smell of hot dish-soap and plastic cups.
Summertime at Grandmother's meant an enormous family reunion
at the Leonard house. Complete with Aunt Didi's ham biscuits, Grandmother's
corn pudding, and juicy sliced tomatoes. There were deviled eggs with a
sprinkle of colorful paprika. Potato salad. Macaroni salad. Old ladies in dark
dresses with blue or apricot tinted hair set in curls. Some women still wore
their hair in old-fashioned buns, like my great Aunt Grace from down
Mecklenburg County.
I was the youngest child - apart from little Stevie - and he
didn't count because he was little and a boy. I either had to keep up with my
older siblings and cousins or go sit with mom. Or I'd simply head to The
Magnolia Tree. A tree so big at the front of Grandmother's house that six
cousins could be up it at once and there was still room for more. It was shady
and cool beneath that tree, shelters by the large tough dark green leaves that
were brown underneath. We'd hear "Don't climb that Magnolia" behind
us as we headed straight up her branches. I rode my first horse on the limbs of
that tree. Possibly my first dragon. I certainly fought my first Civil War
battle there, and ruled my first tree kingdom.
I wonder what my siblings and cousins would remember about
going to Grandmother's? Probably something completely different than me. What
are your strong memories of summer and shelling peas? Of white rail fences to
be climbed on and pecan trees to run under? Were you chased out of the house by
parents who wanted to actually speak with another adult and wasn't there to
entertain the children? Was the TV either off limits or simply not considered
an option when there might be horses to be seen? Tell me!
