Close your eyes and remember a trip to your grandmother’s house. Wait … hold on … don’t close them yet! Read the post first. I want you to do some visualizing, but I want you to know where we are going with it. You can even use this as a writing prompt, if you like.
We are going to Grandmommy’s house. Did you visit your Grandmother when you were little? Maybe you didn’t visit your grandmother, so think about a favorite grownup in your life when you were a child. Imagine the trip there. Perhaps you went over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house … or maybe your Grandmother lived in a third floor walk-up on the lower east side. No matter. Once you got there, I’m betting that a special food comes to mind.
Think about that food, and I bet you can almost taste it. Perhaps you can even smell it? OK, go ahead and close your eyes for a minute and think about it. I’ll wait.
Hmmm … hmmm … hmmm … (I’m humming while you think) … hmmm … hmmm … hmmm … (it’s off key, you don’t want to know) … hmmm … hmmm.
You back? OK. It’s your turn in a minute. I want to tell you about my Grandmommy’s house ( you knew I did).
My Grandmommy lived in Oak Cliff, which most people today think of as just a part of “Dallas.” If you want to know more about the place, visit Oak Cliff Yesterday for some wonderful insights on the way it was.
Anyway, when we arrived, there were always wonderful foods cooking, but my favorite treat was one that Grandmommy gave us when we watched television in the evening. She liked to watch the Lawrence Welk Show, because she thought it was “wholesome entertainment.” Perhaps you remember that musical variety show? “Wun’erful, Wun’erful,” as Lawrence Welk would say. Well, not so much. Can you say, “eeeewwww!” If you never had the “experience” of watching it, visit Go Retro! for a detailed description (and some YouTube videos).
Now, y’all, even as a very tiny child, I was intelligent enough to know that this show was not “cool.” My Momma owned a record store, for Heaven’s sake, so I was accustomed to music that really was “wun’erful.” My siblings and I groaned at the thought of having to listen to Myron Floren play accordion again (do a Google search, if you must, because I’m not showing it here) and watch dancers in jelly bean colored costumes with fake smiles plastered on their faces. How could anybody smile when they had to do those stupid dances? To shut us up, Grandmommy gave us root beer floats! Of course … they were full of bubbles!
Start the bubbles, boys
We sat cross-legged on her nubby, forest-green couch (which felt like sitting on sandpaper) in the darkened living room. It was very difficult to make snide remarks about the show while we shoveled ice cream in our faces and fought the bubbles going up our noses. Therefore, we tolerated the show for as long as the root beer and ice cream lasted.
Yep, now and then I have to experience a root beer float, and drift down Memory Lane. I can almost hear an accordion …
Now, it’s your turn. Tell me about the food on your visit to your Grandmother’s house. I bet you’ve got a story. Here we go, fellas. And ah-one, and ah-two…
© for This Eclectic Life, 2010. |
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Post tags: black and white, Memories, photographs, writing prompt
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