Smells like Granny’s house.
Our house was built in 1947 or 1948. It is still very much and mostly all original in construction. It reminds me so much of my great-grandparents and my grandparents homes. The look, the feel, the sounds, the way that nothing in the house is square, the amazing way the house feels more like a living thing than an inanimate object. It’s just a very neat little house with a nice front yard shaded by large Maples and a big backyard full of smaller trees, roses bushes, other assorted plants and flowers and, just like all of my grandparents houses, it has grass that always needs to be cut even in the winter. Heck, even eight hours after it has been mowed the yard needs to be cut again. We have bird feeders and bird baths just like my father’s parents had in their yard. Our yard has become a bit of a bird sanctuary and we could not be happier about that fact. Well, it does result in an inordinate amount of car washing but it is very much worth it to live inside the city but still get the sounds of a rural, country home. We are fortunate and we know it. This house will surprise us every once in a while and today was one of those days when the weather was just right for a wonderful moment that stopped me dead on my tracks.
Granny and Papaw’s house was my second home as a child. Papaw John was always gardening and working in his wood shop. He was a master carpenter and the greatest gardener I’ve ever known. He spent his mornings tending the gardens and flower beds then he spent the days making whatever he could imagine, and even some things unimaginable for woodwork, in his shop. The early evenings were spent walking the gardens and flower beds. Us kids would often follow him in the garden walks and ask a million questions of him about botany, woodworking, what our parents were like as kids. I used to wonder why he did this. I know now and maybe I’ll tell you why in some other memory.
Granny filled her mornings, days, and evenings cooking, canning, sewing, and watching her soaps. This was the routine except in the fall when ever man, woman, and child would sit in the living room shelling peas, shucking corn, and watching SEC football during the day and Hee-Haw at night. This went on for what felt like every Saturday for an entire college football season. Her house always smelled fantastic and even in the quiet moments the house was so full of life. Her house had an aroma that was the soul of her home. I think it was the can of coffee beans Granny kept in the kitchen or the percolator that seemed to be always brewing or warming at all times mixed with the smells of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That along with the natural smells of the flowers and garden, and wood working just added a uniqueness to that house that was different to any other home I have ever experienced.
The past few days there have been workers trimming trees for the city with the intent of clearing the power lines. Seems like the intent in ours and the neighbor’s yard was to make the yards into a sawdust dump and to cover the cars, driveways, birds and squirrels in wood chunks, and to block access to the road with their equipment and trucks! The cool thing is how fast the squirrels look running through the yard now because of kicking up a small rooster tail of sawdust when they run.
On to the next thing and in other news, it is time to get back to eating right or time for a new washer and dryer because those machines are shrinking my clothes again. Dried beans and veggies are cheaper than any Whirlpool machines so I am opting for the better diet. Besides, I threw all of my “really fat” clothes away a few years ago and I refuse to buy new and bigger clothes. Not because of pride but because “Plus Size” clothes cost more and I don't want a pocket on my damn tee shirt. Why do fat guy tee shirts have to have a left titty pocket? Do all fat men need a cigarette and carpentry pencil pocket? I digress. Which reminds me, the grass needs cutting again this week. Anyway, on with the story.
Today the weather made it up to the 50s and the skies were clear and the sun was shining making the house feel a bit like early spring. In the middle of the day while it was warm-ish we decided to fill the bird feeders. I also decided to soak some beans for preparation of cooking them later. I filled a pot with beans and water and set it out to hydrate. While I was soaking beans I started some coffee in a percolator I bought over the summer. Rachel filled the feeders in the back. I went out the front to fill the other bird feeders. The wind was blowing softly and the birds were singing with excitement at the pouring of new, fresh eats. I walked back to the door kicking at the sawdust on the walk way wondering if I looked like a giant squirrel running backwards in slow motion. When I walked back into the house I was greeted with a sensory sensation the stopped me dead in my tracks. The combination of odors floored me. The familiar smell of sawdust, beans soaking, birdseed, green grass drying dew in the sun, and the brewing coffee, mixed with the feel and look of this old house. This took me back forty years and for brief moment I was seven coming inside from playing with my sister and my cousins. As I turned the corner to walk into our kitchen my brain showed me Granny’s kitchen. I stopped and admired it. It was her kitchen in their house and they were there too. For a second, an all too brief second, I was somewhere else, some time else, and I was happy to be back there.