Family Memory (XXV): Time with my grandparents

When I was young, I got to stay at my grandparents in Keokuk, when younger, with my little sister along as well. As a parent, I realized that this was not meant as a privilege for us–hah, this was to give my parents a break from us kids! Of course, I also look back now and realize it was a huge gift to me as well, the chance to spend time with two of my three living grandparents and be spoiled rotten as the favorite (because I was both the first grandchild and the best…these are immutable points of history).

When I spent those one or two weeks during summer at my grandparents, it’s not like they filled the days with excitement–they weren’t rich. I know now initially they were saving money to help put my youngest uncle through college and that they would use vacation days at other points to go see my Uncle Helmut or a few times to go on longer vacations (including one to Frankenmuth, Michigan where I got to go along). As a kid, I didn’t care. I spent the day reading or playing solitaire boardgames…though I remember a couple summers where my grandmother was part of a ladies group that played dice games (bunco?) and sometimes cards (usually ’31’, but there was something else, but never pinochle or euchre). After work, Papa would sit in his chair, read the afternoon paper and watch the news (I was there with them when Elvis died…I remember I was rolling around on Grandma’s cylindrical footstool) and if the weather was nice, we’d play catch or maybe Jarts (lawn darts). We’d repeat that every day until it was time to go back to Davenport.

And then…I turned into a teenager and wound up wanting to spend time with friends during the summer and stopped those long visits to Keokuk. I don’t think they were disappointed. They understood growing up…but my first drive outside of the Quad Cities when I turned 16 was to Keokuk to visit them and when Julie and I got serious–Keokuk was the second place we went (after meeting Mom first up in Davenport).

Today, I woke up early (I’m writing this at the end of September–don’t really know when I’ll make it go ‘live’) and we had the windows open and I heard the birds and the breeze and it made me think of my grandparents.

It made me go and find one of the first two poems I ever published. (This was #2) I wrote it originally for a Writing class at a sucky university–that class (taught by an ex-nun named Birgit Kelley…I STILL remember her name) made me realize I could be good at writing. It was the first thing I wrote and permitted others to hear and give feedback on.

This is the published version. I wouldn’t write it like this now–I’d do it differently…but that’s 30 years of life and experience saying that. This was definitely me at 21.

Daybreak in Keokuk

Slowly the mind begins to rise while the chirp of crickets hang in air. Creak.  An old floorboard gives way under someone’s step. The burble-plop of boiling coffee and the faint odor of oatmeal.

Creak.  Creak.

Á cupboard squeaks open.  Grandma putters about in her little kitchen. Hazy talk comes through the half-sleep of a childhood dawn. Silence.  The birds begin the morning shift, singing, replacing the cacophony of crickets on the graveyard shift.

Creak.

A floorboard nearby, the scent of after-shave as my grandfather strides over my body on the sofa cushions on the main room’s floor. A click of metal, a groan of wood as the door opens. The thunk of a door shutting and the bolt clicking back into place.  Footsteps fade to nothing as Papa goes to work.

Creak.

Putter, putter.  Squeak. Putter, putter.  The sound of coffee pouring.  A cough followed by chimes. Six-thirty. A car passes outside with no muffler. Putter, putter.

Creak.

Putter, putter. Squeak. The hour early, my mind drifts back to sleep.