We had two places we traveled in the summers when we were kids, Fredericksburg and Ingelside (a tiny town just outside of Corpus). Both places were full of relatives. Fredericksburg was the home of my grandmother and her brothers and sisters, and we would always stay with Uncle Robert and Aunt Lou. Uncle Robert is my grandmother's youngest brother, and the only sibling still alive today. He was very tall, 6'5" (before old-age shrinkage started settling in), very German, was a carpenter by trade, could be found at all hours in his smokehouse making venison sausage and other wonderful meats, loved to bow hunt, was a fantastic cook and gardener (and still is, I might add), and had one of best senses of humor ever. He still makes me belly laugh at least a couple of times every time we visit. Oh, and he also played tennis at least once a week, until his knees and back finally gave out on him in his eighties! What a renaissance man!
My Aunt Lou is also still alive. She is also a wonderful cook and bakes, and one of the things I've been EXTREMELY nostalgic about lately is her homemade brown bread. I remember waking up and going into the dining room with the smell of slab bacon cooking and Aunt Lou's toast in my nose, immediately rendering me starving! They would pass around big platters of both, and a big bowl of scrambled eggs. But that bread! All you needed was a big slab of butter and you had died and gone to heaven, my friend. It was a little sweet just on its own, so honey or jam added was just icing on the cake. I'm not sure if she still makes it these days, so I will just have to live with the memory of the smell and taste.
It's funny the things you remember as a kid, the things that stand out in my mind from those trips. I remember how I loved sleeping in the huge beds that were waaaaayyyy up off the floor. It made me feel like a princess. I remember hanging out in the backyard with Uncle Robert with the smokehouse smell always nearby, and loving the big stepping stones they had going from the house out to the back of their property. But the thing I remember most is the laughter. Not only did they have three kids (two of which had families of their own by then), but usually for our visits my grandparents and another of my grandmother's brothers and his wife, Uncle Jack and Aunt Gina, would all be sitting around either in the house or in the backyard catching up and telling stories. Eventually someone would say something funny, or misunderstand something, or get the story wrong and start arguing. But we would all end up laughing and laughing until tears were running down our faces and our stomachs hurt. At least four or five times a day! There is nothing more comforting to a kid than being surrounded by people you love, and that you know love you, and having all that happiness flowing over you.
This is one thing I fret about, that I won't be able to give Gabriel quite the same experience. Things are so different now, so many people from my past are gone. It was a different era, and things seemed to move alot slower back then. Families were bigger and talked more. But I SOOOOO want him to have those happy memories once he's grown. At least he has met Uncle Robert and Aunt Lou, and we are definitely overdue for another visit. But it's not the same due to their age (I think they are both in their 90's now) and the fact that their kids and their families are spread out. But at least I call tell him about that other time and hope some of it seeps into his conscience.
1 comment:
Quick! Get Aunt Lou's bread recipe so Gabriel can remember how good it is when he is grown.
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