Spending the Night with Grandparents

One of my favorite summer-time activities was to spend the night with my grandparents.  Usually I got to go a couple of times each summer and usually spent two nights.  We did not live far from my grandparents, but it was like going on a trip when I got to go. 

Spending the night with my grandparents on my mom’s side was quite different than with my grandparents on my dad’s side.  As is the case with all people, each had their own types of activities and ways of doing things.  Even though they were different, I enjoyed each place and being with each set of grandparents.

When I spent the night with my Grandpa and Grandma Ike,** my cousin Debbie would also come and stay.  That made it twice as fun.  She was an adventurous, daring sort of girl, so we did a lot of things I would never have done by myself. 

One of the things we would do is play around the farm yard.  We might go to the chicken house and gather eggs, go see the turkeys, watch the peacocks, play in the barn, or climb the haystacks. We might go looking for nests of eggs that were not in the chicken house.  Once when all 5 of us cousins were there, we found such a stash of eggs.  Knowing they were no good, we threw them all against an old building. Talk about a stench!!!  If you’ve never smelled a rotten egg, then you’ve no idea of how awful that smell was.  There was one time when we were gathering peacock feathers that the peacocks began to run after and chase us. I suppose they thought we had captured a live peacock, and they were going to rescue their friend.  Once when we had a tape recorder and were playing like we were doing some sort of farm show, my cousin said, “Listen, while the chickens talk to me”.  At that precise moment, the dog licked her sucker (one of our purchases at the grocery store).  She screamed.  Then we began to laugh and laugh.   Debbie then explained to our listeners, “Lobo licked my sucker!” 

Often my grandma would have the TV turned on and tuned in to old western shows.  She would make us popcorn and give us a “coke”.   A “coke” was any type of soda.  So our “coke” might be a Dr. Pepper, Coca Cola, Sprite, Big Red, Mountain Dew, or whatever else she happened to have in the frig. 

There were times we would go to watch my uncles play softball in the evenings.  Then there was always the trip into Muleshoe to the grocery store.  My grandma would give us $.25- $.50 and we could go spend it in the candy section. We would get M & M’s, maybe a candy bar, suckers, bubble gum, and sometimes candy cigarettes.  I remember on one occasion we pretended the M & M’s were the remedy for the lung cancer that resulted from “smoking” our candy cigarettes.

My cousin was a big weather fan.  She would watch the weather on TV, listen to the radio forecasts, and watch the clouds.  It seemed that, more often than not, we would have a thunderstorm come up during the night.  There was one storm when the wind was bad, the rain was pouring, and the lightning and thunder were cracking and booming.  Debbie decided that we might be having a tornado.  So we got up and tip-toed into the living room where there was a barometer.  We had a flashlight so could check the readings.  Of course, there was no danger of a tornado, but it was exciting.  

My grandmother had a piano.  Sometimes we would go play on the piano and have music shows.  Debbie could actually play the piano, so we would pretend to be playing for an audience.  We often would sing as well. I can just imagine that what we thought was great, was actually cacophony, but it was fun!!

There were many knick-knacks on shelves at my grandma’s house.  My grandma would buy things at the souvenir shops when they would travel.  She had quite a collection.  These provided a lot of entertainment as well.  I can’t recall any specific things we did with these items, but I do remember loving to look at each one.

My grandpa was usually out working on the farm or was gone to the gin, stores in town, etc.  Sometimes he would take us to eat at a restaurant in Muleshoe.  I rarely got to eat at a restaurant, so this was a huge treat. One of the things my grandpa did every day after lunch was to lay down on the couch, cover his face with the newspaper, and take a nap. 

I know there were many other things that we probably did when I spent time with my grandparents, but these are some of the things I remember the best. 

**We could not say Engelking when we were young, so said* Ike since that was my grandpa's nickname.

JULY 4TH

July 4th.  It is a holiday marking our independence from the British.  I doubt that entered my mind as a kid.  July 4th was all about fireworks, a day off---maybe, watermelon, and homemade ice cream.

Most of the time, July was a month we were right in the middle of hoeing cotton.  When July 4th arrived, it was business as usual.  Unless we had had rain, and it was too wet, we went to the field to hoe weeds.   We might get to stop early that day, which we would definitely consider a treat.

Usually my mom would cook out hamburgers and fix homemade ice cream.  There were a few times that July 4 was cold and rainy, so the cookout and ice cream were not as welcomed.

When we were really young, my dad would go to the firework stand and get us fireworks.  I can remember him coming home with a package of fire crackers, some Texas Screamers (they were known by another more racist name back in that day), a Roman candle, and sparklers.  That pretty well summed up what we got.  We thought that we were the most blessed children in the world.  It was great.  I think shooting off our fireworks probably lasted an entire 10 minutes, but it was fun.  I remember my dad purchasing a cigar so that he could light the fireworks.  That was a very long time ago.  After the firework stands came out with those sticks that were used as lighters, my dad never got another cigar.

As we got older we began to use our own money (earned by hoeing cotton) to buy our own fireworks. We usually purchased pretty much the same types of fireworks, but added a few that were for older kids. Bottle rockets were great!  We generally tried not to shoot up all our fireworks in one evening so we could continue to play with matches and gun powder.

There was one story my dad told about when he was a kid that we never wanted to happen to us. He said that he got a string of firecrackers and asked his dad to light them for him.  My grandpa lit the entire string at once and they all popped in a matter of minutes.  My dad said he was so upset and never asked his dad to light his firecrackers again.

Warnings of not holding on to the firecracker too long were given each year, multiple times.  My dad was pretty good at telling stories of how some kid got his finger blown off by a firecracker.  I can tell you that was not done by one of those little Black Cat firecrackers, but was the result of a much larger, more dangerous type.  It did make us be more careful though.

Often we would get a can and put the lighted firecracker under an old vegetable can and watch the can lift off the ground when the firecracker exploded.  Our goal for bottle rockets was to place the rocket in a can or bottle in such a manner that it would fly farther than the other person's.  We did have to be careful if it was a dry year.  We did not want the bottle rocket to land in dry grass and start a fire.

Watermelon was sometimes a treat, but usually it was not one that we had grown in our garden.  Our watermelons would not be ripe until late August or early September.  Nevertheless, it was a treat if we got to eat one.

One year we went to our cousin's house.  They were lighting firecrackers and throwing them.  One of the firecrackers went off just as it passed my ear.  My ear rang for the rest of the night and it really did hurt.  This was a case of us not being very careful.

After the 4th of July, I would always get the feeling that there was not much of the summer holiday left.  It was a rather sad feeling.

When I look back, it is so nice to remember that it did not take a lot to make life fun for us.  Just a few fireworks, a treat of watermelon, grilled hamburgers, and home made ice cream---these were special and made life good.