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.
