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.