First of all, writers are observers. We experience events and record them in our minds. There they lay for weeks, months, even decades until such time as we are ready to use them. The following is but one example of what you can do with your own observations.
The Holidays are gaining on us. That's right, it is "over the river and through the woods" time again. Throughout America mothers and grandmothers are donning aprons and planning feasts that make visions of sugar plums seem tame by comparison. Families are making plans for grand reunions, and favorite recipes are hiding out in the last place we look.
For me, the reunions and the feasts are the sweetest part of Christmas. The time when families arrive bearing gifts of love and good cheer. Warm hugs and kisses, sure to mellow the coldest heart, pass one to the other. Merriment and excitement and memories of Christmases past, echo in my mind. Sudden tears remind me of those who once were here, but are now passed from our midst. Voices from my childhood reach out and each whispers "Remember me?" Remember? How could I forget?
Come with me down a gravel country road, seven miles south of Wynnewood, Oklahoma and five miles east, to my Grandma and Grandpa Robison's home. First, we'll take a detour to visit a favorite childhood haunt of mine. Ah, yes, there it is. The clapboard Daylight School House still stands beside the road. Paint peeling, shingles missing, ugly as ever, the school stands mute. A relic from glorious summer visits by a city child who loved to swing on the creaking swings and ride the now dilapidated merry-go-round. Oh, it's all tilted over, one side of its wooden frame weathered and left to rot on hard-packed clay. I can still hear my cousins' high- pitched laughter as they pushed faster and faster spinning me round and round until I screamed to be released. Once freed, I'd wobble like a drunken duck which made them laugh all the more. Sweet memories, sweet yesterday's dreams, they live on, evergreen in mind and heart.
I force my thoughts away from summer days when the cousins and I were like straw- flowers gamboling across those dusty Oklahoma plains. The vision is replaced by the smiles of precious grandparents and Christmas time. There's Grandpa standing in front of his general store. He waves as we drive up in Daddy's shiny new Ford. Daddy parks the car beside his brothers' and sister's cars, and my cousins rush to greet us. Grandma waves from the porch of her white framed farm house. We wave back.
In the next image, seven grandchildren (I'm the eight-year-old with the Buster Brown haircut and the dirty face) line up in front of Grandpa's candy counter. Glass bins hold a selection of confections that put stars in our eyes and larceny in our beggar-hearts. No matter how appealing our smiles, he allows only one penny-sack of candy for each, and a big orange or cream soda to wash it down.
"If you spoil your appetites for dinner, Grandma will have my hide," grandpa warns. I pay him no never-mind as I sit atop a pickle barrel and delve into my sack of goodies. The cousins roam up and down the aisles of the little store stuffing their faces, and showing off their newly attained reading skills by loudly proclaiming, "Black strap molasses, crispy crackers, Clabber-Girl baking powder, . . ." Best of all, I remember the warmth of the pot bellied stove standing watch in the corner of the store, and the combined bouquet of roasted peanuts, coffee beans, and Grandpa's Old Spice shaving lotion.
With our appetizers out of the way, we race out of the store and across the yard toward our grandma's domain. Ah, Grandma's kitchen! Her pastry cabinet bulges with cakes, pies, and cookies that float off their plates into our greedy mouths. With relish, appetites unsated, we answer the call to dinner.
No one could cook like Grandma Bess. With all the pride of a cordon-bleu chef, she reigned over her delicacies garbed in a bib apron over an ankle-length print dress. Her holiday table literally groaned under the weight of roast turkey, chicken and dumplings, cornbread dressing, giblet gravy, and mounds of fluffy mashed potatoes dripping fresh churned butter. Those were "just a few of my favorite things." Then, Grandma's magical pastries were brought to the table: four-layer coconut cakes, and spicy pumpkin pies topped with sweetened whipped cream. Daddy used to say his mother always cooked enough for Cox's Army. And, of course, she did.
After the feast, adults and children alike staggered to the parlor and collapsed on
overstuffed sofas and chairs. I do believe the first American "couch potatoes" were born right there in my grandma's parlor. Daddy and the uncles snored as mother and the aunts gossiped, catching up on family news. The kids and me, when no one was watching, sneaked into grandpa's office and played his old wind up Victrola. I think I first fell in love with classical music listening to those scratchy recordings. Anyway, the day flew by faster than you could say Alka-seltzer and too soon it was time to leave another Christmas behind.
"Goodbye Grandma and Grandpa, goodbye Mother and Daddy. Goodbye Uncles and Aunts." You are gone now, but you still live on in my heart and in yesterday's Christmases, and in everything I write.
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(Jones is a book critic for The Tulsa World, Tulsa, OK, and The Camden Times, Camden, New York.)
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