Last weekend my two oldest kids and 4 of their cousins all went over to Nana’s house for a sleepover. For some reason ever since, I have reminiscing about doing just that same thing with my cousins at my Grandma Woodberry’s house. She lived in a tiny little house in “downtown” Bristol. But even though her house was tiny, her heart was enormous and she had plenty of love for all of us. Usually the sleep over would include me, Cliff, and the three youngest children of my Aunt Mary because they were the closest in age to us.
(Grandma, me, Lisa, and Chloe at White Springs)
We always had so much fun together. We came up with some crazy imaginative games! We spent the days playing crazily in the yard and the evenings playing crazily inside. It is funny what you remember about those times. Like playing Chinese Checkers with Grandma. She never “let” us win – we had to earn it and she was GOOD at that game. Or watching her crochet. I have a doll, baby blanket, and baby shoes that she crocheted that I treasure. And eating pizza bread. She would take slices of plain white bread, put a little pizza sauce from a jar on it and then using a potato peeler, cut very thin slices from a huge block of cheese to go on top, then toast it in the oven. It was so yummy! We would be starving from playing so hard and we would scarf down slice after slice. It was such a treat.
And she always had hard candy around. And sometimes when she had some spare change, she would let us walk to the Hogly Wogly (yes it was really named that) and we would get the little 5 cent and 10 cent candies. It was such an adventure because we got to walk there on our own. Each morning when we woke up, we would go outside to play some more and I remember the huge wall of morning glories that grew to the side of her house. They were beautiful on those warm summer mornings.
(Me and Aunt Virginia)
When Aunt Virginia would be there, she would make us her special Tuna Fish cakes. I’ve tried and tried to recreate those, but I can never seem to get them to be as good as I remember. I think she must have put an extra cup of love in them to make them taste so good.
I sure miss them. I am so glad that my children live close enough to their cousins and their Nana that they get to enjoy some of the same happiness that I did as a child. There is just something about Grandma’s house that makes it extra special!
