I can’t be sure what woke me first, the puttering of the push mower or the smell of fresh brewed coffee and bacon grease. I rolled over and looked out the window to see my grandfather cutting the grass. It would take him all morning to get the grass cut. There were four different areas of lawn around the house and he did it all with a push mower. After he finished his chore of the lawn, he would settle himself on the swing and drink beer from a bottle.
I spent most of my summers growing up at my grand parent’s house. Every morning was the same… the smell of fresh brewed coffee and bacon grease. The sounds from the window were always different; sometimes it was birds chirping or a chain saw humming or a dog barking, or the next door neighbor’s kids playing.
I would pull on the shorts and t-shirt I had worn from the day before and go down stairs. Grandmother would be at the stove flipping bacon in this great big cast iron fry pan. She would inform me that I was wearing the same clothes that I had on the day before. I didn’t know what the big deal was, they weren’t dirty…but I always had to go change into something different.
By the time I made my way back down the stairs for the second time, my grandfather would be standing at the counter making toast. He could make the best floppy toast ever. When you held on to the toast it would flop right over in your hand and it was so good you could eat the crust. He made stacks upon stacks of toast over the summers that I grew up there.
We would sit down at the table and I would reach over for a piece of that floppy toast and my grandmother would grab my hand and say, “Prayers first”. We would bow our heads and sometimes she would ask me to pray. “God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for this food, AMEN”. That was about all I could muster. Most of the time prayer would come from grandfather and he was a little more in depth with thanksgiving.
Grandmother was always in the kitchen. Sometimes she would place that big cast iron fry pan on the wood stove. They had that wood stove burning year round; it could be 80º outside and that stove would be smoldering away inside. I loved when she let me “play” on the stove. She would give me different ingredients to whip up. Most times it was a chocolate mess of goo, but I always ate it and whatever I didn’t eat, the dog ate the rest.
Not grabbing hold of the fry pan handle was a hard lesson learned. In fact, I believe I learned that lesson three times over. Every time I did it, Grandmother would butter my hand and remind me that it’s a pan not to be touched once it is placed on the stove. Occasionally I am reminded of that lesson some 35 years later.
I grew up and the summers spent at my grandparents came to an end. Not because they didn’t want me to come but because I had different priorities. I tried to visit but it just didn’t fit into the things I wanted to do. Eventually my grandmother died and my grandfather was left to fend for himself. I continued to try to visit, but again, my priorities were different. Unfortunately, he became sick and had to be placed in a nursing home. It was a sad time but it had to happen. Ultimately he died and the house was put up for auction as well as all of the items in it. Some of the family took the heirlooms that were important to them, but most items sold in the auction.
Many years later, I was out with a friend doing some yard sale shopping when I came upon this old weather-beaten pan. It was rust-covered and probably still sitting there because who would pay $1 for a beat up old pan? But underneath all that rust and dirt was a cast iron fry pan. I picked it up and almost dropped it remembering how hot the handle could be. All those memories of the times I had with my grandmother came flooding back to me. I could almost smell the bacon sizzling from that pan. I had to have it. I brought it home, cleaned up and now it has become a weekend tradition in our family… the smell of fresh brewed coffee and bacon grease from an old cast iron fry pan… how can you beat that?
© Crackerberries 2011
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