When I was born, we lived in the really tiny town of Portage Des Sioux, Missouri. The town sits near the spot where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers converge. My maternal grandparents lived there too and I spent a lot of time at their house. That is where my favorite childhood memories are from.
My grandma and I baked cakes and pies all the time. I can still remember sifting the Swans Down cake flour for her, and she always made a little extra pie dough so that we could cut it into strips, brush it with milk, sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon on it and then bake it. She called it "hard tack", but I'm not sure why. It was a fantastic treat! Every Sunday she made fried chicken and homemade macaroni and cheese. Oh my God, it was so good! It was my job to grate the cheddar and to "dot" the butter onto the layers of macaroni. She always made me feel like I was an indispensable part of the "team" when we cooked together.
My grandmother dropped out of school in the 3rd grade because she had to go to work and help support her family. I can't imagine that. She must have valued education, though we never really talked about it, but she was the one who taught me to "color nicely and stay inside the lines," and she taught me how to read. She taught me my numbers, and by the time I started school, I could count in English and in German. (My great-grandmother was German and it was the only language she knew, and so my grandmother also knew German, though by the time I came to be, she had forgotten much of it) They didn't have kindergarten in Portage Des Sioux, so my grandmother was my kindergarten, I suppose.
I started first grade at the public school in town. It was a one-room school house and the teacher was Mrs. Lazar. I loved her. The first row of desks (about 6 of them) was first grade, the second row was second grade, etc. There were six rows of desks. The hardwood floor was dark and shiny, and the chalkboard filled the entire front wall. Every morning we had a milk break. The milk came in little glass bottles. White cost 1/2 cent (so you paid for two days at one time if you wanted white milk), and chocolate was a penny. I vividly remember one particular morning, during spelling class, I got sick. I threw up all over my spelling book, my desk, the floor, my clothes...I was totally humiliated. I also remember that when it was your grade's turn for reading, you sat in a circle in the front of the room and read from the Dick and Jane series. I don't know what the other grades were doing while your grade was having reading, but Mrs. Lazar always had everyone on task! I remember as a third grader, getting to read with the sixth graders in their circle and telling them the words that they didn't know.
There was also one particular recess that would affect me for the rest of my life...it was kind of wet out and I was wearing red rain boots on the playground. An older boy named Richard had a dead snake hanging from the end of a stick and he was chasing some of the girls with it. He tossed it, and the snake went into my boot! I remember running into the school house and hiding under Mrs. Lazar's desk, where she was sitting grading papers. I was trembling and crying hysterically. She made him throw the snake into a ditch along the road, and I remember taking the long way home so that I didn't have to walk past it. Ever since then I have an awful fear of snakes. Anyone who knows me understands just how traumatic that incident was for me.
Looking back, I realize that we were really poor then, but I sure didn't know it. We were never bored; there was always something to do. We would pull a wagon around town and pick up pecans that had fallen from the many pecan trees and then take them back to Grandma's and shell them. We would go visit my Aunt Lee who lived a few blocks away, and she would always make us ice cream sodas. We walked down to the river with my grandmother or Aunt Marie and fish. We sat out in the swing in the evenings with my grandfather and just talked and talked. He never got tired of listening to the ramblings of 5 and 6 year-olds. We helped do the wash in the wringer washing machine. We helped grow vegetables in a huge garden and learned how to compost...though they didn't call it that. We would walk with Grandpa up to the tavern where there were always a few guys sitting at the bar drinking beer, but we came in for the ice cream cones. My grandfather was blind...he'd been blinded while repairing a car engine when my mom was only a child...so it was my job to read the newspaper to him. He loved that. We also sat and listened to the St. Louis Cardinals on the radio...old Harry Carrey was the announcer. Although he was blind, my grandfather could do almost anything. When the time came for them to put indoor plumbing in their house, he and I did it together. I was only 5 and he was blind, but we did it. He was the most amazing man.
We left Portage when I was in fourth grade. I've been back a few times just to revisit and to remember. It never fails to bring a flood of happy memories, especially of the people who continue to live in my heart today.