Grandma's house

 After posting a question regarding an object from the past, a coal scuttle. I did enjoy the responses. A small conversation was sparked, really smoldering because that's what coal does, without the smoke. That was a poor attempt at a metaphor. I was reminded once again of being at Grandmother Bennetts house as a child. Looking back I can honesty compare that to a Norman Rockwell illustration. I wasn't aware of that at the time, it was just Grandma's house. A childhood memory that has become a real treasure to hold. The sights, the sounds, and the smells are all vivid in my mind. An old familiarity, a comfort. 

 You know as a child you don't think about the realities of living. What I mean by that is paying the bills, or that indeed, it costs money to live. Children tend to think of money as something you need to buy the things you want, like potato chips and soda. My grandmother had bills to pay like everyone else and thinking back, I marvel that she was able to do so. She was a "laundress" that would have been the occupation recorded on her income tax form. Whether she received social security payments or not I couldn't say. I know very little about any of that. When I was a child, children weren't involved with the grown up stuff like bills. I was told whether we could afford something or not, simple as that. If you wanted something more, I was told to work for it, get a job. I never heard that it wasn't fair, I was told that was how the world works! Some have and some have not, not a matter of what is fair, a matter of fact.

 Grandmother Bennett always wore an apron with big pockets. Yes, her hair was in a bun on the back of her head. I don't recall ever seeing it any other way, but my Mother assured me it would reach to her waist. Nana, as I called her wore house dresses, stockings, and bedroom slippers. Surely she had a pair of regular shoes but I don't remember ever seeing them. But as a kid I never gave any of that a thought. In the pocket of that apron she carried a small change purse. There would be a few dollars folded up in there along with some change. Sometimes when the Dugan man came she would reach in there and buy me a bag of chips, and that was a real treat. Potato chips then weren't commonly found in the supermarket and it was special. But Grandma could and would on occasion bake the most wonderful cookies and pastries. It was an art she had gone to school for many years back, when she was still just a young woman. And she did so in that old coal burning stove. Adding just the right amount of coal and arranging those embers was an art in itself. She would wet her finger with her tongue and strike that stove. You could hear a sizzle when it was just right. The smell of that baking did fill the house and seemed to linger in the air. 

 Her house was a smaller wooden structure that had been added onto over the years. As a result you had to step up when leaving the kitchen, which was the original part of the house. That portion had been moved to its' location from down to Amagansett. It had served as a sort of stage stop in the past. It was a place were travelers to Montauk would stop, rest the horses, and get a drink or something to eat. I guess you could say an early convenience store. With the advent of automobiles it was longer being used, purchased and moved to the lot it sat on. Grandpa and Grandma had ten children! That's why it was added onto. The front portion of the house was two stories high and had three bedrooms. The downstairs portion was Grandma's bedroom, the parlor and the living room. The house was cedar shingled, roof and sides, as was common back then. Smaller double hung windows that rattled when the wind blew hard and a screen door with a spring to slam it shut. Yes, it was like a Norman Rockwell illustration. A much simpler time. 

 Today nothing remains of that home. I heard that it became a victim of arson at some point. I also heard that what remained of that structure after the fire was sold. The way I heard it someone wanted that wooden frame that had comprised that weigh station. It was made of oak timbers, pegged together, with mortise and tenon joints. The tale is, the wrecking ball of the crane hit those timers and just bounced off. Work was halted. The pegs had to be drilled out and the timbers disassembled. I never heard the final fate of those timbers but that they were going to be repurposed by someone, someone with a lot of money to spend. I've looked on Google earth and all that is there is a vacant lot, overgrow with brush, I think maybe preserved as a sanctuary from progress and the modern world. Still I remember that home that stood there and the memories made inside that home. My mother was the last born in that house and she celebrated her 91st birthday this past September. She still speaks of her own fond memories in that house filled with love. I do have a hand drawn sketch of that house on a Christmas card made by my Aunt Anna. A bit of nostalgia worthy of Norman Rockwell himself. I should get that card out, frame it, and display it. It may be that I'm the last to have memories of that house, one never knows. I do remember Grandmother Bennett keeping a goose wing under that stove. She used it as broom to clean out the ashes in the stove, or sometimes, rarely, she would grab that goose wing and threaten to use it on my bottom! Yes, Grandma could be fierce and I never challenged her authority. Really though, she was the quintessential Grandma.