Young Fun

The saying is true "You don't know what you've got til it's gone". I look back on my childhood and realize I took for granted many things.

When I was growing up, my paternal Grandparents owned a country store which was attached to their house. Now, the "town" they lived in was very tiny; you could probably throw a football from one end to the other. It consisted of a couple houses, a bar, the creamery and my Grandparent's store/house which even had a gas pump! The store was by no means huge but it had necessities: soda cooler with glass bottles of soda, snacks, a little meat case, tobacco shelves and the best part...bins of in-the-shell peanuts. I can't tell you how many peanuts I ate over the years! Plus, there was the requisite pair of rocking chairs in the front window so the farmers could come in, have a pop, sit and watch the world go by for a few minutes.

We would drive to my Granparent's every weekend. It was about a 90 minute drive and we did this every Friday night and we'd come back on Sunday. We'd usually stay at my maternal Grandma's farmhouse since there was more room but Sunday dinners were always at Grandma and Grandpa's.

As kids, we absolutely loved being at that store. We always hung out with my uncle's kids who we were closest in age to. I was the youngest (by 15 months!) so sometimes I ended up being left behind. For instance, Grandma had lawn jarts. Do you know what jarts are? They are missiles of death, basically. They're lawn darts but jarts were actually made of metal. It was only a 4 person game so I was always left out because I was the youngest and, I will admit, very accident prone so they were worried I'd poke my eye out. Then, there was the creamery. We were told time and again that we were not to go to the creamery but...Okay, it was basically in the backyard! And the rollers were just too fun to roll down! Yes, we got in trouble but we didn't care!

Our favorite thing was to play "commercials". One kid would be the judge and the other four would have to pick a product off the shelf and make up a commercial. I swear, we could play that for hours. We'd giggle like hyenas because we all thought we were so creative! If someone would walk into the store, a chorus of "Grandma! Customer!" would ring throughout the house and we'd scurry to put our products back on the shelf.

Being the youngest, I was the one who always had to do the "dirty work" so to speak. We always wanted a pop and for some odd reason, were always afraid to ask. So I was always picked to go ask Grandma if we could have a pop. She never said no but we were always afraid to ask. (My cousin's wife gives him much grief over making me do this! Thanks, Jenny!)

The store hasn't been in our family for over 22 years now but I can still see it perfectly in my head. Grandpa passed away in 1986 and Grandma is going to be 95 in June. When we all get together, we still laugh about the things we did and the fun we had. It was such a simple time all those years ago: no cell phones, no video games, 4 or 5 stations on the television and so much fun at that country store. What I wouldn't give to have an icy cold bottle of pop, a handful of peanuts and one final game of jarts.

Those were the days.