Doughnuts Anyone.....

I noticed on my news home page this morning that today is National Doughnut Day. Two things came to mind when I saw that. The first being the idea that we have a special day for everything here in the USA. Do we really need a labeled day for eating super fattening sugar dripping items? But my second thought was more along the lines of memories. I guess I have been thinking memories a lot lately. I am usually a "live in the now" person and don't think about the past so all of these little strolls have been nice.

Doughnuts:

All through my growing up years, my Portuguese grandma...my Nana, would make Malasadas. It is a yeast doughnut with a yellow inside and no hole. She would drop it by big spoonfuls into cooking oil. In a matter of maybe two short minutes, the goo would cook and become a brilliant deep golden brown. Then she would dip the finished blob, the size of 2 fists put together, into a pot of thin sugary glaze. Whenever she made these doughnuts, she would create huge batches of it to share with all of the family. Because of that it would be an all day job and the house would smell heavenly for days afterwards. Bags of Malasadas would be in the refrigerator and freezer for our convenient grabbing. As if that wasn't a treat enough, Nana would then take the doughnuts and cut them up into slices. She would then either toast them or fry them in a breakfast pan with a bit of butter.

With my new found thinking on eating more healthy, I have no desire to run out and grab doughnuts today. But with the memories floating around in my mind, I just might ask Nana if she would like some help in making some Malasadas so we can have them again.

(Here is a picture of me with Nana just a couple of months ago. She would flip out and crown me a good one if she knew I posted her picture here. It was one of the rare occasions when she actually allowed her picture to be taken.)

For now though, I need to run to the grocery store and get ingredients for a feast tonight. I am doing the spaghetti and bread thing for everyone. Students and parents are going to be in my living room tonight to watch Inherit the Wind. Have you ever seen it before? A dear friend introduced me to it a couple of years ago and it is now one of my favorites. I haven't told the students much of anything about it. Instead I want them to watch it, feel it, get justifiably angry, and then we will talk about how the pride and arrogance of people applies to us today.

Floating on a Raft....

Here come those memories again. I was looking at some of Quilly's beach photo's last night and my mind floated back to a time when we lived in Hawaii.

Quilly's photo brought to my mind a memory of being at Bellows Beach with my parents. I had to have been between 3 and 4 years old. My dad had me in water that was waist high for him. I was sitting on a body raft and giggling in the moment. I can remember my dad smiling and saying, "Angel, can you find Mommy? She is an awful good swimmer and just might sneak up on you." At that point I leaned over for a look in the water and saw my beautiful mom swim under me. It sticks in my mind that she had on a yellow swim suit with red colors on it, maybe flowers, and she swam with her sunglasses on. I remember that the water was so very clear, so clear that it had no color. The ripple of the waves mixing with the sunlight made intricate patterns of shadow on the sandy floor. The water always tasted yucky but it was always so warm and inviting.

I was just a little girl when my dad was stationed at the Air Force base. I think I was maybe a year old and we lived there until I finished 1st grade (early memories are so fuzzy). Being so young, my memories are snippets of pictures and feelings. All of these snippets include the joys of family. My mom had done much of her own growing up in Hawaii and had many relatives there.

I remember being at Nana and Grandpa's house a lot. In my mind, their house was huge with big open rooms. There was a front concrete patio with a brick wall. Along the driveway there was a rock retaining wall that led to the road. I can remember someone holding my balance as I stood on that wall to watch the 4th of July fireworks. The smells were so strong and the loud noises muffled because my dad put his flight line headset over my ears.

I remember going for walks with Nana around the neighborhood and telling the barking dogs "no-no".
Here is a funny one.....I remember faking coughs so that I could sip Nana's homemade cough syrup that was always on the refrigerator door. It was a mild concoction of honey, lemon, and rum.

I remember our own 2 story home. My cousin would come over to visit on a regular basis and we would play our imaginative games. Always our role playing was about pretending to be grownups and it was always a race to be the first to proclaim that there was coffee in our pretend cups.
I remember a neighbor boy named Calvin and how we were always teased that we would grow up to be married to each other because we played so well together.

I remember my dad taking me to school one day. For some reason that I don't remember, school had already started and it was to be my first day in class. When we showed up, the class was getting ready for a field trip to the zoo and I was given the option of attending with them or going back home. I can remember thinking, "of course I am going back home. I am not going to spend the day at the zoo with people I don't know."

I remember in school that I had a friend named Susan. Once we did a presentation as a whole class in Polynesian dance. We spent weeks making grass skirts by rolling newspaper around pieces of straw and gluing them into place. On the day of performance, we had to go to school in our swim suits, preferably bikini style. With leis around our necks and flowers in our hair, we did dance arrangements with balls on string. I don't remember the name of them but it was a skilled art form and we had to do it a certain way. Each of us had two of these balls on string. We spun them in circles and made them bounce in pattern back and forth as we alternated hands. I remember a man there dressed in royal finery to resemble King Kamehameha. My mom still laughs at the scene as she remembers that I was the only fair skinned redhead on the group and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Another big memory for me in Hawaii is going to the zoo. Though I didn't go on that day with my new classmates, it was always an experience I looked forward to. What sticks out in my most is a bridge that went over the giraffe habitat. I remember that I would run ahead up to that bridge, sit down on the side, and share my roasted peanuts with the giraffe. The bridge was just high enough that the giraffe had to stick its tongue out and up to enjoy my delights. I would always cringe and laugh at the same time as I felt the roughness of that tongue.

Now it is time for me to get back into the world of today. This has been fun though. Thank you for sitting and sharing a few minutes with me and my memories.

What I Remember....

Memories resurface when we least expect them to. They can show up from a myriad of different tugs that instantly recall a scene. Triggers can come from smells and sounds, similar feelings and situations, and even things read and heard. The past couple of weeks for me has been an accumulation of all the above to bring back childhood memories, specifically visits with my grandmother.

My dear grandmother was my father's mother. Though I have mentioned Grandmother only once before here, she has always been close to me in my heart. Often times, I will look at situations and decisions that need to be made and without even realising it I will ask myself, "What would Grandmother do?"

I loved my childhood visits to Grandmother's house. It was like stepping into Mayberry. For a chunk of my childhood, we were stationed at an Air Force base a mere 8 hours away from Grandmother's home in the small backwoods of Chatham, Louisiana. It was such a different way of life and the experiences never became old. Our every day lives were pretty fast paced with school and both parents working. Not that that was a bad thing mind you. It is just that the gears would stop with every mile that we would get closer to that little town. Though I knew how long the drive would be, I would always ask, "Are we there yet? How much longer until we get there?" I knew those mile markers and I knew where all of the turns were. I even knew for a fact that the hands of time worked against me in making minutes slow down as we made each corner.

To this very day, I could take you there right now with my eyes closed.
Do you smell the wetness in the air? That is the lake. Do you hear the toads and crickets chirping their songs? Do you hear the rocks catching in the tire tread? Here comes the general store just before the flashing light. Boy, the town folk were sure proud to get that flashing yellow light. Over there are the railroad tracks. We will take a left there......bump bump bump. Now a right down Davis Street and to the end. Do feel the shade of the big trees as we drive under them? It is so cool and refreshing against the sweltering heat. To the left is Aunt Olie and Uncle Calvin's house. They will want us to pop in for some sun brewed ice tea when we are refreshed. There on the left, there is Grandmother coming out of her screened in front porch. She is wiping her hands on a kitchen towel because she was making some special vittles for us. "Traveling like that is sure to make a person hungry", she says as her hugs squeeze the breath out of our bodies.

I remember so much about Grandmother. She was firm and absolute in her resolve while her heart was molded with gold that shone so bright to everyone within her grasp. She had the resilient strength in character to raise 6 strapping boys and 3 grandchildren while her heart bore the grief of living through the deaths of 2 husbands, a baby girl, and 4 of her grown boys. A person never ever thought of answering Grandmother without ending their sentence with "Ma'am". I don't ever remember not saying "yes Ma'am" to Grandmother. Not because she demanded it, but because she was worthy of the respect. I remember early on, never wanting to do anything that would hurt Grandmother, simply because I loved her so.

Those short visits were filled with all sorts of memories; shucking corn and catching crawdads, softball games and my cousin's big old dog named Bear, family reunions, honey bees and Daddy Long legged spiders, learning to drive a riding lawn mower and shotgun target practice, Grandmother's special gumbo and her southern style biscuits. As I play every memory out they all circle back around to Grandmother.

When my husband and I married, we were stationed just a few hours away from Grandmother. It was always s joy to get to have a three day weekend and spend it in her company.
I remember that it was because of Grandmother that everyone decided my husband was "alright" and accepted. See, no one in the family liked that this older man had swept young little me off my feet. But Grandmother declared, "In the short weekend of their first visit he was polite, changed my car oil and fixed my ceiling fan. To top it off, he makes our little Julie smile so what more could we ask for?" Then she rounded it off with, "Looking at them together, why they are just cuter than a speckled pup under a red wagon." That simple statement was all anyone needed.

Grandmother's house was my home away from home. When my husband was called away in the middle of the night to serve in Desert Shield, it was summer time and I was left with his two small children. Thoughts of re booking their plane tickets and sending them home early to their momma never even occurred to me. As they walked around the house in a daze, clutching their daddy's photo and wondering if they would see him again, my only thought was to take them to the place where I always had peace....Grandmother's house. There we were just a few hours later and there was Grandmother with her open arms full of acceptance and love. She helped wipe away the children's' tears and comforted me in all of her knowing ways.
The kids, now ages 25 and 28 years, still bring up those special days at Grandmother's house.

When I had my first baby, I couldn't wait to take her to see Grandmother. Though Grandmother had countless grandchildren and great grandchildren by that time, that didn't stop her from ooh-ahhing over my little girl and showing her off to everybody in town.

I hold dear all of our visits. We would often sit out on the screened in front porch early in the morning and talk about Bible and family, times past and times to come. Sometimes we would giggle and sometimes just breathe deeply and not say anything at all.

Sitting here now at my keyboard, I can still feel the slow sway of the porch swing and hear the creak of the chains going back and forth. I can see her smiling next to me with a little girl grin as we share a fresh batch of instant chocolate pudding. "I like it the best", she says, "when not all of the pudding mixes up with the milk. Then you get little clumps of powder in your spoon and it is like a secret treasure surprise."

Oh Grandmother you are our treasure and I love you so.
Thank you for blessing us all with the specialness of you over the years.

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(David at Authorblog honored this post and my dear Grandmother with giving it a mention as post of the day. I am so grateful to share Grandmother with everyone.)