My sister was 8 years older than I. She and my brother had the bedrooms upstairs. I use to sneak upstairs and look around her room. She had some round music powder boxes that I loved. It was the artful carve and curve of the designs, the scent and softness of the powder, the tender lilt of the music when the lids were taken off...but mostly it was about my sister's womanliness that I so wanted to bud into myself.

I loved the things ontop of her dressers. But those music boxes were my favorites. And if I ever find them in the antique stores, I will buy them.

My mother had a vanity and atop hers, was a gorgeous doll lamp with a full cloth skirt and a fan in her hand. I had never seen women like her before. I would sit at the vanity and put on my mother's rouge and her really red 50s lipstick and look wonderously at that lady. She had perfect bowed red lips and the most provacatively lined eyes...again, a testimony to womanliness. When my mother would put on make up, which was very rare for she was a true farmer's wife, I would sit on the chair in the room and watch my mother transform into someone I barely knew...someone who had a likeness to that woman of the lamp...and I so wanted to be a part of this wonderous club....

Great story Greyson

I was 5 and just learned the joys of chewing gum. I asked everybody if they had any gum. I spent every moment I could with my grandpa, who did not chew gum. I would ask and ask like some sort of gum junkie. I think the day he got truly frustrated with it was the day we were eating lunch and he told my grandma that after lunch, he and I were going to town to get a pack of gum. I was SO excited until he told me I only got to have 4 pieces out of the pack. (trident original was all I was allowed to chew.) I knew enough not to question it, a special trip and all. I just wanted to know what was going to happen with the 5th piece. When we got back from town, he took one piece out and handed me the rest, "one a day, Pan. I'm gonna check." (he called me Pan because I was his shadow.) and he put the piece in his shirt pocket.
He woke me up for breakfast the next morning and when I got to the table, there sat the gum and an acorn next to my plate. As I looked at them, he said, "if you're going to chew that much gum, you're gonna need a gum tree. Eat up so we can go plant one." I never saw a gum tree before but, I knew that he knew his trees and I wasn't going to say a word.
We walked out to the edge of the woods with a shovel, the acorn, and the single piece of gum. He gave me the shovel and told me to dig a hole for my "seeds" as he unwrapped the gum. We put them in the hole, covered them up and walked off to wait. I asked how long it would take for a gum tree to get gum. He said they grew fast and there should be gum by the weekend.
I went home that afternoon and all I thought about for the rest of the week was if I had a gun tree or not yet. On Friday afternoon, my grandparents picked me up after I got home from school and away we went. I asked if the gum tree grew yet. I had to know! He said he thought it might have started sprouting the day before, I should check it when I got there. As soon as the car stopped by the barn, I was off like a shot to the woods to check my tree. I found it, oh boy, did I find it. There stood an oak tree, about 4 foot tall, with 6 packs of trident original gum hanging on it. Jack pot! I was the happiest boy alive at that moment. When grandpa caught up with me, he helped me get the packs off the tree and told me 6 was perfect. I could have 2 and I could give all my sisters one. (they're way older so they didn't really care about the gum anyway.) Each time, for two summers after that, when I went to their house, the tree had 6 packs on it. He did it the second year just for fun because my big mouthed sister told me he was doing it. I loved that tree, and that man.
It wasn't until a few years later, he told me how it all took place. When I left that day, he went into the woods and dug and transplanted the small oak tree exactly where we put the "seeds". The packs were held on with green twist ties, I was so happy, I never noticed those.
Some friends of mine live near my grandparents old farm. I can see my tree from the road now when I drive by.

Atlast, I wonder, do you still have that card? Cool story.

The summer after third grade I had to go to summer school for math. Tonight I remembered walking to school those mornings. God, being there was glorious in our small town. The mornings were crisp and perfect. I had no worries and life was full of fun. I didn't mind summer school at all. Afterward, my mom would have lunch ready and then we'd go swimming. That was the summer I read the Bobsy Twins and Nancy Drew. I rode a Red Chief bike, played with neighborhood boys every day and visited old Mrs. Getz because I liked her cats, Tillie and Murphy, and her cookies. Sometimes we'd play Old Maid. I played house with my first girl friend, Mary Jane. I was the dad. I really did have a terrific childhood....

http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/r...onsman/7-1.jpg

Me at 7. The nuns were always calling my mother because I was always in trouble. We lived in a big two-story house that my mother decorated beautifully. It had a sitting room that nobody was allowed to go into because she said she was saving it for Kennedy. My aunt Judy, who was 17, came to live with us after high school, and we're still close after all these years. This was the year my dad taught me to ride a bike—the same bike my cousins rode down the steps and bent the hell out of. Our house had a big front yard with lilac bushes and irises and the change of seasons were wonderful. I think I'd give anything to back to that time for just one day....

i was about 4 when we all were getting ready for church (me an 4 brothers) though how proud my mom would be of me getting all ready all by myself!!
we were all standing on the porch getting our pre church cleanleness inspection.. mom checkin theeth and ears and clothes..
i was so proud standing there in my lil dress an mary janes but when mom got to me she pulled up my lil dress to find i was wearing my brothers whitie tightie briefs an smaked my bottom "you go in there and take of you brothers underwear right now"
so i went in an took um off but ended up going to church "comando" and no one ever knew! told mom about 20 yrs later.

I hated this back in the day, but I laugh about it now.

I hated—I mean hated— my bangs cut. My mom always cut my bangs and she always cut them uneven. So to get them straight, she'd cut until there was like nothing left. I'd sit on the toilet seat and cry...

They were so short I walked around with my eyebrows raised so my bangs would look longer. I looked perpetually surprised and my mom would say,"stop that, your face is going to freeze that way!"

I hated bangs most. Second, were those goddamn anklets she made me wear.

God I miss her.

Black magnum organ
White patten leatherboots, zipper up the side

Summers at the cabin on the lake...

I have always loved this story... wish I had known my grampa. This story always makes me want to turn one of my trees into a gum tree in your grampa's honor.