Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my maternal grandparents and their farmhouse on Covington Highway in Lithonia, Georgia. The house was a plain wooden farmhouse, one-story, three bedrooms, a family room, dining room and kitchen. It was painted white. There was a porch across the front of the house and a smaller porch along the side of the house.
Between that front porch and the road was a small area of grass, although mostly weeds. However, the main yard was on the side of the house and it was a swept dirt yard. At the end of each day spent there, I was covered in dirt. That may be one reason I loved spending time there-my grandparents didn’t mind how dirty I got.
My grandmother wore house dresses every day. House dresses were quite popular in the 1950s and 1960s. My grandmother continued to wear hers through the next decade until she passed away in 1979.
They always had a big garden and lots of fresh green beans, sweet potatoes, and corn every summer. Sometimes we helped pick vegetables from the garden. At dinner time, which is also known as lunch, or supper time, which some people call dinner, my cousins and I would devour multiple ears of corn.
I can picture my grandmother sitting on the glider in that dirt yard with a brown paper grocery bag full of green beans and a plastic green colander, where the beans would go as they were snapped. There is still something comforting and relaxing to me about sitting down to snap green beans and I’m sure she is the reason why. Plus, if you have a helper it is a great time to chat.
My grandfather would crumble his cornbread into a glass of buttermilk, which my brother, cousins and I thought was funny, but now I think I should try that some time. He also had a habit of letting some of his coffee spill over into the saucer. My grandmother always served coffee in a cup and saucer, never a mug.
Sweet potato pie was my grandmother’s specialty. Whatever the occasion, she would bring two sweet potato pies. That included church homecoming at the church right next door to their house, family reunions, and Christmas gatherings.
All of the foods that remind me of her are still comfort foods for me, including those sweet potato pies. She also made delicious fig preserves every year. My mom helped her put up the fig preserves in her later years. My grandparents had a large fig bush right next to the side porch.
My grandfather didn’t have a lot to say, but we knew he loved us. He worked in his garden and among his prized gourds. He wore overalls every day, except to go to church on Sunday.
My favorite spot at their house was on the front porch swing. My cousins and I played a game where we took turns claiming the cars that passed by. We were excited by the occasional sports car and not excited by the many sedans, station wagons and pickup trucks.
Maybe it’s because of these uncertain times, which I prefer to call cuckoo bird times, but these memories have been on my mind a lot lately and they still make me smile.