NANA'S MEMORIES

Bear with me as I re-post from last Valentine's Day. I rarely get a Valentine's card from my hubby...but he always changes the oil in my car. He rarely buys me candy either...but he always saves the last Twizzler in the package for me. I do not remember him buying me many cut flowers...but he digs the holes to plant my azaleas. He does not take me out to eat much...but he never complains if we have scrambled eggs for supper. We do not vacation together very often...but he will travel anywhere I am to change a flat tire on my car. He sometimes tracks mud in on my clean floors...but he takes his boots off every night at my house.

I was thinking of Valentine's Day gifts today and wondered whether Uncle Howard bought romantic gifts for Aunt Dorcas. If he did, she did not tell me about them.  He used to go to the corner store every morning to buy her a six ounce bottle of cold Coca Cola. I remember Dorcas was crazy about him. Uncle Howard dated the Mother of one of my high school friends. I won't say who...just in case. Aunt Dorcas and Aunt Lizzy shared the same anniversary date. It was not planned that way but the two couples often went out to eat for their anniversary. She and Uncle Howard came to spend the night with us when we lived in Flat Rock. They chose the bedroom with just a twin bed. She said they liked to sleep close. It was a big family joke that when Howard came to visit he brought his chain saw and cut back all of Grandma's trees. We wondered if they would survive each new cut. They camped at Piney Bay every summer. Before they paved the road to Piney Bay, Dad...

The pelicans have returned to the Arkansas River. I don't know where they are wintering here from. Photo courtesy of 123fotography The pelicans line up along a sand bar between our bank of the river and Goose Island. I don't have a camera that will capture a good image so I am using a photo my cousin took of the pelicans up river from our place.

My daughter Laura and my niece Debbie attended the same day care when they were 3 and 4 years old respectively. As with most day cares, they served nutritionally balanced lunches that many of the children did not like.  Jody, Debbie, Jason, and Laura I learned years later that my niece would eat my daughter's spinach so she could have a second helping of chicken.

My youngest grandaughter was recently grounded from television and all electronic devices. When I asked her what she did all day her response was, "Oh, I just dance."

I know I have not been blogging lately so have no right to be bragging but.......I wanted to tell you about my grandson's budding basketball career. You remember Blake, don't you? He and I share the same birthday and sometimes vacation together. Ten year old Blake began playing basketball last year but broke his arm on Thanksgiving and had to sit the season out.  This year's season just completed with his team undefeated. Blake is small but very quick and able to steal the ball quite well from the bigger boys. He rarely shoots the ball but did make a fantastic hook shot that one of the parents captured on video.

This is an apron Grandma gave me when I first married.  I'm not sure whether she actually wore it or made it especially for me.  While I hate to admit I rarely wore it, all of my grandchildren have wrapped it around themselves when we baked cookies - even my grandson. I remember watching from a rusty metal gate overgrown with orange trumpet vines as Grandma carried two heavy buckets of frothy warm milk toward the shingle sided house. Escaping the tightly braided knot at the nape of her neck, one long wispy tendril of Cherokee Indian black hair trailed around the thin earpiece of her wire rimmed glasses. An ever present bib style apron covered her plain cotton shirtwaist dress. The apron was as white as the milk in the buckets and had been laundered so often she could have easily used it to strain both buckets full of milk. As she stepped inside the too warm kitchen, she kicked off the black rubber boots she wore to the milking shed and ...