The Bauer Confidential

Grandma and grandpa’s house didn’t have the conventional toys that I remember, no swings, though there were some bikes and trikes parked in the garage that we’d haul out and endlessly peddle up and down the sidewalk. As children, my cousins and I spent untold hours simply playing in the gravel of the driveway. I know this sounds boring, but it was endlessly fascinating at the time, filtering through the rocks, looking for the prettiest or the smoothest, chatting with the cousins who were, at that time, some of my closest friends. We would play hide-and-seek for hours, daring each other to hide in the “Red room”, one of the upstairs bedrooms that we were all convinced was haunted. The older cousins took pride in telling scary stories that would keep the younger ones up all night.

The house has changed quite a bit since I was little. There used to be a large front porch, with wooden railings on all sides. We would run from the yard to the porch, dash through sprinklers, build forts, sun burn our noses and splash in kiddie pools. One of my clearest memories comes from 1984, I was captivated by the summer Olympics, particularly the gymnastic events. Mary Lou Retton on the balance beam inspired me to walk up and down the porch railings for day, pretending it was my beam, turning and twisting, but never working up the guts to try anything really acrobatic (which is probably for the best). Many years ago the porch was converted into a family room, where most of us grandkids spent entire Christmas vacations, watching cartoons and eating grandma’s fudge.

In the summers when we were outside grandma would yell to us through the kitchen window, which was always open since there was no air-conditioning in the house then. She’d call us in for lunch, dinner, or bedtime, but the rest of the time we spent running around getting dirty, with occasional excursions to the city pool. Meals were, and still are, a highlight at grandma and grandpa’s. Grandma is a great cook, the proud purveyor of the world’s best fried chicken and apple pies. Every one of us grandkids had a favorite food, and if we were visiting her alone, grandma would try to make our favorite dishes (and she still does). For a while grandma and her oldest daughter ran a catering business in town, making tons of fresh rolls and refrigerator pickles for class reunions and weddings. There’s something you have to understand about my grandmother, she can fry up three chickens like it’s nothing. Coming from a large family and having a large one herself, I think it must be second nature for her to make prodigious quantities of food. I sometimes wonder if the transition to cooking for just the two of them was difficult.

Both of my grandparents have a tremendous work ethic, probably born out of the destitution of the great depression. Backbreaking work is embraced and done enthusiastically; free time is a luxury I think they both look on suspiciously. In addition to my grandfather’s grueling work in the fields, until he started having breathing problems a few years ago, when he wasn’t on a tractor he was usually in the garage, welding sickles, fixing who knows what, taking occasional breaks to go fishing. Grandma had a lot of tiring jobs herself. In addition to keeping a house that is eternally spotless, grandma has worked cleaning hotel rooms, catering, and running the now defunct Cafe downtown. I remember her behind the counter, taking orders and dishing up dinners. Whenever I would go there, whether I was with my Dad, or with my mother and step-father after my parents divorced, grandma would give me a cherry-chip cookie. Once, a few years back, I found cherry-chips at a grocery store and quickly bought a bag. I made cookies with them, but they lacked the magic of the cookies of my memory. Perhaps the recipe wasn’t quite the same, but I think it’s more likely that they weren’t flavored by the love of a grandma, it’s a powerful spice.

To be continued….