The Bauer Confidential

Beach on PCH1 before Half Moon Bay, California.  June 2008

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Factory Hairnet Policy, Berkeley, CA.  June 2008

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Here are a few pictures from the Orsborn Summer Vacation. I’ve been meaning to post these for sometime, but better late than never I guess.

You’d think with nearly 20 grandkids running rampant around their place that grandparents could get pretty grouchy, but I can’t remember either of them ever seeming tired of us. They both seem to love kids, and not just the ones they’re related to. My grandmother seems to have a magical touch with babies; when her children were young, my mother’s sister would run into my grandma at the Eagle’s club and grandma would easily quiet the crying babes which quickly feel asleep in her arms. Grandpa is more the jolly type, the kind that makes little kids laugh and smile. I remember as a little girl crawling into his lap and feeling his scratchy face on my cheek when he’d give me hugs (I know the man shaves, but he seems to have a perpetual five o’clock shadow). He smiled and joked with me, smelling like Dawn dish soap and engine grease.

There aren’t many kids running around the place these days. Even the youngest grandchildren are well past the little stage. Now you’ll occasionally find one of the few great-grandchildren getting spoiled by grandma and grandpa. At least one thing hasn’t changed there, and it’s the cards. There is always at least one deck of cards on top of the fridge, and usually another couple tucked away in the candy cabinet (they cabinet we grandkids used to scale chairs and each others shoulders to raid the sweets). When you go to visit my grandparents, most of the time is spent sitting around the kitchen table, yapping and playing cards. Sometimes there were multi-player games like cribbage, but mostly we play solitaire. Generally only one person would play cards, the others would chat away about this and that, but miss a move or make a mistake with the cards, and grandpa is all over it. “What are you doing?!? Put that five on that six. Good. Good. Now the three on the four. Spade on a spade” grandpa will say in a voice so gruff you’d think he was angry if you didn’t know better.  But it’s always followed by a smile or a laugh, and back to the conversation at hand. When I was younger I used to find these interruptions irritating, but now I think it’s endearing, and I win a lot more with grandpa’s help (he’s a shark).

As I write about these facts and put down my memories, I realize there is so much I don’t know about my grandparents. How did they meet? Why did they move to town? I think that I’ve heard stories about these things, but I’ve either forgotten or wasn’t paying attention in the first place. My grandparents are great storytellers, especially grandpa. He calls all the women he’s related to “Sis.” Grandma is “Ma” or “Grandma” and occasionally “Dode” (short for grandma’s nickname, which is derived from Wynona). I know I don’t call my grandparents enough. My grandpa calls me occasionally, and I’m not keeping up my end of the deal. I have no good excuses. So this weekend I resolve to give them a call and ask them some questions, and really listen to their answers. Maybe next year, for their 60th anniversary, I’ll be able to write a better piece about them, but more importantly I’ll know them better.

Congrats Grandma and Grandpa. I love you guys tons!

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….

June 25th is my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. This year they will celebrate 59 years together. I can’t think of them without smiling. They are quite the pair, very special people; loving and kind, warm and funny, the best kind of grandparents anyone could possibly have. Their story is fairly typical for their generation in many ways, but extraordinary for mine.

My grandmother was born during the dust bowl, my grandfather a bit before. They grew up in the rural Nebraska Sand Hills. The oldest daughter in a family of many children, my grandmother married my grandfather at the tender age of 15. Grandpa was a few years older; he graduated from high school, which was pretty rare for that time. He bought my grandmother’s wedding dress for her and a stove as a gift for her family. Their first child was born when my grandmother was just 16, and they went on to have five more; my father is the second oldest. Growing up my father and his siblings lived on a farm outside of town, they tell many amusing stories of the place, the animals, the joy of growing up with so much space to be free. For reasons I’m not privy to, the family moved into town and into the house my grandparents still occupy.

The children grew up, got married, had children of their own (16 of us, and 3 step-grandkids were also welcomed into the mix), and those children have had their own children as well. Though money was never plentiful, the family life was always rich. Grandpa bailed hay until only a few years ago, driving huge bailers and mowers all day in the hot Nebraska sun. I remember as a child the equipment they used, some of it was parked at my grandparents house. It probably wasn’t safe to climb over sickles and other pieces of large farm equipment, but at some point in time I think pretty much all of us grandkids old enough to have been around then did it anyway. A lot of family members worked with grandpa in the fields. My father, a teacher, used to spend the summers bailing hay with grandpa, several other aunts, uncles and cousins did as well. One hell of a family business.

To be continued….

Disclaimer: any factual errors are the result of my fuzzy memory and not an attempt to embellish or alter the truth.

OK, not an invasion really. My family is coming to visit us, all the way from Nebraska. They fly in tomorrow, and arrive in SF around midnight. I think with the two hour time difference, by the time we get their luggage and get them to our place, they’ll be silly with sleep deprivation. And one other tiny little thing, there are five of them, all coming to stay in our two bedroom apartment. Granted, our apartment is quite spacious, especially for Berkeley, but there’s going to be a lot of couch crashing and air mattress occupation. It’s a good thing public transit is so convenient in our area, because there’s no way to shove all seven of us into our Mazda3. I’m really excited to show them the area. Most of them have never been to California, so I think the visit will be educational, at the very least.

I’ve been using this visit as a good excuse to finally get off my hiney and do some spring cleaning. The house is looking pretty good, if I do say so myself, and I do. I’m trying to decide if hardwood floors are more or less work than carpet. Now what to cook for seven people? I’m planning lasagna, pot roast, and maybe chili, but after than I’m lost. There’s always take-out!

If you don’t hear much from us for the next week, we’re busy playing tourist in the bay area! Watch out beaches, here we come!