Memories of Mammaw and Pappaw’s House

The title of this blog is a reference to a line in Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town. In it, the central character is able to go back and review one day of her life after her death. While she is viewing her simple day, she is overwhelmed by how much she missed and took for granted during her life. She asks:

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

If I could go back to a place from my youth, I would choose my Mammaw and Pappaw’s house. It is filled with happy memories for me.

1. Tents I would take all of the kitchen chairs, bring them into the living room, and drape sheets all over the top of them. I would spend hours inside my “tent” or “cave” having imaginary adventures.
2. Stone Soup Having read the children’s story “Stone Soup,” I decided that I wanted to make some. I found a cool rock outside and Mammaw helped me in the kitchen. I added an enormous amount of salt and pepper to my stone concoction and let it simmer. I never tasted it…
3. My Little House Pappaw built this little addition onto the shed in his backyard, and it was my “Little House.” It even had its own front porch. Looking back, it way very tiny. But to little me, it was a mansion. Many hours were spent out there with my action figures having a grand old time.
4. Spider We had a dog named Spider who was an affable mutt. He endured whatever I came up with for us to play with good humor and enthusiasm. “What a dog!” I used to say in praise of him.
5. The Storm Cellar Mammaw was unhealthily afraid of storms, so naturally they had a storm cellar. This was something that Pappaw had built himself, digging a huge hole in the ground and filling with concrete. I went down the rickety wooden steps into that musty dampness many times. Pappaw always resisted going down. He prefereed to stay out and “keep an eye on the clouds.” I was always afraid he’d be whisked away.
6. Chickens They kept chickens in a pen in their backyard. I chased them way more than I should. It’s a wonder some brave rooster didn’t let me have it.
7. Green beans There was a garden in that backyard as well, and my favorite dish was the fresh green beans Mammaw would cook. Sometimes I’d want only them for a meal.
8. Rabbits As if there weren’t enough magic in that backyard from what I’ve already described, I even got to keep rabbits back there! Their pens didn’t have a bottom, so they were constantly burrowing out. Spider would happily chase them around the yard until they’d eventually go back down into their hole and back into the pen. I don’t know why they never seemed to leave the yard!
9. Appliance Magic They had this old washing machine that had these rollers that you’d pass the wet clothes through to wring the water out of them. Then the clothes would get hung outside on a line. This seemed so much cooler than the dryer we had at our house. And the clothes smelled so much better after being on that line!
10. Pappaw’s Coins He had this big zipper pouch full of old coins that I loved to look through. Indian heads and buffalo, half dollars and silver dollars. I’m sure they weren’t valuable but they certainly were fascinating.
11. The Gingerbread Man It was my favorite book and Mammaw would read it to me no matter how many times I wanted it repeated. “Run, run, fast as you can….”
12. The Scanner They had a police scanner on sort of constantly in the background. The soundtrack of my memories is “10-4, what’s your 20?”
13. Freedom I never got in trouble for anything over there. It seems like whatever crazy scheme I came up with was accepted and encouraged. I was never bad… just overly imaginative.