Memories

As a family tradition we always have a time where we each are able to share one special memory of those whose birthday it is. Tonight it was my Grandpa's birthday (G.P.) and since it was his special night we were able to share some of our favorite memories of him, and it got me to thinking... I really should post some of those things (since I'm prone to forget). :)

Some of my favorite memories of G.P. are when he took my cousin Katie & I on a camping trip in the "Griz" his R.V. that had a miniature statue of a grizzly bear on the dashboard. Unlike when he took the boy who went to Alaska we went right around the bend in Florida not 2 hours from where we lived. You would think we'd be bummed out by this idea, nope I think we may have been far more excited than the boys. A whole weekend with just Gram & Geep and ourselves. Glorious. We did everything from help navigate with the compass in the front seat of the Griz to help set up the overhang and hook up the R.V. to the Lot. One of my favorite weekends thats for sure.

G.P. & Gram also used to own a Self-Storage Rental place. I adored going over to visit them. They had this wonderful little garden in the back of their "house" and I used to spend hours playing make-believe. Me and my cousins used to play hide-and-go-seek in the Self-Storage buildings in the dark and would "tag people" with the light of the flash lights we would carry. We never wanted to stop playing that game. Sometimes G.P. & Gram would let Katie and I play "office" in the real office when visitors were not in, or the office was closed and G.P. would load us up with some old notebooks, calculators & pens. We used to pretend that we were helping people find, locate & purchase flights and help answer questions like the people at the airports do. :) While we were hard at work G.P. would get us two cups of ice cold Cranberry Juice & a napkin full of cheese-its. Till this day this is still one of our favorite snacks. G.P. really was the one that taught me how to drive, and helped distill in me a love for it. The day I turned 11 I was allowed to drive the golf cart all by myself to and fro around the mini storage. I spent hours upon hours parking in spare lots and backing out. He used to ride around with me and taught me about the right of way, yielding and all those valuable lessons.

They also used to own this house that my Aunt & Uncle & Cousins lived in. This house was so wonderful. I adore it. It had a beautiful back yard, & super cool pool with a rock fountain that leaks into it and a jacuzzi tub. I spent a lot of time in the pool... oh the memories! There was a lot next door that Katie & I used to explore, we thought there were gators there and would run and walk in zig-zagged lines just in case. Sometimes we would plan out what our line of action would be just in case a gator attacked us. We always did have wild imaginations. :)

G.P. also owned this canoe that he would allow us to take on the small lake behind their house. We tried to make fishing pools out of sticks and wire and a paperclip we sharpened with our pocket Knives. (haha) We would bait the "hooks" with bread and or little worms we dug up in the backyard. Needless to say we never caught anything. But we always had a grand time at it!

Past the little lake there was a park with a really cool board walk, we used to take walks or ride our bikes down there every week. I love that place.

G.P. was always big on NASA and watching the space shuttle or rockets being launched and Descending. We'd wake up at the crack of dawn to go and watch them boom their way into space, and he'd always stop by some restaurant on the way home to grab his cup of black & bitter coffee and either a good biscuit or a white powdered donut.

When Gram's mom died we had a funeral on the beach and tossed her remainings into the ocean "her love", then we sang a song. "There is a Day" We wept together, but G.P. wept the loudest. Till this day this still happens to be his favorite song, and every time He sings it, He weeps. (I love this about Him)