A Future That is From My Past

I've been thinking about my grandparents lately. Three of them were born in 1910 and one grandfather a few years before that.  I never knew him, the older one; he died when my mother was pregnant with me.  Can you imagine their lives?  Working at a high school I see students that leave with big expectations of what they will do as adults, just as my grandparents did. They became an adult, got married in 1928 or '29 and began a family.  Then the world changes.

I never really talked to my grandparents about their lives, at least not the hard times.  My parents filled in some of the details, but they couldn't or wouldn't share the thoughts of their parents.  On one side my grandfather left his young family in the Midwest and moved to California to find work.  He found a job as a ranch hand for $1 an hour, saved for a year, went back and got my grandmother and father and moved them to California.  My grandfather worked for Mr. Powell the rest of his life. My father, his brothers, myself and my brother all worked for Mr. Powell at one time or another.  Maybe that's where I learned loyalty.

My maternal grandfather worked and owned a few businesses, turkey farmer and gas station, before losing them during the Depression.  He eventually became a truck driver, first long haul back and forth from Southern Cal to Texas.  In time he moved his family back to the Central Valley and he hauled gas for a local distributor.

When I really think of my grandparents, I recall my grandmothers.  Both of them had gardens in my earliest memories. After my grandfather died, Grandma W became a nurse, but still had a garden until she moved into an apartment.  She had berry vines that we learned to be careful around, but sure enjoyed the fruits.  After her move she grew flowers and she taught me to dislike Bermuda grass and to be diligent in cleaning any beds of the invasive roots.  To this day I am found digging deep to cleanse the earth of Bermuda stolons.

Grandma G lived in the country with Grandpa in a house on one of the Powell ranches.  This was prime land in the Four Creeks area of our county near where the first white people settled.  The land was between two rivers and Grandma G always talked about how the soil was so rich because of the periodic flooding between the rivers.  She grew almost everything, but her cherry tomatoes, potatoes and onions are what I remember.  One Saturday I was with my father at work.  We stopped by Grandma and Grandpa's for "dinner" on the way home.  "Dinner" was in the middle of the day to those Midwestern raised people and the meal reminded me of Thanksgiving.  Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn and iced cream for dessert.  I had never seen such a meal prepared in the middle of the day except at Thanksgiving.  Later I asked and my father explained that is how my grandparents ate.  Working on a farm, a big meal was needed to give energy to complete the work. He also reminded me that much of the food was grown by Grandma also.

So as we have moved into the growing and raising of our food, I think of those that came before us.  We do it because we want to have some control of our food. They did it because that had to.  But will we have to in the near future? I often look at what is happening and think we are preparing for our future. A future that will be reminiscent of my grandparents.