July. My grandmother passed away on the last day of July 1989 and my grandfather died on the first day of July four years later. I have always thought how strange, how ironic, it is that they both died in the summertime because it is summer with which I inevitably associate them.Surely there were Christmases and Easters and just plain Sunday afternoons spent with Meem and Gramps across the first forty years of my life, but no memories linger like my summer vacations. These could last from just a few days to a couple of weeks at a time and a mere telephone call home could make them even longer than they were planned to be in the first place. It was often an impromptu decision, hearing at the end of one of their visits, “If you want to come back with us, you’d better go pack your clothes”!
Better yet, there were even built-in playmates because I have six cousins on that side of the family so it was usually me and a couple of them and, maybe, after a week or so one of them would have to go home only to be replaced by someone else (or two). If I stayed long enough, I would see them all.
For my entire life, my grandparents lived in the same house on Crawford Street in Uniontown, PA. The street went uphill and theirs was the second house on the left. It stood out because it was the only house on the street that had a double lot so the lower side was a big sloping yard to play in. Sometimes just rolling like a log down this hill was a game in itself and, while I certainly don’t roll down hills any more (at least not on purpose), even walking down a hill can evoke memories of this place. So anyway, it was a big side yard. In the back yard there was a huge willow tree (you can see it in the picture above), suited equally well for climbing or for swinging, located near the garden shed and what had once been a chicken coop.
Meem and Gramps also had a grape arbor that separated their yard from their next-door neighbors, the Slaters. I remember them for two things: Mrs. Slater, a big, friendly woman who seemed to hang wash seven days a week and Mr. Slater, short and hunched over, more of a curmudgeon and also, apparently, a rabbit hunter. I still wince thinking of the day when, for reasons long forgotten (or suppressed), I walked into their basement and came eye level with a row of dead rabbits hanging by their back legs from a line strung across the room.
But the most notable place in the yard was the garden – my grandfather’s garden. Scrupulously tended in the back left corner, the garden took up about a fifth of the entire property and annually produced truly heroic quantities of tomatoes, beans and cucumbers not to mention a host of other vegetables. A walk up “to see how the garden was doing” was always the traditional start to any visit, even years later when Margie and I visited with our kids for yet another little summer vacation. The abundance that this piece of good earth produced also led to an almost ceremonial end to every stay, when we left with boxes and baskets full of something of everything. The aforementioned trio of vegetables dominated the garden but scallions, radishes, lettuce and cabbage were also represented. The tomato plants were tied to posts of all shapes and thickness, including rectangular stakes and the vestiges of bamboo rakes, brooms, shovels et al whose business ends had given up the ghost long ago but whose handles lived on to stand tall and serve.
Once summer ended and school began, several weeks or a couple of months might pass before I got back to Uniontown. It was always a jolt to look out at that back corner of the yard and see a miniature vacant lot, and in the center of it the long cooled, scattered ashes of burned tomato stalks, bean bushes and cabbage leaves. The garden was gone for another season, but only to come back and live again next year. This type of concomitant reflection and anticipation has stayed with me my entire life, this sense of, “It’s OK. It’s gone but only for awhile”. It is reaffirmation that works in all kinds of situations. Summer vacation is done, but we’ll come back next year; Christmas is over, but it’ll be here again before you know it.
