Here are some memories from Julie Baker about grandma’s house:
I remember the first couple time I saw The Wizard of Oz was a grandma house. I think it was shown Thanksgiving evening. There were a bunch of cousins here and grandma and the aunts popped popcorn. Grandma brought in a BIG tub full of good salty popcorn and we each got a bowl to get some out of the tub to eat. I guess by that time she was conditioned to feeding a herd. I was soo scared of the monkey men.
Another thing grandma like to do is send Danny and I to walk up to the mailbox to get the mail and pack us a picnic lunch for along the way! Usually we ate it under the tree at the top of the hill!
I wouldn’t eat grandma hamburgers. They had a strange, ulky strong taste. I watched her make them one time and saw what she was doing to ruin her hamburgers. She was putting leaves on them. Well now when I am cooking a Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey for my family I use Bay leaves and the smell reminds me of her hamburgers!
The words “Ollie Ollie Income Free” (which is how we said it) gives me a nostalgic feeling as well! All the cousins who were there for those hide and seek games know what I mean.
As one coming from a very small immidate family,the best feeling of my childhood is the feeling of belonging.Beloging to a large extended family. God sure placed me with a good family.
Speaking of walking up the road, I remember one time when there was a dead snake on the road up past Aunt Elizabeth’s and Uncle Justin’s. Mary Jane didn’t want to see that dead snake when she went home, so she paid me a whole dollar to remove it.
I am currently available for further snake removal, should the need arise.
do you do remove groundhogs too?
Unfortunately, I am not currently groundhog certified in your state.
It wasn’t so bad going to the mail box. I would rather do that then some of the other things that need to be done. It other words it was like getting out of work to go to the mail box.
I had a cat that would do that….it is somewhere in the woods on the farm right now, but he would kill anything that came into our yard!
How far away was that mailbox?? Is this the mailbox that I know, or was it all the way up by the road?
Lloyd says: Going to the mailbox was R&R and he looked at the funny pages on the way home. They got the Kansas City Star and they ran stories in segments. He would read the story on the way home if he liked the story.
Lauren, the mailbox was up on the black top road. It probably took us an hour or so to get there and back….depending on what distractions we had along the way!!!
And there were plenty of distractions. Does anyone remember when Grandma’s mailbox was moved down by Aunt Elizabeth’s house? I would guess around 1978, but I’m not sure.
I didnt know it ever moved!
Naomi and I were always happy to get the mail. That was when we got to play, and pretend all kinds of wonderful things. We also got very good at calling doodle bugs to the surface of the road. We got to watch bugs roll their huge dung balls along the road, gather red clay to make modeling clay, and just relax and talk. It was one half a mile from the house to the mail box.
How do you call doodle bugs to the surface?
You find a doodle bug hill (kind of like an ant hill) in the road, get down on your hands and knees, and chant over and over into the hill, Doodle bug,doodle bug,boodle bug, In a short while the ground will start to move,and you keep calling doodle bug. Then the doodle bugs will come up out of their den. Boy! what an exciting life we had! ha ha
Doodle Bugs must have been all the rage back then! I remember a game grandma would play was Doodlie Doolie Doodle Bug…How many fingers do I hol up? HaHa!
or was it Bumbly Bumbly Bumble Bee. I think it was bumble bee!
The reason you chant into the doodle bug hole is to vibrate the sand and the bug thinks an ant has fallen in and he comes up to eat the bug that fell in. You don’t want to get your nose too close to the hole….
Marylynn wants to know about the dung ball. Mahlon says it’s the cocoon for the larvae of the doodle bug.
Mahlon says, One time I poked a stick in one and chased Bea all around the cow pasture at Shubert’s. Girls don’t like dung balls.
When Lolly was a tiny baby she was allergic to mother’s milk and cow’s milk. So Dad bought some goats and she did good on goat’s milk. Now for something to have fun with Bea and I would make string halters and put them on the baby goats. Out by the barn was a foundation of an old round silo about knee high. Bea and I would put the goats on the foundation and ride them around like merry go round. We couldn’t have been very old but Lolly was a tiny baby.
One time Aunt Nora and Uncle Henry came to visit us. It was twenty miles from their house to ours and we didn’t see them often. While they were there the goats got out. And back then most all cars had a cloth top, not metal top. All at once someone started yelling. The goats had climbed on the roof. Their feet and legs went through and there they hung. (Mahlon doesn’t remember what Uncle Henry said. It was before they invented duct tape.)It wasn’t the last time they came to visit.
Julie, it was blumity,blumity, fistie, bug, how many fingers do I hold up!
How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, when fond recollections present them to view! The orchard the meadows the deep tangled wildwood and every loved spot that my infancy knew. The cottage of our father the dairy house neigh, and even the rude bucket that hung in the well. our bucket didn’t hang from the well that I remember. But I do have the bucket at my house that we drank from. We used this bucket to fill the reservior on the kitchen stove in the morning so we had warm warm water, We kept the bucket filled all day.It sure was a blessing to have warm water in the house. We also had to keep it filled because we got all the water we used for canning,cooking,washing drinking and what ever from our water bucket.
It’s amazing that Mahlon can sing all those old songs that Grandma sang word for word but he can’t remember what he came in the room for.
Lloyd is starting to have a fair amount of wasted steps these days,too. I on the other hand wouldn’t admit mine.
time to start singing this song!
Over the river and thru the woods,
To grandmother’s house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh,
Thru the white and drifted snow, oh!
Over the river and thru the woods,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.
Over the river and thru the woods,
To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bells ring, “Ting-a-ling-ling!”
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day-ay!
Over the river and thru the wood,
Trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river and through the woods,
And straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow
It is so hard to wait!
Over the river and through the wood —
Now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!