Peggy’s prompt---what draws her to it

Peggy’s prompt---what draws her to it

What draws her to it is the resemblance it has to her grandparents’ house in Oviedo, Florida. It has the tin roof, the covered porch along one side, the bay window in the front, and xxxxxx palms out front. An Old Florida house, a relic of an earlier time, before air-conditioning, before McMansions, before great rooms, even before Florida rooms. (If you missed out on Florida rooms, those were usually glassed and screened in side rooms, often built after the original house, designed to let in air and light, a more casual room than the formal living room.) This house isn’t nestled in a citrus grove, nor does it have a water pump in the side yard. Also missing are the firecracker plants that allured hummingbirds to the porch on hot summer days. But it does have one live oak with hanging Spanish moss to cool the tin roof in summer.

By the time I was about eight years old, my grandparents had moved from the house in Oviedo to a bigger one in Orlando, which also had citrus trees and live oaks with Spanish moss on the property. And the porch had a tin roof. But the “cross the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go” house of my earliest childhood still lives in my memories—all of them good memories, which is odd for me, as many of the houses I’ve lived in have bad memories associated with them, as well as the good.

At Grandmother and Granddaddy’s house, there were still toys left over from their own children’s youth—a toy grand piano, which I loved to play, a toy kitchen cupboard with real glass in the doors, some toy dishes, plus a Chinese checkerboard and marbles that had a regular checkerboard on the other side. Granddaddy would plan checkers with me, and he’d let me jump a few of his men before he wiped up the board and beat me royally. I don’t remember if I cried, but it would have been like me to do so. Grandmother played Chinese checkers with me, and not only did she teach me strategies, she usually let me win. But if my mother played, too, then Grandmother would try to beat Mama, while still letting me win. Must have been challenging for her!

Plus they had a wall telephone and were on a party line, so we had to listen when the phone rang to see if it was for the Hunters. My uncle Arthur, whom they called Junior or Billy, had sent them several Japanese paper umbrellas with elaborate scenes from someplace in the Pacific where his ship was deployed. Grandmother would let me use one very carefully to keep the sun off my head when we walked next door to visit Mrs. Morgan. After they got the word that Uncle Arthur had died when his ship was torpedoed near the Philippines, the umbrellas disappeared from their place in the brass umbrella stand. (Which I now have at my house.)

I remember the long dining room table, with room for 8 or 10 people to sit around, and the spot next to Granddaddy at the head of the table where my high chair sat. Granddaddy always had his own salt cellar at his place setting (could this have contributed to the strokes he eventually had?) and he would let me get a pinch of salt to sprinkle on my food, too.

There is a family story about that dining room that has been repeated many times by my aunts and my mother. The story goes that my two aunts had their current military boyfriends visiting for dinner, and my mother was also there with me. During the lively discussion that was occurring all around me, someone noticed that I was crying silently. “Child, why are you crying?” my grandfather said to me, to which I replied in all innocence, “I’m not getting enough attention!” (It starts early, doesn’t it?)