Grandparents Day

I am old enough to have what everyone thinks of as the quintessential grandparents. My Grandpa and Grandma Uphoff were in their late 70's when I first became old enough to recognize them as such. Actually, my first image of my Grandma Uphoff was in the early 40's when I was a little baby. It was probably the earliest memory that I have. I recall my mother holding me in her arms on a warm summer day in the kitchen with the old fashioned yellow shades pulled down to keep the heat out of the room. I also recall the fly paper hanging by the window. My grandmother was smiling at me. She had a wonderful smile with twinkling eyes. That image of her has remained burned in the far recesses of my memory bank all of my life.

I guess I should be grateful that is my first memory. What if my first memory was one of terror in which I saw a frightening face or image? Would I have turned out to be a different kind of person? It is scary to think of all of the random events that can affect our lives in which I nor anyone else has any control. Is it possible that much of our personality is determined by these capricious events in childhood?

My Grandma Uphoff was a wonderful person. She was a hardworking person all of her life. Even in her late 70's she would mow her lawn with an old fashioned reel mower that was comparable to pushing a safe. She kept a garden at her house at the corner of Lincoln and Fourth Streets. Naturally, she had old fashioned grandma type flowers like hollyhocks and daisies and she grew African violets in the house.

Where Grandma really excelled though was in the kitchen. Her meals were the best meals I have ever eaten. Going to Grandma's house for dinner was a real treat. Her menu consisted of roast beef, green beans, mashed potatoes, a Waldorf salad, and rutabagas. The rutabaga was a orange colored vegetable with a taste similiar to a turnip. She would cook the bone from the roast beef in the rutabagas to give it some flavor and then mix it with some mashed potatoes to give it a smooth consistency. It was delicious.

The other favorite menu item was home made whole wheat biscuits which we would drown with butter and grape jelly. To finish us off she would serve us apple pie. After a meal at Grandma's an afternoon nap was in order.

Grandpa Uphoff was a retired farmer and had to walk with a cane. He was never without his pipe. When we would enter their house, Grandpa would be sitting in his Morris chair with his pipe while a blue cloud of smoke would be eternally hovering near the ceiling. He used to get a kick out of blowing smoke rings for the kids. Whenever we would eat at their house, we would give Grandpa the fat from our meat and he would eat every last artery clogging morsel from the table.

Grandma hand crocheted a lot of doilies which she would put on the arms and backrest of her stuffed furniture. She would stiffen them with starch so that they wouldn't slide or crumple up so easily. Upstairs they had a horsehair blanket on one of the spare beds. For some reason this blanket always scared me. It always seemed alive to me as though it would jump up and attack me.

Grandma never wore anything other than a dress and to my knowledge never cut her hair. She would roll it up in a curl and pile it on the top of her head. I remember seeing her hair undone hanging all the way to the floor. Grandpa wore suspenders and a felt hat and played cards for a pastime. He is supposedly one of the few people in memory to get a double flush in pinochle which consists of a double run of ten through the ace in the same suit.

A favorite memory of my grandparents is seeing Grandpa's old 1927 Peerless come rolling in the lane to our house in the country. It was a huge car with tassels on the window shades and had a candy striped knob on the gear shift. Grandma would get out and give my brother and I an ice cream bar from The Princess Sweet Shop. It would take Grandpa about 5 minutes to get out of his car because of his bad legs.

I sometimes think how much our older generations have changed since then. Today, grandchildren might see their grandparents pull into a new home in the suburbs riding in a rented Lincoln Towncar after jetting in from Phoenix, Arizona. Grandma in her capri pants, tank top, dyed red hair, sandles and sunglasses struggles with gift-ladened arms. Grandpa with his Arizona tan gingerly skips out and retrieves his golf clubs from the trunk in his bermuda shorts and Nike shoes.

The contrast may seem overblown but it really isn't. People today are living longer, enjoying better health, and staying active longer than our forefathers. It is a result of better knowledge about healthy life styles and diets. How many people today will eat the leftover fat from someone else's plate? Many middle-aged men died years ago from the effects of life-long smoking. Today we know that smoking is bad for you. Fifty years ago even doctors would advertise on how smoking was good for you. Remember the Camel T-zone?

I have a brother who is a 72 year old grandfather who looks like he could pass for 55. On the otherhand, when my Grandpa Uphoff died at 81 he looked like he was 85-90. Today's grandparents do seem to enjoy a better lifestyle than those of past generations. However, I don't believe the grandparents of yesteryear felt deprived of anything nor do I think they would envy today's grandparents. After all, they were surrounded by the immediate family and their social and economic needs were often provided by their children and grandchildren. They didn't have to fly 1000 miles to see their grandchildren. I am sure glad that I didn't have to travel 1000 miles to enjoy my Grandma's biscuits.