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My
Grandfather's House
by Dennis Randall
We all carry the memories of perfect childhood summers when we stood still and time rolled out from under us. Effortless, endless lazy days of joy and tranquillity. I found my perfect summer in Plympton, Massachusetts at my grandfather's house.
"...his
words
transformed the kitchen into
the whaling grounds and ships..."
His home was a three hundred year old farmhouse located deep in the forest. The house had no electricity, running water or central heating. With the exception of age it was virtually unchanged from that day in the 1650's when it was built. It was a little island in time that had somehow escaped the benefits of the 20th century.
My grandfather lived alone in the house and each summer I would stay with him for a few weeks. Simple but delicious meals were prepared on an ancient wood cookstove located in a corner of the kitchen. The stove was a smokey thing and everything we ate or wore had the comfortable mellow-brown flavor of wood.
Food and milk was kept cool and safe in a wobbly wooden bucket at the bottom of a deep stone well. Even in the hottest days of August, water from that well was cold and clear.
In the evenings, after dinner and dishes were finished, he and I would sit for hours at the kitchen table and I listened as he told story after story. Shadows from the flickering yellow light of the kerosene lamp moved on the walls as he unraveled countless tales of knights and unicorns, leprechauns, elves and the travels of Gulliver.
"Look over there," he would say pointing to the shelf above the stove, "those three boxes of cereal are just like the sails on a whaling ship. And, over there, that butter dish looks just like the dories the men would use to hunt the Great White Whale."
His words transformed the kitchen into the whaling grounds and ships from the story of Moby Dick. Shadows became the characters and crew and the coat rack with my grandfathers felt hat came alive as the stern and possessed Captain Ahab.
A long story like Moby Dick would take several nights to tell. The
evening hours my grandfather and I would spend around the kerosene lamp
became the center of my summer days.
"Hold it
from the inside and
look out through its eyes.
Hear its story."
I have so many recollections of that kitchen as the deck of a sailing ship or the treasure mines of King Solomon that it is difficult to recall how the place really appeared. The remembrances and images of his stories are more vivid than my memories of that room in daylight.
My grandfather would ask, in fact demand, that I see things in a different way. "Look at something and then look at the things around it, ask questions of it," he would say, "What else does it look like? How does it feel and how did it get there? Pick it up with your thoughts and turn it over in your mind. Hold it from the inside and look out through its eyes. Hear its story."
Shredded wheat wasn't breakfast. It was an adventure. "You're eating wheat all the way from Kansas," he would declare before launching into a tale of covered wagons, the long journey west through prairie fires and floods. "If you chew it carefully you can taste history."
That was just the cereal. A teaspoon of sugar became an excuse for a saga of plantations in Cuba, pirates, buccaneers, slaves and freemen. Everything had a story and everything was connected to something else.
When we walked in the woods he kept challenging me to "see."
"What is that?" he would inquire pointing at a stone wall. "What do you behold there?"
He did not want to hear a reply like, 'Grandpa, that's a stone wall.' He knew it was a stone wall and I knew it was a stone wall. The question was all part of the game.
I would look at the moss covered rocks, squint my eyes and let my six year old imagination take over. "Why, Grandpa!" I would shout, "there's the wall of a great castle. See the towers and over there where the stones have fallen is the gate."
Now the game was on! Pointing to tiger lilies gently moving in the breeze he would ask, "What are those?" I would answer describing the pennants and flags of the castle's knights. Dragon flies became the falcons of the king.
All day long our game would continue as we reworked the forests
and fields around the farmhouse into the enchanted lands of mighty kingdoms.
Grandfather taught me that everything could look like something else. Imagination could transform the world into whatever you wanted it to be.
For a few weeks each summer, my grandfather's house became a school of dreams. But, as is always the case, as I grew older so did he.
One winter my parents, sister, brother and I visited as he lay sick in bed. Every time before, we had gathered among smiles and laughter. This time was different, few words were spoken and the visit ended almost before it began.
By spring he was dead and the grand old farmhouse was silent and empty. The house remained vacant as I entered and finished high school. My visits to the old place became less and less frequent. Each time I returned the weather and ravages of vandals had taken a little more away.
The hand blown glass windows were shattered on the floor and the wood stove was smashed. Horsehair plaster walls and ceilings sagged and cracked in every room and someone had thrown a shopping cart down the well. The yard had become a sea of weeds and the tiger lilies had vanished.
While overseas in Vietnam I got a letter from home saying that the house had been torn down. The hand hued oak beams had been shipped to a developer in Connecticut and the cellar hole had been filled with sand and gravel.
When I returned from the war I paid a visit to the Plympton woods. My Grandfather's house had been replaced by a litter strewn clearing. Nothing remained of the old place.
While I looked at the bushes that had grown up in its place and squinted my eyes and let my imagination run free. The leaves turned to walls, the canopy of trees became the roof and the spaces between reformed into windows.
The old farmhouse is still there. It hadn't changed a bit. I just have to look a little harder to see it.