Looking back

My Grandpa was born in 1892. In the summer 1969, when I was twelve years old, I had the pleasure of spending more time than usual with him and my grandma at their house in Northwest Arkansas. In July, when the Eagle landed on the moon, we gathered in their living room that would never know air conditioning, to watch a snowy, poor quality picture on a black and white television, linked to the world by an antenna on a pole outside the house. More than once, I remember someone being dispatched to the antenna to try to get a better picture from a particular station by turning it in the direction of the broadcast point. In those days, cable was something attached to a winch.

Grandpa and I had many conversations that summer, sitting in rocking chairs, on his front porch. I remember when he recounted his move to Arkansas from Oklahoma in a wagon. We talked about how things had changed during his lifetime. At seventy-six, he had lived in a world where families moved in horse drawn wagons and now the United States had put a man on the moon. He remembered the first automobile he had ever seen and how it scared the horses. He was amazed at changes he had witnessed first hand, and wondered what would change in my lifetime. Grandpa died that fall, and I am so glad I got to spend that time with him.

I don’t ever remember Grandpa getting in a hurry. My fondest memories of him are sitting at his side eating fresh apples and peaches, as fast as he could peel them. He was patient with us when he showed us things he thought we should know. He could sit for hours at the edge of a farm pond, fishing with a cane pole. He plowed his garden with an old horse that all that grandkids wanted to ride. I only remember being on the poor animal’s back, a handful of times. He raised sorghum cane that he and the family cooked down to make Sorghum Molasses in a wood fired cooker.

He was a recycler and ran his own home based business before it was the thing to do. He manufactured hickory bark bottomed chairs for a living, in a shop across the yard from the house, its power tools powered by a recycled old Ford Model “A” engine. He made stools, rocking chairs and straight back chairs. He learned to make chairs from my great-grandfather. He taught his children, my mom, aunt and uncle to make chairs, and he showed me and my brother how to lace chair bottoms. By the time he showed us his trade, we used hay string instead of hickory bark. A few of his chairs still survive today. I am fortunate to have two of them that I plan to pass down to my sons some day. He sold three hundred chairs to Roy Ritter for his restaurant, The AQ Chicken House, in Springdale, AR, and a hand full of them were still in use when I was there last.

Oh, how things have changed since 1969. Grandpa never had a telephone in his house and didn’t have any idea what a computer was. Cell phones, PDAs, ipods, GPS systems, microwave ovens, digital cameras, automatic dishwashers, digital recorders, cruise controls, high definition flat screen televisions and refrigerators with ice in the door all contribute to our fast paced life today.

I have one question. With all our stuff and our super fast paced life, are we as happy as a guy that had the time to sit in a rocking chair and peel peaches and apples for his grandkids?
Just a thought