Ask a teenager today if they drive a car to their high school and likely receive a positive response. Ask me—oh you did—and learn I did not drive to school for two reasons. First, my high school was in the heart of Peoria, Illinois, and without student parking. Second, I did not have a car until after I graduated high school.

Dang, question answered and in less than a hundred words.

I can’t leave you with the impression I was without wheels when a teenager.

I approached my sixteenth birthday with anticipation of getting my driver’s license. With it, it would be legal to drive anywhere in the United States. The challenge was to pass Illinois’ driver’s license test.

You may remember my father was on active duty in the US Navy. He was deployed and not available to teach me to drive. If any companies were giving the training, I don’t remember them. I turned to my mother, but she hadn’t the patience, maybe nerves, to teach me. She was in a terrible car accident years earlier and co-opted my Uncle James to do the teaching.

Uncle James, teacher

Uncle James Lee Harris was born on 6 September 1921 in Owensboro, Kentucky, and died on 3 September 1993 in Washington, Illinois. Uncle James was a master machinist who worked at Caterpillar Tractor Company. He was also a master gunsmith whose skills were sought from gun owners nationwide.

His talents included teaching a teenager how to drive. One day shortly after I turned fifteen, he took me to a nearby country road. He pulled over, stopped the car, and we exchanged places. We sat there with the emergency brake set.

He explained how to operate a standard transmission 1950s something Ford with the shifter on the steering column. He warned me to clutch to change gears and at stops to prevent killing the engine.

He completed his explanations, and it was time to put them into practice. I don’t remember how many times I killed the engine or how jerky the starts were, but I imagine it was many and dire. Sometime later, probably when he had suffered enough, Uncle James and I went home. My lesson complete.

Teaching myself!

My mother took me out two or three times to let me drive. Then, one day she handed me the car keys and said to go practice on one condition. (I don’t know if my mother worried about insurance or not.) I had to use the school road and none other. This road started beyond the alley by our house and wound into the country past a dam. She allowed me to practice several times before I took the driver’s test. I passed on the second try. I failed the first time because the tester didn’t care for my parallel parking.

I could use the car for errands or just joyriding until I graduated, took a full-time job, and bought my first car.

“What were your grandparents like?”

It is the third question about my ancestors. First was one about my Mother, the second my Father, and now one about my Grandparents.

Regrets.

This one finally forced me to consider that I took my parents and grandparents for granted as a youngster. My grandparents were people we went to visit in the summer. My father was the man who came home for thirty days each year, and some years came on weekends as the Navy permitted. My mother was there every day caring for my siblings and me.

Life with them was special, not because of grand vacations or social events, but because of who they were. Unlike many others, my parents and grandparents were caring, loving, hard-working men and women. They weren’t college graduates, some not even graduating high school. Still, they provided down-to-earth examples of how to be soul-mates and parents.

These are the nuggets I dredged from my memory about my grandparents. The sparseness speaks to how much I took them for granted.

Mom’s Parents.

My maternal grandparents are Elizabeth Midkiff Harris and James Fredrick Harris.

Elizabeth was born on 16 Aug 1891 in Rome, Kentucky, and died 30 Apr 1962 in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Most of my recollections are from the short visits made to her house. My two brothers, one sister, and I slept on blanket pallets on one side of the kitchen.

My Grandmother always woke early to begin her daily routine. I, often, woke as she shuffled into the kitchen. I laid on the barely padded floor watching her move to an old, wood-burning, potbelly stove. She moved slowly, sometimes using a cane, as her lame leg permitted. I remember watching my Grandmother, a short, heavy-set woman, stoking the stove in preparation for making breakfast. All of our meals made using that stove.

James “Fred” was born 02 May 1890 in Owensboro, Kentucky, and died  04 Sep 1959 in Beverly Manor, Illinois. My Grandfather was tall to me, maybe six-foot, and slender in build. He, also, was an early riser, and by the time I got my lazy bones up, he was well through his daily chores. I would help with feeding the chickens and his dog.

I don’t remember any nuggets of conversation but things I do remember. My Grandmother would clean and cook the chicken my Grandfather killed Sunday morning. Her fried chicken was a treat.

Then there was the time a tornado came close to their farm while we were there. And the time their dog broke his chain the night we heard a large cat squalling

We spent many evenings gathered together around the radio listening to The Grand Ole Opry and The Shadow. There were other radio shows, but I can’t name them now. Prayers were said and to our pallets. Early to bed, early to rise.

They were godfearing, loving, down-to-earth people. I don’t remember either having a cross word for the other.

Dad’s Parents.

My paternal grandparents were Johanna Mae Elder and Hilary Oswald Knott.

Johanna was born in 1889 in Kentucky and died on 14 Oct 1967 in Daviess County, Kentucky.

My Grandmother was a widow when I became old enough to remember her. She was a white-headed, stately lady who lived on Clay Street in Owensboro, Kentucky.

She was an excellent cook, but the makings for her meals came from the local grocer, not from a garden.

I remember her displaying anger only once. It was after Cletus, my brother, and I peppered her porch with holes from metal darts. Otherwise, she was patient with her four rambunctious grandchildren, taking us shopping in big city stores and to nearby parks.

Hilary Oswald was born 28 Feb 1881 in Meade County, Kentucky, and died 22 Oct 1949 in Daviess County, Kentucky.

I don’t remember anything about my Grandfather. I was two years and twelve days old when he died. I can’t picture him, but I believe he was much like my Father—a loving, caring father.

Do Over.

If I had it to do-over.… How many times have those words been spoken or written? I wish I had a do-over, but life is as lived. People leave, and memories fade. Capture them while you can!

Winter weather where I lived in Illinois as a child was unpredictable, especially near Christmas.  I don’t remember once taking a family vacation during Christmas vacation. But, I remember the inches of snow to build snow forts, make snowballs, and shovel during that vacation.

The vacations I remember occurred during the school’s summer vacation. My Dad was in the Navy, and he tried to arrange his annual leave for the summer months. It allowed him to spend part of it with family in Kentucky or Indiana.

Starved Rock

The only trip not to family was to Starved Rock State Park in La Salle County, Illinois. As the story goes, in 1760, a group of Illinois Indians was attacked by Potawatomi and fled to a 125-foot sandstone butte. A park ranger told us how the Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians surrounded the butte and remained there until the Illinois Indians died of starvation. Hence the name Starved Rock.

Granddad Harris

Most of the trips to Granddad’s Harris’ place were unremarkable. He had a small house that we made smaller, filling it with an extra six warm bodies. My parents shared a spare bedroom, and the children slept on blanket pallets in the kitchen. Grandfather led prayers every evening. Sometimes we listened to mystery shows or the Grand Ole Opry on the radio before bedtime. We kids spent the day outside playing with our cousins living next door.

But…one vacation, we were at my Grandfather Harris’ house out in the country. I played in the yard with my siblings when my grandfather called us to get in the house. He was frantic that we obey. I shepherded my sister and brothers through the front door but stopped to wait for him.

He ran to his car, a 1940’s something, and backed it up several feet. He left it and entered the house, dragging me with him. Granddad had us lay down, and we listened as something sounding like a freight train passed. When the noise stopped, he led us outside. His car sat between two fallen trees. It escaped damage because of the few feet he backed it.

Another trip to Granddad’s

We arrived on another trip to find my Granddad had a dog he kept chained to a doghouse. I think it was an Alaskan Huskie. One night after we went to bed, there came a sound, unlike anything we kids had ever heard. My grandfather said it was a bobcat or cougar. Anyway, we settled down when it didn’t come again.

The dog was gone the next morning. Granddad said not to worry because this was nothing new. The dog had figured out that it could get on the flat roof of the doghouse and leap off, breaking the chain. (I never understood why he chained it if it could get away whenever it wanted.) He said the huskie likely went after the cat. Sometime later, he came back a bit worse for wear. It appeared he found the cat.

I saw a bobcat or cougar on the way home from his house one trip. I was lying on the ledge before the back window. It was dark, and I was staring out the rear window when a big cat jumped out of a tree and ran across the road. One moment it was there, the next gone from sight again.

Grandmother Knott

Some trips to Kentucky were to visit my Grandmother Knott, who lived in Owensboro, Kentucky. Her husband died when I was less than two-years-old. She shared her house with my Uncle Carl, who took care of her and the house’s needs.

My brother, Cletus, and I spent some time with them one summer. That was the summer one of them gave us some steel-tipped darts. Hours of playing pretend-dartboard left the front porch marred with tiny holes. Grandmother was unhappy with the damage, but my Uncle Carl more for he had to sand and repaint the porch. The next time I saw real darts, I was a First Class Petty Officer in the Navy, far from porches.

There were a few brief excursions to see other families before I left home after graduation to work in a foundry located in Skokie, Illinois.

More

We spent a couple of days on one trip with my Uncle Albert and his family. My uncle had lost an arm in a farming accident. I remember I was uncomfortable as I tried not to stare at the empty shirt sleeve.

Sometimes we visited my father’s sisters, Aunt Imogene and Aunt Merici, but nothing stands out in my memory.

Everyone is gone now, but I have the memories.

Summer Visit

My Father was in the US Navy and often away. My Mother took us to visit during our summer break from school that year. We, my Mother and my siblings, spent several weeks with them that summer. These visits provided us a unique vision of life without all the amenities of city life such as outhouses versus bathrooms.

It was few days before we returned home. I was in their living room and watched my Grandfather go to the front door. He opened it, leaned out, and spit. I didn’t place particular emphasis on it because I didn’t know there was blood in his spit.

My Mother and Grandmother expressed concern, but my Grandfather waved their fears away.

We returned home a few days later. I don’t remember when the call came. It was near 1 September when my Mother had my grandparents brought to our home in Beverly Manor, outside of Washington, Illinois. My Grandfather had suffered a stroke.

The Crucifix and Sacred Heart

They brought him from Kentucky and placed him on Mom’s bed.  There, he laid under the crucifix and Sacred Heart pictures my Grandmother brought with her. The cross and pictures had hung over their bed in Kentucky for many years.

My Grandfather died on 3 September 1959.

My siblings and I were attending Saint Patrick’s Elementary School and could not attend the funeral. It is a sad memory I have of him lying on my parent’s bed and not moving. Knowing he would never again.

The Rose

I remember my Mother brought a rose from the funeral. It was light-colored, white or yellow, and in a holder. The holder was spike-shaped like one might use to stick into soil, and filled with water. She placed in into the opening under Christ’s right arm as he hung on the cross. The rose’s stem was straight and stiff as one would expect of a newly selected plant.

I remember venturing into the bedroom and finding the rose was dead. The rose’s stem bent to bring the rose to hang over Christ’s head, like a halo. None of the rose’s petals had fallen, and none would.

I left home in 1965 after graduating high school, and the rose hung as before. I joined the US Navy in 1966, and every time I came home on leave, the rose hung as before.

My parents moved houses while I was in Hawaii in 1970.  I found the crucifix and pictures now hung over my parent’s bed, but the rose was gone the next time I came home on leave.

My Mother passed in 1996. My Father gave my wife and me the crucifix and pictures a few weeks before he passed in 2001. They now hang over our bed, but without a rose halo.

I felt to share this vivid memory while I could.

Do you have a memory? Please share it through the comment form.