Month: January 2019

 

(Note to readers:  The following post is directed mainly toward folks who live in or near Trussville, Alabama.  Otherwise the references will not mean much to you.  Please indulge me this bit of local nostalgia.)

It was finally happening.  I saw it while driving through downtown Trussville recently.  I had been reading for over a year that the old Braden’s Furniture store would be torn down.  I wondered if it would ever actually come to pass.  Now it has.  On this day the familiar structure lay in pieces on the ground.

One day, I will tell my grandkids there used to be a big furniture store here, and they will give me that look that says “Wow Gramps, you are really old!”

Indeed I have only lived in Trussville for 30 years but I already feel like an old timer because of how much has already changed in our city since I arrived.  When I moved my young family here in 1989 I would ask neighbors for directions to some local destination.  Often, they would reply “You go to the light, and turn left”.

Yep, 30 years ago I remember just one stoplight in Trussville, at the corner of Highway 11 and Chalkville Mountain Road.  Hey….if you’re feeling a little nostalgic, let’s play a little game of Do You Remember concerning Trussville’s recent history.

Do you remember Herb’s Hardware?  Do you remember when what is now the Pinnacle shopping mall was a golf driving range?  Do you remember the Dairy Cone?  When Moe’s Barbecue was an Arby’s?  When the YMCA was Sportsfirst?  When your kids went to elementary school on top of the hill on Cherokee Drive?  The little bowling alley on Linden Street?  When the Huskies played football at Jack Wood Stadium?   You may know that the property which is now Edgar’s Bakery used to be Sticks ‘N Stuff, but do you recall prior to that when it was briefly an indoor carpet golf and recreation area?

I could go on and on and I know some of you could reflect on much more.  It’s not hard to remember  when Trussville had no Walmart, no movie theater, no skating rink, no sports park, no shopping mall,  very few restaurants and no Deerfoot Parkway…..also no traffic jams.  The progress has been swift and a bit mind boggling.  Back in ’89 I would have never dreamed our town would become the shopping hub of the Northeast Birmingham region, and now it looks like it may become the family fun hub as well as the entertainment district begins to take form along Highway 11.  It’s an exciting time to be a Trussvillian.

So farewell to the Braden’s Furniture building.  I will remember you fondly.  As for you,  if you are able to recall some of the things I recounted here, or even  more, you too are worthy of the title “Old Timer”.

It’s not so bad.  You’ll get used to it.

I’m entering my 4th year of grandfatherhood.   It is what I would call an exhausting blessing.  We now have a three year old, a two year old, and a seven month old.  We visit and babysit them frequently.   Somehow it is simultaneously the joy of my life and the possible end of it.

How did I ever keep up this pace when my own children were little?  We transition without rest from hide and seek, to race cars, to floor wrestling, pillow fights, to backyard swing set, to book reading, to wagon ride, to playground visit, to community swimming pool…..and that’s just before lunch!  Thank goodness for naps! (mine, not the kids)

(A footnote here:  As much as I do with the grands, my wife Sharon does three times as much.  Remind me to check what this woman puts in her cereal.)

Through it all, the smiles, the giggles, the hugs and the occasional “I love you K-pa” (that’s my grandpa  name) are the light of my life.  Even a return to the dreaded changing of the diapers is somehow okay.  There’s something  magical about staring into the eyes of an infant, wondering what they’re thinking,  doing something silly to make them burble as they lay on their backs on the changing table.  I have also rediscovered the ability  to breath while completely shutting off my sense of smell, a necessary skill during this unpredictable process.

So what’s not to love about being a grandparent right?…..right?……well, there is one thing.  The mood drastically changes when I hear one of them utter those fearful words:  “K-pa, let’s get out the Play-Doh!”

Now, I don’t know who invented this stuff, but I’m fairly sure it was someone with a sick sense of humor who also hates grandparents.   For those who don’t know, Play-Doh is a strangely amorphous substance that feels squishy and, using various cutters of different design, can be shaped into basically anything.  It can then be re-squished,  and formed into something else.  It comes in three different colors, red, green and blue.  It’s been around since I was a kid.  Sounds harmless enough right?

Oh sure.  That’s what they’d like you to believe.  But it’s only a matter of time before the kiddos start:  (1) Putting it in their mouths (2) Putting it in somebody else’s mouth (3) Dropping it on the floor (4) Stepping on it after dropping it on the floor (5) Getting it all over their clothes (6) Sticking it in little brother’s ears (7) mixing the colors (8) Throwing it at frazzled grandparents (9) Fighting over who has the most (10) and generating billions of tiny Play-Doh specks that show up on silverware, food, and furniture for weeks to come.  I swear these little globs have learned to reproduce.

The average Play-Doh session ends with meticulous clean-up of entire rooms including sweeping, mopping, vacuuming and, when desperate, licking your finger tip and trying to swipe a morsel out of the crack in your hardwood floor panel.  (Oh, like you wouldn’t do it.)

You can try hiding it somewhere but grandkids have been endowed with a mystical 6th sense that enables them to determine the location of Play-Doh from a distance of at least ten meters.  Once within range, there is an autonomic system in their little bodies that prepares to launch an ear-splitting crying reaction if you try to deny the Play-Doh is near.  The only solution is to drive the substance several miles away and destroy it by fire.  Even then you’re only safe until the next birthday when a well meaning relative will present them with the gift of another batch.

Oh well, maybe it’s worth it to see the delight on their faces as they present you with a Play-Doh hot dog that they have fashioned, expecting you to actually eat it.

Come to think of it, that may be the only way you get rid of it.

 

 

 

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