Part 1
This ghost story is part of my novel, Resurrection. I plan to publish it early next year…if I’m still around… and I certainly plan to be. It is also a true story. It happened to me when I was a boy and will give you a sample of life in the thirties in rural America. I regret that it is in three parts… but, you know, newspapers have space limitations.
When I was ten years old my Mother announced, “Today we are going to Grandma’s house.”
I was happy. I loved my grandmother. My Father drove us eighty miles to the town of Bad Axe, Michigan, the site of an Indian massacre of long ago. The village of two or three thousand people was a typical small town. My folks planned to see my Grandmother and visit for a few hours then we would drive that afternoon to another nearby town to visit my Aunt Cora and my Uncle Bert.
Halfway there I recall the car radio announcer declared: “Charles Lindbergh died today”. ‘Lindy’, as he was affectionately called by many, was the first person to cross the Atlantic alone in his plane, ‘The Spirit of St. Louis’. The death of an aging aviator meant nothing to me. What was important that day was that Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s thirty-nine-year-old record with a career total of 715 home runs.
When we got to Bad Axe the town looked the same as any other town. My Grandmother hugged me and I can still remember the faint perfume of lilacs and cinnamon about her person.
Toward late afternoon, when we were ready to leave, my mother asked me, “Gene, would you prefer to stay at Grandma’s house tonight? We’re going on to visit Uncle Bert and Aunt Cora and we will be back tomorrow morning to get you.”
I agreed quickly. When I visited grandma I always had fun; there was so much to see and do. Her tiny house was a museum of nick-knacks and the possessions that she had saved over the years. Also, she always baked cookies and pies and told interesting stories about when she was a child.
Her small brown house was old and solitary. It stood alone at the edge of town and her home was the only building on the road for five hundred feet in either direction. The grass-covered drive, a hundred feet from the gravel country road that led to her front door, was seldom used. The moss-covered roof sagged and dead leaves filled the cracks and crevices of the wooden shingles. Small-paned windows peeked out of clapboard sidings on the side and on the front porch. Grandma’s carefully tended window boxes were filled with pansies and forget-me-nots. Lilacs, hollyhocks, sunflowers, climbing roses and blue morning glories grew everywhere around the house. It was a storybook cottage.
The field behind her house was a wonderland. It was overgrown with weeds and wild flowers. The wild grassland stretched to the county ditch a thousand feet away. In the middle of this happy chaos there was an ancient Crabapple tree, which had survived the years. The few crab apples, which the birds had spared, tasted sweet and tart. When I climbed to the topmost branch I could see the Bad Axe Courthouse in the distance with its turrets and cupolas. I could see the rest of the town spread out lower on the hill like a post-card panorama. A blue thread of river wound its way at the far side of town and meandered into the blue haze. I was king of the world at the top of that crab apple tree.
An old-fashioned mahogany organ held a place of honor in my Grandmother’s parlor. When Grandma gave me permission I pushed the pedals to force the air through the bellows and I pressed the yellowed ivory keys. The stately sounds that came from the pipes were a triumph of the soul.
I loved her kitchen best. There were shelves on every wall crowded with her souvenirs and crockery. Nearly always there was a warm sweet smell of baking, a promise of good things to eat. The oven was black cast iron. Almost every square inch of the huge oven center door, the two side doors, the four legs and the tall back and iron shelf was covered with iron floral designs. For brisk cold mornings a squat kerosene heater sat in the corner to warm the room. Ever since, when I smell the odor of wood smoke and kerosene I am carried back across the years to Grandma’s kitchen.
Next Week: Ten-year-old Gene gets ready for bed and pleasant dreams
Gene Paleno is a columnist and author who lives in Witter Springs
