Old Memories
I remember sitting in the kitchen of my grandparents close friends...and my own close friends really, on cold November mornings during hunting season.
We always met there at 5AM for coffee and to plan the day. It would be over 80 degrees because of the woodstove and we were always waiting for my great uncle who was always late and who my grandfather always called slowfoot.
The stories my brother and I would listen to of the time before there was an actual hunting season were always fascinating and most of the time humerous.
I now own the farm across the street from that house. It has changed hands a number of times since my friends lived there. John and Gert were their names. John died in his mid eighties and Gert went to live with her daughter in Chicago a couple of years later. Both had children from previous marriages and none together, which is probably a shame because both were good people and things might have turned out differently had there been a common offspring.
After Gert moved she lived to be over 100 years old, but in the last years of her life she had a bit of misery in that her grandson forged her name on some papers and took out a mortgage on the home and then lost it when he paid nothing back.
When the bank put the home on the market, I already owned the farm across the street and considered buying it, although that thought did not last long. The house sold to someone who later turned out to be a very good friend and then twice more after that and the people who own it now are not really that friendly.
When Gert lost the house, I went over when the real estate broker was selling the contents...most of what John and Gert owned was still there. I asked him for any pictures that might be in the house and he sorted them out and I sent them to Gert's nephew in Chicago. Several of us who knew John and Gert well gathered and sat and told stories, which was fun, but a bit poignant as well. We helped haul jars of pickles and the like up out of the cellar to be disposed of, some of them likely decades old.
Amongst the pickles and canned venison was a glass gallon jug of red liquid. I grabbed it to keep it from being thrown in the pit that had been dug in the back of the property where all the jars were being thrown.
As we all sat there, a debate started about what was in the jug....I knew what it was and because of this I had saved it, but the conversation rolled on for a while.
Finally after a bit I stopped the debate by saying, "there are only two possibilities of what this red liquid is. It is either diesel fuel or it is some home made Cherry Bounce that John made out of cherries from that tree right over there and some of another neighbor's white mule (moonshine). There is only one way we are going to find out."
I cracked open the jug and we all had a sample taste...The cherry juice did not soften the kick of the white mule, but it caused a whole lot of great memories to come back for several of us there who knew John and Gert.
It took quite a number of years to finish off that gallon jug, but I finally did. All except for about two pints. I still have one pint of it in my cupboard that I am not quite sure what to do with yet, but I can't bring myself to finish it. The other pint, about a year after all this occurred, I took to John's grave on opening day of hunting season and slowly poured it out there.
The saddest part about this is that John is all alone there as Gert was buried in Chicago.
We always met there at 5AM for coffee and to plan the day. It would be over 80 degrees because of the woodstove and we were always waiting for my great uncle who was always late and who my grandfather always called slowfoot.
The stories my brother and I would listen to of the time before there was an actual hunting season were always fascinating and most of the time humerous.
I now own the farm across the street from that house. It has changed hands a number of times since my friends lived there. John and Gert were their names. John died in his mid eighties and Gert went to live with her daughter in Chicago a couple of years later. Both had children from previous marriages and none together, which is probably a shame because both were good people and things might have turned out differently had there been a common offspring.
After Gert moved she lived to be over 100 years old, but in the last years of her life she had a bit of misery in that her grandson forged her name on some papers and took out a mortgage on the home and then lost it when he paid nothing back.
When the bank put the home on the market, I already owned the farm across the street and considered buying it, although that thought did not last long. The house sold to someone who later turned out to be a very good friend and then twice more after that and the people who own it now are not really that friendly.
When Gert lost the house, I went over when the real estate broker was selling the contents...most of what John and Gert owned was still there. I asked him for any pictures that might be in the house and he sorted them out and I sent them to Gert's nephew in Chicago. Several of us who knew John and Gert well gathered and sat and told stories, which was fun, but a bit poignant as well. We helped haul jars of pickles and the like up out of the cellar to be disposed of, some of them likely decades old.
Amongst the pickles and canned venison was a glass gallon jug of red liquid. I grabbed it to keep it from being thrown in the pit that had been dug in the back of the property where all the jars were being thrown.
As we all sat there, a debate started about what was in the jug....I knew what it was and because of this I had saved it, but the conversation rolled on for a while.
Finally after a bit I stopped the debate by saying, "there are only two possibilities of what this red liquid is. It is either diesel fuel or it is some home made Cherry Bounce that John made out of cherries from that tree right over there and some of another neighbor's white mule (moonshine). There is only one way we are going to find out."
I cracked open the jug and we all had a sample taste...The cherry juice did not soften the kick of the white mule, but it caused a whole lot of great memories to come back for several of us there who knew John and Gert.
It took quite a number of years to finish off that gallon jug, but I finally did. All except for about two pints. I still have one pint of it in my cupboard that I am not quite sure what to do with yet, but I can't bring myself to finish it. The other pint, about a year after all this occurred, I took to John's grave on opening day of hunting season and slowly poured it out there.
The saddest part about this is that John is all alone there as Gert was buried in Chicago.
56-60, M
