What we are all missing…
I grew up like a lot of kids born in the late 70’s. We had one of those monstrous TV sets that sat on the ground in the living room, it didn’t have a remote. We didn’t have an Atari, but we did have Pong and some weird game console called a Vectrex. We got to play outside (ok, we were made to) until it was dark. We had one car most of my childhood, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme; I got it when I was 18 (I paid them $300 for it). We looked forward to TV dinners when we had a babysitter. I remember my first kiss in fifth grade, my first dance, and my first heartbreak. It was a much more innocent time, just as every generation states. I had a great life growing up, but there was a piece of my childhood that I didn’t appreciate until recently and I appreciate it more and more every day.
I only got to go there a few times during my childhood, but the times I visited my grandparents’ house in Tygh Valley, Oregon are the only summers I remember well. Arlen Franklin built the house they lived in for over fifty years. It was a small two bedroom house with one bathroom, without a shower. The house had a smell of sweat, tobacco and later on dust. I remember as a kid thinking there must have been another part of their house that I just wasn’t allowed in, but that wasn’t the case. Arlen died a few years ago, I never really dealt with it…he was an amazing man.
Audrey Franklin is a tall, strong woman. She could always out climb me in the big apple tree in their yard and she would also threaten to get a switch from that same tree if my brother and I acted up. She sold worms to the local fisherman and did pretty well with it too.
They lived a different kind of life. They grew most of their food. They had chickens, bees and Grandpa was a hunter and a fisherman. Now I say that and you think, well so did my grandparents, but I am talking about a different level, I imagine. Arlen caught Salmon and Steelhead on the Deschutes River. He would come home with 50 lb. King Salmon. Deer, Elk, game birds, he hunted or caught almost all of the meat they ate, except for the bologna and potted meat they always seemed to have in the refrigerator. Grandma Franklin canned everything, and I mean everything, including the salmon. I loved her ‘bread and butter’ pickles and I remember as a kid bringing home a jar of the hottest peppers I ever ate, just so I could trick one of my friends into trying them.
My favorite treat my grandparents produced was their honey! I was too young to appreciate just how special and rare this ‘treat’ was back then. I have no idea where the hive was, I never saw them harvest the golden goodness, I just remember the Mason jar filled with happiness and a bill chunk of comb in the middle. I wish I could have learned that skill back then.
Grandma had a true root cellar, I only saw it once, when I was older. The shelves were loaded with food, most of it probably past its prime, but still usable. Fish, fruit, vegetables, all preserved. What would you do if you couldn’t get to the store? Would you do if something happened to our food supply? They knew what they would do, they were living it every day.
