I jump out of the car and race my siblings to see who can ring the doorbell first. We hear a “come in” that slips under the crack of the door and another “hello” that echoes from the kitchen. We walk up the stairs into the mudroom, and my eyes notice the wooden coat rack that holds my grandpa’s hats on each knob. Hats for running errands, hats for birthday parties, hats for other special occasions, and hats for everyday wear. There are family pictures hanging on the wall and a small electric organ hiding quaintly in the corner. We take off our coats and place our shoes next to the pile of shoes that fill the entryway.
We open the door that leads to the kitchen, and my grandma welcomes us with a hug and a kiss on each cheek. I can smell the scent of her lotion—baby powder and fresh laundry. The smell of bold coffee lingers under my nose from the fresh pot of coffee sitting next to the kitchen sink. My eyes peer at the angels that are displayed as magnets on the refrigerator, as wall décor, and on towels.
I pass the kitchen into the living room with green shag carpet and see my grandpa sitting in his wooden framed chair—a blue trucker hat with the writing AAMCO Transmission hides his dark wavy hair, and a toothpick pokes out of the corner of his mouth. He stands up and gives a handshake that turns into a hug with a “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Grandpa!”
“Now do you remember what I got when I was little?”
“Yes, Grandpa,” we say chuckling.
“A popcorn ball and a toy truck,” we all say together.
“And by the end of the day, my popcorn ball would be eaten, and my toy truck was broken.” He sits back down in his recliner.
“The basement is ready; I turned the heater on, so it should be warm,” he says, and we rush down to the basement.
I can feel the cold cement rush through my white socks, but my cheeks are warm from the heat that dances in the air. As soon as our feet touch the cement floor of my grandpa’s workshop, we call dibs on the 1960s exercise bike, and my cousin turns on the small boxed TV with the click of the dial. Since I didn’t call dibs first, I sit on the army green rug that blankets the cold cement floor. As we watch television and take turns pedaling on the stationary bike, I look around at all the tools that my grandpa has labeled, most I have no clue what they were called, but he did. Each tool assigned a coffee can, a bucket, or a spot hanging on the wall—label included with masking tape and black permanent marker penmanship.
My grandpa’s workshop is a magical haven for us kids, a place the adults dare not enter. Unless they are summoning us for dinner or after dinner ice cream and pie. There is an invisible magical Do Not Enter sign placed on the white wooden door, and the only sign of adult life is the faint echo of voices that float down the stairs from the kitchen.
In the far corner of the room is a small closet. It’s heavy wooden door with metal hinges creak when we open it. It smells like moth balls and spider webs, and we are surrounded by wooden shelves lined with boxes of knick-knacks—picture frames, spools of yarn, plastic jars. The closet is small but just big enough for us to fit.
There are wooden slats on the floor; I look down and slowly place my trinkets safely in my jeans pocket—I imagine the spiders and magical Borrowers who live in the shadows beneath the wooden slats of the floor. We pretend we are hiding in the basement of a pirate ship. I can feel the waves taking us back and forth as I stare out the small window; a weeping willow stares back at me. But in the land of pirates, it is a giant ocean that roars back with waves that toss the boat to and fro.
After dinner, my grandpa arrives back at the kitchen table from the laundry room with a large brown cardboard box with permanent marker penmanship. He gently places it on the table, and we all sit and listen to him as he tells us stories from the war (WWII) and his childhood. He pulls out a yellow manila envelope that is filled with pictures, newspaper clippings, and trinkets from places that he once visited. With each object, he tells a story.
“We had no radio, no telephone, no nothing, all you had is your family, so someone could come there and start telling you stories, that was really entertaining, and they would tell you some of the spookiest stories you ever have heard. In them days they would keep you up at night, because you had nothing else, so you believe them.”
Later that evening, after a cardboard box full of stories, we dance around the kitchen table, the lights dim, and my grandma claps to the beat. The silver harmonica that my grandpa holds in his weathered hands glimmers as it hums, and my grandpa inhales and then exhales the melodies.
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray . . .”
Once the melodies stop, and my grandma turns on the light, my grandpa leaves but then quickly returns with three cigar boxes—each cover reading King Edward Invincible Deluxe—with a harmonica in each. He sits down and taps the harmonica firmly on his leg.
“Now with this mouth organ all you gotta do is tap it real firm.” We sit down and echo his movements. He picks up his harmonica and starts playing a familiar song that I remember him humming from time to time.
“I woke up one morning
I looked up on the wall
The Cooties and the Bedbugs
Were having a game of ball.
The score was six to nothing.
The Cooties were ahead,
I got so darned excited that I fell right out of bed.
I went down stairs to breakfast
The coffee was so stale
It tasted like tobacco juice right out of the county jail.”
This song made me afraid of bedbugs and wonder if cooties were real. But I’d rather not find out.
I curl up under my Muppet Babies comforter and stare up at my bedroom ceiling. Bright glow-in-the-dark stars shine back at me. I close my eyes, and stories and melodies fill my dreams as I drift off to sleep.
Crystal Lynn Writing 