There is one thing I miss about the house I grew up in. The house I live in now, as an adult, does not have a screened-in porch. I can remember spending lazy summer afternoons sitting in one of the two rocking chairs, and my grandmother, who lived with us, in the other. From that vantage point, it was possible to take careful notice of the bees as they went from flower to flower, what a sudden downpour sounded like on the leaves, and the rushing of it through the gutters and eaves-troughs. You could almost hear the thirsty ground as it seemed to drink up every last drop. It was also the best way to observe the squirrels and birds without scaring them away.
I remember the sunsets and seeing the subtle change of colour and shadow as twilight descended. The porch was the gathering place for the family after dinner, where each of us would catch up on the other’s day. Some of the best talks we had were right there in that outdoor room. Problems were addressed, plans were made, stories were told about long summers, spent on a porch just like that one.
You might remember a few lines from the Victoria book called The Romantic Heart, that I featured in past programs. It was by Terry Tempest Williams, writing in Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place, who said, “My grandfather and grandmother fell in love on moonlit nights at salt-air.
“‘I remember the way her chiffon dress/ Would blow in the breeze as/ We stood on the boardwalk looking/ Over the lake. And I remember a/ Kiss or two before we went back/ Inside…’He said.”
Through our grandparents’ memories, we can visit an age before we were born, and see the world the way it was during a gentler, simpler time. Some of us have patterned our lives and relationships around the old-fashioned values they tried to instill on us. Their uncomplicated stories of modest beginnings have continued to inspire us throughout our lives.
My grandmother had an ancient clock that became a fixture in the household a long time before I was born. After my mother and father were married, they moved into his mother’s home and remained there for all their married life. It was a house that was built in the 1800’s that originally served as a farmhouse, since my grandparents owned the parcels of land that surrounded it. They later sold off sections for other homesteaders. The house stood for many years, but the area around it grew over the past hundred years into a town, and finally a city. What was once a dirt track for horses and buggies in front of this ancient home, is now a busy thoroughfare for cars and trucks. The house has been razed and in its place, a large chain supermarket. I’ve been in that market and while wandering the aisles, I could swear I’ve heard echoes of another place in time, ..and the ticking of a clock.
As a child, I can remember sometimes lying awake at night and hearing the deep tones of the chime as the clock ran out the hour and the half-hour. Just as the poem, by Henry Clay Work, alluded to, it stopped working, not at the precise moment of her death, but a short time afterwords.
I have many fond memories of that house and my grandmother. My grandfather died many years before I was born. But I felt I knew him, too, from the stories of the life they shared that she recounted to me, and through brittle family photographs.
It’s these kinds of memories that keep us connected to our shared history, a past that has shaped who we are today. Is it and wonder, then, that some people choose to delve deep into researching their family tree, tracing the branches back to the roots? Trying to find something about grandparents and great grandparents, and those who came before us generations ago, that helps to define what we have become. It is that need to know that alerted me to the fact that one of my ancestors on my grandmother’s side of the family was one of the Deutsch who were involved in the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Native Americans for $24 dollars. But that’s a whole other story, and another program. But it’s that kind of discovery that gets passed from generation to generation, that keeps the connection going.
Eventually, though, the clock runs down, as it does in the second hour of my radio program tonight…
“My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,/ So it stood ninety years on the floor;/ It was taller by half than the old man himself,/ Though it weighed not a pennyweight more./ It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born/ And was always his treasure and pride,/ But it stopped short–never to go again-/ When the old man died.
“Ninety years without slumbering-/ Tick, tick, tick, tick./ His life seconds numbering-/ Tick, tick, tick, tick./ It stopped short–never to go again-/ When the old man died.
“In watching its pendulum swing to and fro/ Many hours had he spent while a boy;/ And in childhood and manhood the clock seemed to know/ And to share both his grief and his joy,/ For it struck twenty-four when he entered the door/ With a blooming and beautiful bride,/ But it stopped short-never to go again-/ When the old man died.
“My grandfather said one of those he could not hire,/ Not a servant so faithful he found,/ For it wasted no time and had but one desire-/ At the close of each week to be wound./ And it kept in its place–not a frown upon its face,/ And its hands never hung by its side;/ But it stopped short-never to go again-/ When the old man died.
“It rang an alarm in the dead of night-/ An alarm that for years had been dumb./ And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight,/ That his hour for departure had come./ Still the clock kept time with a soft and muffled chime/ As we silently stood by his side;/ But it stopped short-never to go again-/ When the old man died.”
Grandfather’s Clock by Henry Clay Work, and was published in the compilation, Best Loved Poems of The American People, by Doubleday.
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Don Jackson
I’ve been listening to this show off and on since the early 90’s. On this night my wife, children and I were driving home from a terrifc day at Canada’s wonderland. The first time there for my son - 4. Your stories relating to “memories”, and Ray Bradbury’s tales of a grandmother in her death bed, brought my wife and I to tears as we appreciated our day. This was a day that just six months ago we expected our future would not hold for us. Your insight into the romantic and mortal aspects of our humanity and relationships continues to nurture our individuality and perspective/respect on the health of our relationship. Your show has brought a wealth of appreciation previously unrealized to our relationship. All the best!
- Steve McEachern