Reminiscing...

For the 4th of July, Ty, Trace, Tori and I ( joe had to stay home and work) spent the weekend in a small town in Nevada called Panaca. Its a funny name but if you've been to either Caliente or Pioche then you've seen Panaca. My brother and sister and I spent many summers and visits to this small town where our grandparents lived as well as our aunt and cousins. My sister and I can spend hours recounting the memories that we have of our time spent there along with our cousins. My grandfather passed away when I was only 14 (i think?) But my grandmother passed away February 2007. Over the weekend that we were there, we visited the grave site with the new headstone and a wave of emotions over came me...

My Grandma was slightly on the unorthodox side. Children were to eat last at every meal, us girl cousins were always "too fat to stay inside or in the kitchen" and she catered to the hard working men. But don't get me wrong, I loved my grandma. Maybe it's because that was all I knew, but although there wasn't physical evidence that she loved me, it was just understood.

Visiting Panaca now is 100% different than when I was growing up. Grandma's house is gone...it was a very old house that needed constant repairs and needed to be sold. So several years ago my dad bought another house for her to live in 3 blocks down the road (which my parents now use as their vacation home.) When we were up there a few weeks ago, my brother made the comment "when I think of going to Panaca, I think of grandma's old house. Not this new one." My aunt who still lives there said she does too. Every time I drive past the lot that Grandma and Grandpa's house once stood I feel an absence. My grandma started getting sick years before she died. She suffered from dementia and later Alzheimers. The grandma I have memories with growing up in the old house was not the grandma that I was around in the few years before her death. It's times like these, thinking about her or being in that small town that makes me miss her...

some of my favorite memories of Panaca (can you remember any of these, Jenna?):

• sneaking Grandma's ginger snap cookies out of that cookie jar under the counter
• "exiled" to the sun room to eat our dinner (children should neither be seen nor heard)
• 4 words: COPS IN THE BASEMENT!
• climbing court rock and it never getting old
• grandpa taking us to The Spring on the tail gate of his truck or walking there when nobody would give us a ride...
• grandma's famous cooking, i.e. her chicken soup, home made bread, "hot cakes"
• all the curse words we heard under grandma's breath and then her soft humming of some random song
• fighting over who got to sleep where
• running through sprinklers in the field
• telling jenna (and maybe even megan) that the reindeer down the street were "alive" and you believed me...i'm laughing just thinking about that!
• oh the flatulence!
• the "merc" and all the 1 cent candies we would stock up on

To Grandma, Erin, Kate, Taylor, and Jenna: Thanks for the memories!