It’s the Nostalgia Time Again

Happens to me every single year about this time. The darkness grows, the evenings lengthen, the cold descends, and my mind (which is always rather preoccupied with memories) becomes rather than merely preoccupied, but obsessed with them. 

The vanished faces and homes: the smells of the wood fires in my grandparents’ homes... the frosty air on the back porch at Aunt Fanny’s that you needed to step out into sometimes just to catch your breath from the heat in the kitchen... the taste of country butter spread over hot cornbread baked in a wood stove, and the scrapple and sausage that Uncle Archie shared with us after butchering his hogs... the ride one glorious October Sunday afternoon with the leaves at their peak to visit cousin Rachel (my father’s cousin, who still lived on one of our family’s old home places) and her huge cat and the ducks down the road from the Richardsville store (I made my children make a similar trek one summer to visit Rachel’s loquacious daughter and I still hear about it) ... daddy stapling heavy plastic over the back porch windows at my grandma’s to keep some of the wind at bay... the year he dug the trench and laid pipe to get water up from the spring into the house so they wouldn’t have to go outside to fetch it in the snow and cold... also second hand memories from my mom’s accounts, her dad rising very early on Christmas morning to get all the chores done so that day could be spent with the children entirely or the Christmas daddy and Uncle Leon were served up some eggnog by Uncle Archie and came back to the house a tad TOO full of Christmas cheer for my teetotalling mother... 

It is absolutely odd to me that having grown up in Maryland, all of these memories center around Richardsville, Virginia where both my parents were from and our ancestors for many generations. With yesterday’s first fire of the season, I had to poke my head out the back door and drink in the smell of the smoke from the chimney and with it all the memories one more time.