Choice Morsels

Next in my series of memories about Grandma Robbins house is "Grandma's Staircase." Grandma's house in Mantorville, Minnesota was built sometime around the turn of the 20th century. It was a spacious two-story house with stairs: eighteen narrow, good quality hardwood steps that ran straight up to the second floor, with "straight" being a key word. Their upward angle was very steep, steeper then an average staircase. No carpet or covering. Just plain maple or oak wood steps worn  smooth from like 50 years of use. (It was the 60's and early 70's when we were visiting.) It wasn't like the average staircase with rails so you can see the floor below. Nope, this staircase was installed between walls. No hand-rails. I'm not even sure it was a whole 30 inches wide--maybe just 28 and the individual steps were below average width as well, so it was very easy to take them two at at time. If you needed support, you just used the wall.  N...

As kids, my sisters and I grew up in Indiana, way out in the country. Our home occupied one cleared corner of 22 acres of heavily  forested property that included a valley with a creek rocky creek at the bottom. If I recall right, the land once belong to a company who lumbered all the Black Walnut trees some time prior to our parents purchasing the land, but left behind a fabulously wide and well established trail through the woods and down the hills to the creek. That creek was our play place and if we had nothing better to do at the house, up would come a chorus of "Let's go down to the creek!" and off we'd go! It was a lovely shaded creek, surround on both sides by tall trees and full of rocks ranging from large boulders to tiny pebbles of granite, mica, quartz, limestone and more---a rock hound heaven! The rocks were pretty, too, ranging in colors: tan, brown, gray and pinkish.    The water itself was full of fascinating life: tadpoles and minnows would ...