Apropos Of Nothing

Written for an informal essay/literature contest:

In the days of my disdain for Lima beans, pumpkin pie, and tuna salad, recently relocated from the relative wilds of the Big Sky, the one constant in my short life was the family's biannual migrations to Fromberg, MT. Summer and Christmas, roughly coincident with the solstices, we would pile in the Beetle and pilgramate to the hometown of my parents. After two days on Interstate 90 (the overnight in Missoula) we'd unfold from the small car and stagger into Grandma's house. The realities of a working farm necessitated the mud room at the front door, where filthy boots and clothing were shed to hang on hooks by a chalkboard. A faint but honest grit floated in the air, shaming me for not being in the field, or the huge garden, but I lingered at the chalkboard, practicing my letters. I'd hear my name from the kitchen and drop the chalk, running in for a hug and a kiss. She seemed so big, in her apron, so old, but she was younger than I am now, and a foot shorter. In the heat of July, bright vegetables, maybe tomatoes, peas, or cucumbers, waited, stacked on the counter next to the sink, for assembly at supper. If snow draped the yard, jars of peaches, beans or tomato sauce might stand at the ready, dusty from the cellar's shelves. A bowl of my Grandpa's honey sat in the center of the table every meal, where, four times a day during planting and harvest, the family and hired men would bow in prayer and stoke their collective fire. Despite being the carpeted hub of culinary industry, (and despite the tuna sandwich vomiting incident - not my fault, by the way), the floor was always clean, the sweeper hanging in the corner, ever ready. My dad's family didn't believe in watching television, and the kitchen perpetually reeked of the nightly family entertainment: popcorn. When the sun was down and the day's work finished, other relatives would arrive in Buicks and pickups, flop on the couch or lounge at the kitchen table, catching up with mom and dad. My cousins and I would sneak in and grab a handful from the bowl.

On the rare occasion that dirt and grease both meet my nose, I am transported forty years back, I salivate, and I remember to call my Grandma.