Grandma & Grandpa

I hope to be able to tell more stories about Grandma and Grandpa's (my mom's parents) childhoods and lives as time goes on, but as an introduction to them and a partial introduction to my life, let me begin by sharing a few memories from my childhood and from when my grandparents lived on Lovin Road out towards Barnardsville.


It is beautiful, isn't it? Rolling hills, pastures - I have so many memories at this house. It is so sad that they don't live there anymore.  My grandparents lived in this house until maybe 8 years ago. I'm not sure about the year they moved, but my aunt decided that it was her turn to take care of them so they moved to Kentucky. After that I've only gotten to see them a handful of times, when they've been healthy enough to travel down here for a few weeks or when we've been able to make it up there for a family reunion.




This is my Grandpa - Bob Boll. He is 83 now...and if you can't tell from his ever-present overalls and trucker hat, he's a lifelong farmer. When my mom was growing up, they had a mink farm in Iowa, then later a dairy farm. Eventually they lost the farm and moved to the mountains of North Carolina. This was when my mom was about 12 years old. Grandpa is a World War II vet - he served on a clean-up crew in the Philippines.





 My Grandpa has had his long beard as long as I've known him - I wouldn't recognize him if he shaved it! He usually plays "Santa" around Christmastime, dressing up and everything. I must mention here that Grandpa prides himself on giving the new babies in the family (including me and mine) their first taste of his favorite food - vanilla ice cream!


(Pictured above: family friend, Rachel, Grandpa & me)

My Grandma, Betty, just turned 80. She raised her 7 children and has spent her lifetime caring for my Grandpa. I'll always remember spending the night at their house and waking up to breakfast - there was always a full breakfast with eggs, fried potatoes, and sausage, served on pastel pink and blue melamine plates.

After they came to North Carolina, they ended up eventually in the house I am mentioning here in this post. Most of my aunts lived near us when I was younger, so we spent so much time as cousins playing in the yard - climbing the trees (our favorite being the dark tree shown here - what I think might be a Crimson King Maple, but I could be entirely wrong about that...it is my favorite kind of tree), running around in the fields (shown in the picture at the top of this post), and playing in the creek (seen below).




The creek has grown over a lot. I remember one time we were catching little snails that lived in the creek, and I stood up into that bridge - and got tar in my hair! I have no idea how they ended up getting it out.

Then, there was the front yard.

That hill was certainly the BEST hill to roll down, something we all did repeatedly.

And the front porch was one of the best hiding locations for Kick the Can, a game which most everyone considered me and I'm sure a few others too young to play. We used an old Clabber Girl baking powder can filled with rocks.


While taking the trip out down Barnardsville Highway to go visit the old home, I noticed the fence all the way up the road leading to it. What used to be a beautiful white fence is now worn and dilapidated. I suppose it is a testimony to how old my memories are. Obviously, I miss the times when Grandma and Grandpa were only minutes away.