Nanas Rock

I called my nana Grandma Layne, which my children never understood because her name was Nettie. My grandfather’s first name was Layne (His mother must have had a thing for names that began with L. His brothers were Lee, Lowell and Lawrence, but his sister’s name was Florence—go figure). I was the oldest of the grandchildren and at some point I must have decided that if my poppa was Grandpa Layne then Grandma would of course be Grandma Layne; seems logical to me.

Anyway, Grandma Layne had a rocking chair and over the course of her life time I’m guessing she logged at least one million miles in that chair. My grandparents were hard working country folk who rarely left the farm. A trip to town on Saturdays was about the extent of their travels. When I went to Grandma Layne’s little white farm house (and I did as often as I could) I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Her house was heaven. Besides, she took me places in her rocking chair.

We visited Mr. McGregor’s garden with Peter Rabbit and his siblings, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-Tail (If I were a rabbit I’d probably be a Flopsy) We traveled to Spain and saw Ferdinand the bull and learned about his penchant for sitting under trees and smelling flowers (Maybe that’s where my desire for shade trees comes from!) And we picked blueberries with Sal. Even though I’d never seen or eaten a blueberry back then, I loved the story. Anything to do with food interested me then and still does. I probably was eating biscuits and jam while Grandma read to me because that was my favorite nana-treat at her house.

Grandma was from the “we grow it ourselves, pick it ourselves, can it and keep it generation.”  She made homemade jams, jelly and preserves and I’m telling ya girlfriend, she put Smuckers to shame! There was nothing better than coming in from school and getting one of her homemade biscuits, covering it in her hand-churned butter and then spooning on blackberry jam. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Now that I’m a nana and I realize what good memories I associate with those treats I sort of kind of wish I had the time or energy to make homemade jams and preserves, but I’m from the “if you want something Nana will go to the store and buy it generation.”

I’m not the nana Grandma Layne was, or my mom for that matter, but in my own way I still rock. Tonight I’m taking the whole family (including my grandchild) to a rock concert. No, I’m not kidding. I’ll make pictures and tell ya about it tomorrow. Stay tuned.