My memories are many and vivid.
There were the sweets, sugared mulberries and raspberries on top of vanilla ice cream, butterscotch candies, the nectar from honey suckle blossoms, boxes of oranges and grapefruits at Christmas and thin ribbon candy.
There were the hours at Grandpa’s house, sitting in the branches of the willow tree, watching him work on engines and scouring the gravel driveway for the lead weights from tires (an early form of sidewalk chalk).
Inside the house the adventures were endless. There were the steep, winding stairs to the attic. And Grandma’s huge salt and pepper shaker collection from years of world travel peered out from the hutch in the dining room.

I could spend hours tracing the designs on the meticulously beaded Mahogany stool from Africa or stroking the Zebra skin, and when I looked at the little statue of “monkey hear-monkey see-monkey do” on the dresser I always imagined it to be a portrait of JoJo the monkey from Grandpa’s Africa stories.
Then there was the printing press and darkroom in the basement. Grandpa’s drafting tables, light tables, timers, stacks of paper blended with a mixture of metal, red light, dust, ink and chemicals, smells that to this day spin me back through time.
He never shooed me away or lost patience with me.
I can still hear him singing goofy commercials, like “the corniest flakes that anybody makes is Kellogg’s,” crooning at the end, “don’t be cornfuuuuused….”
When I saw his return address on the box two weeks ago, I heard his voice calling me “Snagglepuss” and smiled.
Digging through the blue Styrofoam popcorn, my hand ran into a hard object wrapped in bubble wrap.
As the bundle emerged from the box and I saw the shadowy figure of a marbled gray and white onyx horse, in one split instant, all those memories, all those smells and tastes were there.
The birthday horse…
I can’t think of a year passing without a birthday horse of some form or fashion from Grandpa.
A bronze change dish with a foal curled around the brim, a little black iron horse with a western saddle on a small marble base, a bronze statue of a trotting horse. The trip to the national horse show, walking through the stables at an Army base to look at the Calvary horses, a book about show horses or an encyclopedia of the horse.
And then there were the cards, always with a dollar tucked in, “to put toward the horse you’re going to get someday”.
Those horses have meant so much to me over the years.
The adults in our lives as we grow and mature play a huge role in who we become and they give us many gifts through their example, their love and wisdom, lectures and even discipline.
But they don’t always remember or value what is uniquely important to us.
Those birthday horses were the special little touch that let me know Gpa remembered my dreams.
In good times, the horses were a symbol of confirmation and in the rough times, they served to remind me “hey you still have a dream”.
Whether he knows it or not, he won’t let me forget.
No matter where I move, no matter how distant family or normalcy may seem, those horses serve as a thread that ties and grounds me.
And I don’t care how old I get, a birthday just wouldn’t be the same without Grandpa’s horses.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.