His hat always hung near the back door. It was red and black plaid, which had a scratchy wool kind of feel to it. It was next to a sign that said something about nickels in a barrel, but I can’t even remember what now. But it had something to do with leaving five cents in the little barrel that was attached to it. That barrel slot was only big enough for one nickel, and I would occasionally put one in there to see if they ever checked to empty it. I never knew then that it was just for show. He and I had never been close. He never told me he loved me, and when we were at the mall, he always gave my cousin Ryan money and not me. He favored Ryan. Like a favorite pet or something. I understand now that it wasn’t Ryan’s fault, and it wasn’t that Grandpa didn’t like me, but I still wish he showed me he loved me like he did Ryan. Grandma and Grandpa had five children, all of which were girls. So when Ryan came along, Grandpa felt it necessary to bond with him.
That left me with Grandma. That was no problem though. She was a great woman. She gave me money at the mall. She always gave me an extra dollar more than Grandpa gave Ryan. She also had gum in her purse when the time was right. I always found the last stick of gum in the bottom of her fake black leather purse underneath everything she had in it. It was even under all her loose change. She would also have me fetch out a dollar to put in the offering. That purse sat between us in the pew during church service. I hated going to that church service. It was surely for old people. I began to realize why Ryan had asked Grandpa to come pick him up after Sunday school. Eventually I got tired of falling asleep during service on my Grandma’s lap with a half chewed piece of gum in my mouth, and hitched a ride with Ryan and Grandpa in that ugly old green van.
That van was Grandpa’s pride and joy… we used it for everything. We always used it to go on the family trips to Dorney Park usually. It had a back seat, but behind that there was a big open space with a table. That was always awkward to me, but Grandpa loved it. The only problem was the music that came from the stereo; old songs that I didn’t know, but Grandpa and Grandma would sing like birds and the occasional attempted harmonies of my mother and Aunt Tammy would sing along if it were from their time.
I loved going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Maybe it was because Grandma would make me as much cinnamon sugar toast as I wanted. I think that is all I ever ate at their house. No, that can’t be true. Because I remember eating leaks that were freshly picked from who knows where shoved in a jar and stashed in the refrigerator, chives that were growing out front in Grandma’s flower bed, and grandma made the best Ramen noodles I ever had. When Ryan was around she had to make it two ways. She knew who liked it which way. Ryan ate it with the broth in it. I hated it that way when I was little. So she drained mine usually into Ryan’s dish. She would smother mine in butter to make it creamy, and then she would always hide an ice cube in the middle of my noodles. But somehow, that ice cube would melt in the two steps from the freezer to the table, and she would have to get me another one.
If it were dinner time, with Ryan over, we always ate spaghetti with a glass of milk. Ryan would think he was the best cook ever and start to add things to the sauce. I thought he knew what he was doing, and started to do it too. I never knew what the sauce tasted like just from the jar until I had it with my mom. Ryan would add a little salt, a little oregano, and who knows what else. He loved milk back then. I don’t remember him drinking anything else. I think that if you had asked Grandma what she always needed on hand back then she would have said, “Milk and cinnamon sugar.” She made her own cinnamon sugar, and it tasted great. That’s another thing; I never knew you could buy cinnamon sugar already mixed right in the store. I never knew you could buy chopped nuts right in the store as well. Grandma had an old green chopper in her cupboard with nuts in it all the time. Whenever I was in the vicinity of the door it was behind, I always had a tendency to chop those nuts. It was automatic for me and by the time I was done, they were nothing but dust. I guess it was a disappointment when I found already chopped nuts in the Giant.
81 acres. That meant nothing to me when I was younger. All I knew was there were fields everywhere, and a whole bunch of forest area. Grandma and Grandpa had a camp-site way up out back. It literally was a home-away-from-home. We were up there so much that Grandma made a sign for the back screen door that said:
“Up to camp. Come on up!”
Grandpa would throw parties up there for everything. Most of the time it was a reunion party, but I am sure a lot of the time it was a “just because” party. Grandpa had a generator for when the night fell, because when you are with the Snedeker’s, the party doesn’t end until people leave and the beer is gone. And it took a long time for the beer to get emptied; that was probably because there was so much of it. It didn’t matter what the weather was either. Grandpa had an old bus that had a woodstove in it, and attached to that he built a pavilion which had picnic tables, cabinets, and a stove. I remember I would always dodge people who wanted me to get them something out of the cabinets, one time I got them what they needed, and there was a mouse in there, THAT WAS THE LAST TIME I WOULD EVER OPEN THE DOOR TO THE CABINETS. Outside, he had a big homemade cooking grill that was made out of a metal barrel that made everything we ate, there was a fire pit that we could grill on and have toasted marshmallows or whatever.
Down yonder there was a pond. People would go swimming in it here and there, but eventually I didn’t like that doing that since the fish bit at my toes. I was more interested in catching the frog that lived along the shore and edges of the pond. Ryan could be found fishing of the dock in the back of the pond, and eventually I followed him and fished as well. Grandpa always would say, “Is that a sunny? Throw it away if it is, we got too many of them in there.” I bet we walked into the field not even a foot, there would many fish bones from where all the sunny’s baked in the sun and died.
Usually, people would get tired of the partying (I know I did a lot) and we would end up sleeping in a tiny camper that Grandma and Grandpa had up near the pavilion. After a while though, I got sick of going in there because it was infested with wasps.
Grandpa made sure there were many things to do up at the camp-site. He had a horse-shoe court, volleyball court, swings, fishing, swimming with a diving board, cards were usually being played in the pavilion, and there was always the option of karaoke in the pavilion as well. Grandpa showed off his vocals, singing old songs like “There’s a Tear in My Beer.” I can still hear his ragged voice singing:
“There’s a tear in my beer
cause I’m cryin for you,
Dear you are on my lonely mind.
Into these last nine beers
I have shed a million tears.
You are on my lonely mind
I’m gonna keep on sittin here
Until I’m petrified.
And then maybe these tears
Will leave my eyes.
There’s a tear in my beer
cause I’m crying for you, dear
You are on my lonely mind.”
Most of the time, Ryan and I were the servers of the beer. We were of course underage, but that is beside the point. The beer drinkers were always stationed in the same spot, on the left side of the pavilion in the shaded area, sitting in the old metal chairs with red paint peeling away from them. They were always laughing, talking and drinking really loud, and of course always too lazy to get their own refills. Then again I guess that if they tried to get up to get their refills, they might not be able to make it two feet to the keg due to unstable movements. Therefore, Ryan and I were the ones making refill runs. I remember a guy standing next to the keg telling me how to fill the cup by tipping it so that there was more beer in the plastic cup rather than foam. Ryan and I never made any money doing this, but we were at every beckoning call.
Back at the house though, when I was there during the day, I would very rarely take my nap in my Grandma’s room. This was odd, since her and I were so close. Instead, I would always find myself in my Grandpa’s room. I would lay and look at his wall for hours, before and after my nap. For some reason, (I never asked why), my Grandpa’s room had wallpaper that had fruit on it. Grapes, apples, oranges, and the more that I looked this collage of fruit; the more it looked like a rocking horse to me. Not a happy one either, it looked mean. It was amazing to me, and I don’t know why now. Maybe it is because I was at that age where I thought if I could turn something into something else with my eyes, than… I MUST BE A GENIUS! Granted, in the end, all it was was wallpapered fruit.
I would spend many days out front in the yard waving down cars trying to make them honk their horns at me. I’d prance around the yard singing and dancing to my own voice. I would go smell flowers in my grandma’s garden that only consisted of pansies and chives. After I found that chives were actually food, I would pick one everyday and chew on it.
At night, when I stayed overnight, I always would look at a frame my Grandma had hanging by her bed that read: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)” And every night before I went to bed, Grandma would have me say the Lord’s Prayer. I always say it wrong when I was seven. I would consider this the first line: “Our Father, who does art in Heaven, hollow it, be His name.” After that line, Grandma could never finish, because she couldn’t stop laughing.
Grandma and Grandpa Snedeker had funny personalities. Grandma was one of a kind. She was a Christian woman who read her devotions daily, and if she was reading the Bible or devotions, she was caught doing crossword puzzles while slumped over in her chair. She loved the “Price is Right.” If you were over to her house, you could bet at 11am she would have channel 12 tuned into that. Every once in a while in my rebellious years, I would make Grandma sit through an episode of Jerry Springer, while I lay sprawled out on the living room floor holding my head up with the palms of my hands. Grandma would sit and laugh while some woman took of her shoe to throw at her husband’s lover.
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I never really thought about the day that my Grandma and Grandpa would die; never wondered what it would be like when they weren’t around. I never imagined them dying. I didn’t think they would live forever, but I didn’t think they would die either. Although with each passing year and each revolving birthday, they gained more wrinkles and more aches and pains and trips to the doctor or hospital.
I can’t really recall the day my Grandpa died; except it was January 31, 2001. It was a Wednesday, the one after the Super Bowl. It was the Baltimore Ravens vs. the New York Giants. No one in my family is really a football fan, but the Super Bowl gave us a reason to have a party with special food and drinks. Everyone was really only watching the game for two things: commercials and halftime. In 2001, I was 16 and in love with the pop music. When Aerosmith began to play “Jaded,” I sang along, belting each word and note to my heart’s content. My Grandpa leaned forward in his old red recliner, pointed at the TV and said, “What the hell is this racket? Can’t even understand the damn words.” I just looked at him and said, “Its Aerosmith Grandpa.”
I don’t remember the day I found out Grandpa died. All I know is that Grandpa was having trouble with his kidneys and was on dialysis for it. Mom told me she took Grandpa to the doctors in the morning, they brought him home for breakfast, and after he was done with his eggs, he laid his head on the table, then fell out of his chair dead onto the floor. I don’t know what my reaction was when my mom told me that he died. I think I was in shock. I couldn’t help but think, the last words I said to him were, “Its Aerosmith Grandpa.” I never said I loved him. The funeral is all a blur to me now, except for my Grandma, sitting in her chair. She had been chewing her gum when she choked on it and we all gathered to her side to assist her. After getting the gum out of her mouth, we of course threw it away. When we told her what we had done with her gum, she said, “Well what did you do that for? It wasn’t the gums fault.”
I do remember kissing Grandpa’s forehead in the casket before we all left the funeral. I hated funerals and still do, and the last I wanted to do was kiss a dead person. But mom stood there saying, “This is the last time you will get a chance to.”
Grandma’s death was a little different. It was so unexpected compared to Grandpa’s. (Not that we expected Grandpa to die when he did, it’s just Grandpa was sick and Grandma… wasn’t.) I remember the days leading up to her death like they play out every day in my head. After Grandpa died, mom and I moved in to the old homestead to help Grandma out and give her some company. The days went by like any teenagers days do, fast and full of school work, boys and dead-end jobs that had no future. It was February 3, 2003 and I just started dating a boy that I had been talking to for weeks before hand. I remember my mother and I sitting at our computer doing an online quiz that evaluated your answers to ten multiple-choice questions that had to do with your birth date, whether you smoked, drank, did drugs, and whether you had health related problems or not and then told the month, day and age you would die. I honestly don’t know what we were thinking when we did it, but when we typed in my Grandma’s information, the quiz said that she would die on February 22 at age 88. My Grandma was going to be 89 years old on April 8, her next birthday in 2003. On Tuesday February 4, 2003 my boyfriend had asked if my Grandma was still alive since I had called him the night before to reveal her death quiz results. I was frightened it would be right, but deep down, I knew that was unrealistic.
Wednesdays were the nights that my best friend Stephanie would come over to go to church with us and then spend the night. And so, the next day came, Wednesday February 5. Mom made ziti and meatballs for dinner before church. Grandma had spent a great deal trying to get ready and hadn’t eaten dinner. She said she would skip the sermon to stay home and eat. As we piled in the car, we heard her, “Wait, wait, I am coming too.” She shuffled through the door and plopped into the front seat of my mom’s red Saturn. “I will eat when I get home.”
Church went well. Grandma was the praising kind and stood there worshipping with all the rest, her arms reaching towards the ceiling barely able to make it past her midsection. She hated the taste of milk and refused to drink it. Mom said that was why Grandma couldn’t lift her arms, because she didn’t get the calcium she needed and I could learn an important lesson from it. Reverend Jimmy Jack from New York City had been the guest speaker that night, and if he said anything that stuck out, it was, “We need to be on fire for God. We need to be excited we are serving him.” He repeated the words many times and my Grandma just shook her head in agreement with her Bible open and a smile on her face. We headed home, listening to Grandma exclaim, “I could listen to him all night. He is a good preacher.”
After arriving home, Stephanie and I were ushered up to bed. My throat had been making cough all night, so mom insisted that don’t kiss Grandma because she could get sick easily. I don’t know what it was; whether it was something telling me I had to kiss her, or I was just being rebellious, but I kissed her goodnight and headed up the stairs.
The next morning, (February 6, 2003) went as any other day did. Stephanie and I got up, showered and had breakfast. My mom headed to work and Grandma was getting out of bed just as we headed out the door to meet the bus at the end of the driveway. Grandma would always stand at the front door, and watch as a gathered my books and headed onto the big yellow bus. Just as the bus began to come in view up over the hill, I could hear a faint voice behind me, “Ashley, Ashley…” I turned around to see my Grandma sticking her head out the screen door, yelling my name and waving are hand at me as my black lab, Teddy, pushed between her legs to sneak a peek as well. I got on the bus, found my seat and vigorously waved to my Grandma as the bus pulled away from 1609 Colesville Road and headed up the next hill.
I didn’t think too much about leaving Grandma home alone everyday. I figured she would be okay, going about her day in her normal routine. Watching The Price is Right, chatting with her best friend Doris from down the street and most likely feeding Teddie some scraps of table food after mom and I told her not to. And of course, I too went about my day as usual with school; a little bit of English, a little bit of Spanish and a little bit of everything else.
I remember I was sitting in History class. Mr. Pritchard was substituting for Mr. Henry that day. I remember Mr. Pritchard, the one that was short and old with a comb-over hairdo that just looked ridiculous in every way. He smelled like beer all the time and with the way his words slurred, I am sure he came to class drunk. He would sit there, pretending to know what he was talking about, holding his index cards with the information them, and throwing them on the floor one by one as he read them. We were taking a test and the phone rang. He walked over to it, and after a slight “Yes,” he hung up and said, “Ashley Vincent repot to the Principle’s office.”
The Principle’s office? Why would Mr. Hamilton want to see me? Did I do something wrong? No, that can’t be. Stephanie was always the one in trouble. Maybe they just wanted to question me about something she did. My mind was racing wondering what was going on. I remember walking down the long corridor and heading down the stairs as my head began to run through excuse after excuse as to why I shouldn’t get detention for whatever it was I was sure I didn’t do.
I walked in; my face was red with nervousness. Everyone was standing there; Mrs. VanAbs, Mrs. Quick, Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Rowe and even some students. Mrs. Rowe got off the phone and said, “Ashley, that was your mother on the phone, we lost the connection, but you can use the phone over there. You have to call her cell phone, she is one her way home.”
She didn’t have to say it, I knew something was wrong. I felt the blood in face drain to my toes and I knew I was becoming Ghostly. I dialed quickly, my hands shaking as brought the phone to my ear. “Mom?”
“There is a fire at the house Ashley. Grandma is being airlifted to Syracuse.”
I don’t know if I even heard all that. I remember throwing the phone to the floor, and screaming so loud. Mrs. Quick and Mr. Hamilton rushed over to my aid and helped stand up. One held the phone to my ear as I heard my mom calling my name. “Ashley, do you want me to come get you and take you to Syracuse with me?”
“No. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see her like that.” I was scared, and maybe I thought she would make it or maybe I knew she would die and I just wanted to remember her the way I saw her waving me from the door that morning.
Of course my mom told me I had to stay the night somewhere because the house was unlivable. I didn’t know what happened and I was sure what was going on. I just headed back up the stairs crying to my History test that still sat on my desk with just a few bubbled answers on it. My face feeling like a soaked sponge and my body unable to cooperate with my mind, I walked in and sat down. Starring at the test with tear-filled eyes, Mr. Prichard strolled over and said, “Get back to work. You have twenty minutes to finish.”
I couldn’t take it. I remember just getting up and saying no, I can’t or something like that and running out into the hall as I fell lightly onto the tiled floor sobbing with head in my hands. Stephanie laid her hands on my shoulder and asked what was wrong. But the thing was, I didn’t know what was wrong. The only thing I gained from the phone conversation was ‘fire, Syracuse and Grandma.”
I didn’t find out until 9 p.m. that night exactly what happen, and on some level I am pretty positive that none of it registered. I was in a shocked state of mind and I think even now, five years later, it is still all so unrealistic to me.
I was staying with Amanda, a girl that I remember from the BOCES bus who didn’t like me because I was too loud and happy all the time. She had been in the Main Office when I was called down and offered for me to stay with her while my house was getting fixed from the fire. I was just sitting there on the couch when the phone rang; my mom on the other end told me exactly what happened. This is when I never digested the information and later was able to let it sink in what had gone on.
She was making her morning tea on the stove. When she went to pour the hot water into her mug, she didn’t turn off the flame to the stove and caught the sleeve to her housecoat on fire. She walked over to the table, sat down and began eating. She moved her arm from the table to her waist where she then realized she was on fire on her sleeve and her waist area. At the time, my mother and I had hung a heavy blue blanket in the doorway from the living room to the kitchen to keep the cold air in the kitchen. My Grandmother had to pass by this to get the living room, and managed to do so without even singeing the fabric. At this time, her slippers were on fire and left a print in the kitchen tile. As she walked to the bathroom, parts of her housecoat were falling off and starting little fires around the house. In the living room, one of the fires burnt a hole straight through the floor to the basement. Most of the damage to the house was confined to the bathroom where my Grandma took her robe off and put it in the tub, and where she turned on the water to the sink, letting it overflow while she ran around the house putting out the little fires here and there that started.
That was the way my Grandma was; always thinking of others and putting them above her. We believe she was thinking that she needed to put out the fires so that her, my mother and I could have a place to live.
My Aunt Tammy was supposed to come up to the house to spend the day or just a portion of it with Grandma. However, my little cousin Sydney got sick and was staying home from school. Not wanting to make Grandma sick, my Aunt opted to just call and reschedule the visit.
“Mom, I wont able to come up, but we will get together sometime this week.”
In a weary voice my Grandma answered, “That’s fine.”
My Aunt had noticed the different sound in my Grandma’s voice and asked, “Are you okay ma?”
“Oh, I am fine. I am just a little burned.”
Thinking it was nothing but she burned her arm, my Aunt said she would come up and take Grandma to the hospital.
Upon arriving, she went in to find my Grandma naked and her body completely and severely burned, lying on the couch with Doris nearby. When Tammy asked if anyone called 911, all Doris said was she didn’t feel like it was her place to call because she’s not family, therefore my Aunt called 911.
When the medics arrived, they said that she was just too fragile to touch and that they would have to get her to Cole Park where the helicopter was waiting to take her to the Syracuse Burn Center. The medics said that Grandma couldn’t feel anything because she was so burnt that her nerve endings were gone. But I think that she knew she was okay because she would soon be in the presence of our Lord.
When they got to the hospital, Grandma barely was hanging on to life. Grandma’s five daughters are scattered through New York and Pennsylvania, with my Aunt Roberta being the furthest in Niagara Falls. However, Grandma hung on until each and every daughter of hers was by her bedside. After everyone was there, they told her that it was okay to let go now, and then sang her favorite song “Amazing Grace.” At 4:20 p.m. my Grandma was pronounced dead.
Until now, I just went through the motions of life; moving from Grandma and Grandpa’s homestead into an apartment with my mom, going every Memorial Day to the cemetery to visit them at the grave. And now, I am hoping to release the pain that I have had bottled up through this.
I guess I never realized all the memories I acquired, I was just going through life… oblivious to the fact that someday, my Grandma and Grandpa Snedeker would be gone, and the only thing I could hold onto are these scrapbooked memories.
4 comments:
Hey I'm a snedeker to. I wonder where your grandparents lie in the family tree :p
Really? where are you from?
The NY area :) Delaware river
https://www.poetrysms2016.tk
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