Granny's Kitchen

I have a crystal clear image of my Granny's kitchen.  She always had ice cold Lemonade made in the fridge with a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch sitting on the top and a canister of Tang in the cub bard.   My cousin and I each had our very own Strawberry Shortcake glass, reserved especially for us.  She made THE BEST cheesy potatoes that never have been duplicated since.  When the family would sit together around her little farm table, the potatoes would be in a covered dish the shape of a potato and cream of corn in a dish the shape of a ear of corn.   This corn did not come from a can, but instead her garden.  The boys of the family would go pick the ears of corn, the kids would shuck the corn, and the ladies would sit under her carport and with long, sharp knifes, slice the corn.  Inside the home,  she had a little room off the side of the kitchen where she did laundry, but also, where the deep freezer was hidden.  Inside, without fail, you could find Popsicles.

After 9/11/01, I remember driving down the road and the image of her kitchen popping up in my mind. I missed my grandma so much and the stability that box of cereal brought to my life.

Sometimes I wonder if "being a picker" is a way of chasing that memory...that long ago lost feeling of comfort and stability.  Rotary phones, pastel Tupperware, cork boards with pinned up pictures and phone numbers and stamps, Wheel of Fortune, China Cabinets filled to the brim with odds and ends of different pieces of glassware, rows and rows of Daffodils....awww, all so comforting.

Fast forward to our current generation. Is it stability that they are missing?  At times when the world feels uncertain, where's your happy place?  All I have to do sometimes to make the world feel right again is look at a picture of my granny.