Pea picking

My grandfather had one sister.  He also had two older half sisters (same father, different mother) and three younger half brothers (same mother, different father).  In addition to losing his father, he'd also lost four siblings or half-siblings to disease and accidents.  In those days life was "nasty, brutal and short" and families were often an odd patchwork.  He and his sister were very close, which is not surprising considering what they'd been through together.

Grandpa's sister was my Great-aunt Nettie.  During my childhood she was a widow who lived in Appleton, Wisconsin and once a year she came down to the farm in Illinois to stay with my grandparents for a month or so.  She was a gentle soul and I remember her sitting in a big creaky wooden swing and shucking peas in the shade.  In addition to farming my grandfather was a carpenter and he made a big wooden support for the porch swing so you could sit outside and catch the breezes in the shade of an old tree, a welcome spot in the days when no one had air-conditioning.   Aunt Nettie let me eat some of the fresh peas raw, a delicacy not be to compared with mushy cooked peas.

Odd, the snapshots from the past that come back to you.  I was out in the garden picking peas this morning and it reminded me of those days and people long ago and far away.  Raw peas still taste best to me.