Stepping Back in Time

I've written before about my grandparents store, Cuzzins, and how influential it is in my childhood memories. Everything I remember about the place is comforting, so special and so meaningful to me. We had a chance to go back this past weekend because my uncle was having his 50th birthday party there. It's been at least 7 years since I set foot inside the store. Nothing is the way it was... but strangely, the feeling I have there is. There is one Coke cooler still sitting in the back corner. My brother and I kept it stocked with small and large glass bottle cokes, and other drinks too, but the cokes were all that mattered really. My grandpa drank small cokes all the time and ate Reese's peanut butter cups daily, maybe multiple times, which would be why he had no teeth! Not much that was original to the way my grandparents had the store furnished is still there. The wood stove remains of course and the thing was pumping out the heat Saturday night. It was always so warm standing in front of it. And we would stand as long as we could handle it and Grandpa would pull the front of our pants close to our legs on the back and make us jump from the heat! We'd also try to run past him when he sat in his recliner and try to not get swatted by his fly swatter, it was all fun and games. I walked around and went in the back where my grandparents lived. I stood in the kitchen and breathed in that musty old smell but only the best memories came flooding back.  Running out to play in the back yard while Grandma cooked, Grandpa riding us on the four wheeler through the woods, running down the dark hallway between Grandma and Grandpa's rooms, it was always so scary and seemed like it was so long. In reality, it's about 10 feet. Grandpa had a tradition of having bluegrass music on Saturday nights. Players would come from all around and pick, people would sit and listen, talk to each other and just have fun. In the winter when it was too cold to play outside by the gas pumps, the jam session would come inside to the "picking" room. The back door is signed by all the musicians who have come and gone through all the years of this tradition. During the party this weekend, there were three separate groups of musicians playing, two inside and one outside, and I stood there listening and caught myself looking around as if I could find Grandpa in one of those circles picking his banjo and leading the song. Or maybe I could see Grandma in her rocking chair by the heater. And as I type this post today, I have tears streaming down my face, because I could see them...in my memory, as vibrantly as if it were real life. I thank God for memories, for the time I got to spend with my grandparents, for this store, for the people who came in it and who left with a sweet memory just like mine.
I didn't take any pictures while I was there, and I did so on purpose. I want to remember the store the way it was, perfect, unaffected by time and circumstance, so whenever I want I can step back in time.

~Tara