So if you read that... I think someone was just effing around and putting some BS on their. As far as I know. Business is not booming and the population seems smaller to me. Haha I love this little town though. I mean after all it is where I grew up. A lot of my younger years I lived with my grandparents. Just some troubling issues back in the day with the family caused this. I didn't mind living with my grandparents one bit! I mean we did have everything we needed and always had food in our tummy's! It was also a plus that our cousins live like 10 feet away. LITERALLY! Our houses were practically side by side. In between them there was a a basket ball goal. I remember watching my cousins play "Horse" and "21" all those 90's games that you hardly see people play anymore.
I'm not saying we had the best lives growing up, but we certainly didn't have the worst. I'd say living with your grandparents can teach life lessons or at least they can themselves. My grandpa was always a generous man while I was growing up. I guess he wasn't really like that before my generation was born, but I was sure glad he was nice while I was there. I was what you would call a "Grandpas Boy".... Wherever he went, I was sure to be right behind him. I especially liked going to the store with him! Okay so I know I can't be the only one who's grandpa ALWAYS had candy stashed somewhere. Even though he already had candy I always got to pick out something at the store! Now remember this town was very small and we had like one convenience store. I remember going in sometimes and standing at the register for a good hour just because someone in my family either worked there or my grandpa knew them. But hey I can't really complain.. FREE CANDY! Haha So growing up with my grandparents also taught me a lot about generosity. My grandpa had this huge garden every summer. He planted all kinds of veggies and fruits. I used to love going out back with him and helping or at least trying too.... Every summer the garden would start out with the tilling. Which is basically what breaks the ground up for the planting. My grandpa had this old rotor-tiller he used. It was a faded red so it basically a pink color. He used to push it while it tore up the ground and I would stand in between him and the machine and act like I was pushing it. I think the cool part about the beginning of the garden is that when ever he used the tiller to brake up the ground. It would always expose the earthworms. Being kids of course we always played with them. I mean they were cool and we didn't get in trouble for getting dirty. A lot of the plant grandpa grew were already the ones that were growing in those little black plastic cup things. We only used seeds for the corn, cucumber, okra, and squash. I think the only thing that really sucked about helping maintain the garden was having to pull weeds. Especially when it was hot outside! In Oklahoma the summers can tend to be a little to hot. Picking the vegetables was the best part. I felt like my grandpas garden always did very well! He used to hand out bags of veggies to some of his friends. He never really made anyone pay for them. Sometimes he would even give some of the people who came over for a visit a bag and let them go pick them out themselves. Oh but if he ever caught someone stealing from his garden. It really ticked him off. That is definitely one thing you didn't do to my family. So watching my grandpa growing up taught me to be generous to people. I never really knew the extent of how many people were actually friends with him until his funeral. Unfortunately the 7 year old me was the one who found him when he passed away. It sucked for me because I was so young and had bad nightmares afterwards, but I would say it was very tough for my mom considering he passed on her birthday. Yeah... Losing your dad on your own birthday... I remember that day so plainly. I believe it might have been a Tuesday. We had just gotten out of school and we were getting ready for a soccer game. The whole family was around because we were all getting ready to head to the next town over. My grandpa was napping, he had just gotten out of the hospital recently due to an illness. My grandma was in the living room in here usual spot watching her soap opera and doing her crossword puzzle. Everyone was so busy getting ready for the soccer games. Mom was loading the car, Aunts and uncles getting their things together over at there house, Cousins getting game plans together because they were the coaches, and the kids putting on all of our proper clothing. I remember talking to my mom outside while she was loading the car in the driveway. I went inside and was talking to grandma. Remember it was my moms birthday. Grandma had asked me to go wake up grandpa to start getting ready. It usually didn't take long for him to get up and be ready. All he really had to do was put on his boots. So as I was walking down the hall all excited without a care in the world. Grandma and grandpas room was all the way down the hall and was one of the last rooms on the right. I opened the door and just froze. Okay so you know that feeling that you get when something bad is about to happen. Well that was exactly what happened to me when I opened that door. It was like a scene from "The Shining" where the little boy is slowly walking just looking at his surroundings. It was very very eerie... So back to my point. I opened the door and saw my grandpa. He wasn't faced toward the door. In fact he just looked like he was napping. I slowly walked in. I already had a feeling something was wrong. I walked toward his bed and I slowly put one hand on his leg... ~TO BE CONTINUED~