Back in the 1950s, about every two or three years, the Olson's would travel back to Tennessee for a four or five day visit, so mother could visit with her family. We traveled first from Arizona and then later from New Mexico where my parents were missionaries to the Apache indians.

The trip would usually take the better part of two days. We would usually arrive late at night or just after midnight, and Grandma always had a place for us to sleep. Some of us would sleep in the cellar (basement) where Uncle AJ had fixed it up all cute like and had his old hand wound Victorola Phonograph, some would sleep on the floor in the living room, and the rest would sleep in one of the bedrooms on one of her feather beds. With so many kids,
we were sleeping everywhere.

Even though it was always summer when we went back home, because we arrived so late at night, it was always cool and you could hear the crickets and frogs off in the distance. There were always plants beside Grandma's house and beside the starway leading up to her front door. I will never forget that wonderful smell of those plants and the distant sounds of the night around Grandma's house. I still have dreams of going home to Millersville, Tennessee.

Each time we returned to Grandma's, all of the cousins were a little bit bigger and the aunts and uncles were a little bit older. As the children got older, Mom and Dad would sometimes make the trip without us. At the time I didn't understand why we couldn't go but now as an old man I can sure understand. A twelve hundred mile trip with five teenage boys, that would be fun. I get a headache just trying to think what that would be like.

The last time I ever made the trip with dad and mom, was about 1957 and dad and mom were going on to Springfield, Illinois for a church convention so I was left in Millersville to stay with Grandma Brent. I don't care how beautiful it was late at night, the next day around noon time in the middle of summer, it was HOT and it was really hot in Grandma Brent's garden that was right beside her house.

I would have been about 12 years old and I was on vacation and ready to have fun playing on Grandma's hill. Grandma had different plans that I didn't know about, or I would have gone on to Springfield with dad and mom, and even stayed in in the car if I had to. But I didn't know what evil Grandma had planned for me so I agreed to stay with her.

It was about twelve noon and it was about 223 degrees hot in her garden. Grandma said, "Come with me young man" and she led me out to her garden. She removed a greenbean from one of her plants, snapped the end off, and pulled down the string and tossed the bean into a little pucket. She pointed to the rows of bean plants and said "you are going to pick these beans, snap the ends off, remove the strings and toss the beans into the bucket." I said "but Grandma, I am on vacation" and she said "you are not on vacation while you are staying with me, now quit your whining and get busy" I had not been around Grandma enough over the last thirteen or so years to even know her.

By now I knew that I had the meanest grandma in the world. Aunt Evelyn was with her at the time so I pleaded with Aunt Evelyn that I was on vacation, and asked her to explain to that mean old woman that when you are on vacation, you don't have to work. Aunt Evelyn said that while I was at Grandma's house, I would do as Grandma said. Boy she was no help, and I think now that if only they had cell phones back then I could have called my loving dad and mom and said "HELP, my mean ol Grandma is trying to kill me in her garden" but no cell phones so I headed back out to the garden. Well, I didn't exactly head back out to the garden on my own, Grandma came and got me.

I had been working in the hot garden picking those stupid beans for about twenty or thirty minutes, and by now I was hating this mean and hateful ol woman that I knew was really the old witch from Hansel and Gretel. Then Grandma Brent came walking out to the garden holding up her apron because there was something in it. She sat down beside me and folded out her apron. In her apron were some little bright red tomatoes from her garden and two of those little Morton minature salt shakers. She handed me one and she took the other. Then we sat in her garden and ate those fresh tomatoes with salt from those little Morton salt shakers. Then Grandma said, " I could have let you run around the hills and play instead of making you work in my garden, but you would never have known or remembered your old grandma."

It was at that moment I realized that I had a wonderful Grandmother and I wanted to learn more about her. She was right, I would never have really met Grandma Brent if it had not been for those few minutes in her garden. Grandma passed away just a few years later. And she was also right that the experience would make me remember her. Not just remembering the work in the garden, but learning that my Grandma Brent was really a wonderful women.

I never knew my Grandpa Brent because he, as a Sheriff, was killed in the line of duty when he was only thirty six years old and my mother was only eight years old. Mother's youngest sister was only one year old. Grandma Brent was left to raise six beautiful daughters and three good looking sons all by herself. And she raised them well, in that big ol house that still sits beside the main road through Millersville, Tennessee.