Friday, November 28, 2003 AD Water From Another Time My Grampa would have been a hundred years old today. This is the song I sang at his funeral in 1999:
New mown hay on a July morn
Grandkids running through the knee-high corn
Sunburned nose and a scabbed-up knee
From a rope on the white oak tree
Just another summer's day at Grandpa's farm
With Grandma's bucket hanging off my arm
You know, the old pump's rusty but it works fine
Primed with water from another time
CHORUS:
It don't take much, but you gotta have some
The old ways help the new ways come
Just leave a little extra for the next in line
They're gonna need a little water from another time
Tattered quilt on the goose-down bed
"Every stitch tells a story," my Grandma said
Her mama's nightgown, her grandpa's pants
And the dress she wore to her high school dance
Now wrapped at night in its patchwork scenes
I waltz with Grandma in my dreams
My arms, my heart, my life entwined
With water from another time
(Chorus)
Newborn cry in the morning air
The past and the future are wedded there
This wellspring of my sons and daughters:
The bone and blood of living waters
And though Grandpa's hands have gone to dust,
Like Grandma's pump, reduced to rust,
Their stories quench my soul and mind
Like water from another time
Though not all the details fit, the spirit of the song sure did. Grampa was a farmer, but Nana wasn't a quilter. Hay mowing is something many of us remember -- if only going along for the ride as I did -- but I don't think Grampa ever grew corn. The scabbed knee I most vividly remember was from running down the dirt road toward the creek where I wanted to sit and eat my bologna sandwich. And until the '80s when they finally got indoor plumbing, Nana and Grampa got their water from a well or a spring, rather than a pump.
Grampa had three children and 15 grandchildren. Great-grandchildren seem to be out of production for the time being (I'm the youngest grandchild and I think the only one that might still have kids), but the great-great grands are going gangbusters. I think there were about five at the time of Grampa's death. I've lost count since. Posted by Valerie (Kyriosity) at 11/28/2003 10:39:00 AM
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